Overcast with temperatures near freezing. Some wind out of the north and northwest with occasional stronger gusts.
Snow stopped falling during the night, and no more accumulated today. Time will tell what happens in the coming days. The forecast is calling for snow and rain at various times.
It’s an interesting weather situation, with outflow winds coming from the north of us, but just the edge of a low pressure system reaching from the south. Apparently the warmer air from south is overrunning the colder outflow air, and hence the snow. It can easily shift to rain if the warm air erodes enough of the cold air mass, however.
I got a text about a Brambling at Victoria’s feeder this morning. I suspect it’s the same one that had been at Oceanside in December. I thought it might hang around in the area and adopt a different feeding set up (or two), but I hadn’t spent too much time looking for it.
I decided it would be just as fast to bike over as get my driveway shoveled, plus I needed the exercise.
I first watched for a couple minutes from outside. I saw plenty of birds, but not the Brambling.
By the time I got inside it had come back again, so I didn’t have to wait for it.
After watching and visiting for a few minutes, I headed out again.
I decided to go up to the Verstovia Street neighborhoods in hopes of finding a Bohemian Waxwing. I stopped at KJ’s feeders to watch for the red Fox Sparrow. there were lots of birds, including at least four Fox Sparrows, but I didn’t spot the red one while I was there.
The snow was sufficient to cover most (all?) the lake. I’m not sure how solid it was, but apparently enough that birds weren’t pushing through it. I kept moving.
I saw birds in the street on DeGroff and was surprised when they didn’t fly up as I approached. They were White-winged Crossbills going after spruce cones that had been uncovered by the snow plow. They were not at all wary. I stopped to take a few pictures.
I was mostly focused on the crossbills, but calls coming from nearby were tugging at my attention. I wasn’t sure what I was hearing at first, and wondered if it might be a starling. Some of the notes sound more like a blackbird, and I finally spotted the Red-winged Blackbird in one of the trees. I later noted a second one. I assume they’re the same two I saw at Swan Lake last November/December.
Just as I was leaving I noticed a Sharp-shinned Hawk circling upwards overhead. I didn’t notice any alarm about it, but maybe hadn’t been fully attentive.
My next stop was home. I thought I might shovel the driveway and maybe get some lunch. However, I saw a message about White-winged Crossbills on the ground at SJ by the flume.
I pulled my bike back out and headed that way.
There was a flock of 20 or so White-winged Crossbills foraging on the ground. Presumably many of those cones had fallen during last Monday’s wind. There seemed to be plenty of cones left on the trees, but perhaps due to the snow, numbers of White-winged Crossbills were way up, and many of them were getting food from the ground. (This wasn’t the only ones I saw feeding on the ground today, and others reported similar in other parts of town.)
A couple of times I had to step back from the trees, as wind gusts knocked a bunch of snow off. The miniature blizzards did not last long, and the wind was very intermittent.
I would have spent even longer with this flock, but I got a message that a Eurasian Wigeon and a Killdeer had been down at the park an hour earlier.
On my walk around the park, I found neither the wigeon nor the Killdeer, but maybe they’ll show up again in the coming days (hopefully into next week, since I’ll be out of town through Monday).
I did see Common Redpolls, juncos, and an occasional Pine Siskin foraging on the beach where last night’s high tide had cleared the snow.
My camera battery was running low, and I was getting hungry, so I started home.
White-winged Crossbills foraging on hemlock cones at eye level along the seawalk caused me to stop once more. They were mostly feeding higher up, or down on the ground in the bushes. However, they came down near eye often enough to keep me around trying for more/better photos. I was having a little trouble due to the branches moving in the wind, and being quite close.
After lunch, I went to the Backdoor to take down my photos.
That didn’t take too long, and I had enough light for one more walk around the park.
The tide was higher, but still no Eurasian Wigeon or Killdeer. I did see two Hooded Mergansers, presumably the same two I’ve seen at Swan Lake several times over the past month or so.
I ended up with over 900 photos taken today. Most of them were easy deletes, and after my first (very rough) pass, I was down to about 200. I’ll cut that back much more in another pass or two. Time will tell, but I suspect I’ll only end up publishing 15-20 with this photojournal entry. That’s a lower keep rate than I often have. Today’s dim light and the constantly moving birds were both big contributors to that. It’s a little easier with mosses, lichens, and liverworts.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
