On a Lifelong Journey to Learn my Place
For our outing today, we went around Mosquito Cove Trail (counter clockwise direction) and then did the Estuary Life Trail loop. On the way back into town, Rowan pointed out an interesting looking cloud formation and while stopped at SeaMart parking lot to look at those, we were able to observe a Horned Grebe closer … Read more
Connor and Rowan each captured some video of the other with Pine Siskins. I spliced together the clips with minimal editing above.
Connor has set up some bird feeders in the yard, and with recent snows they have been popular with the juncos and Pine Siskins. Pine Siskins are fairly aggressive with each other, and bold with humans. Both the kids were able to have one feeding out of their hand. I only got pictures of Rowan with one, but they got video of each other which I will try to post at some point.
The clouds broke up over town this morning after snow overnight. By around noon, it was again completely overcast and the snow started shortly thereafter. Coincidentally, the kids and I headed over to SJ since someone had suggested frisbee for those college students back in town for the holiday. A couple of other people showed up, and Connor and I played catch with them for a while (Rowan joined at the end, but spent most of the time helping other kids with a snowman and doing a little sledding). I was impressed that Connor was able to keep his hands warm without gloves on – he told me they only got cold when he took a tumble as we were walking back toward home, and I had given him a long throw to chase after. It snowed pretty hard the whole time we were there, with a decent breeze blowing in from the west or northwest (it was a little hard to tell, as it didn’t seem very steady).
Around 2pm or a little after, the clouds started to break up again, and we were treated to some nice light as the sun was going down.
There was a chance that frisbee might be played this morning at Moller Park, so the kids and I walked up the west side of Swan Lake to check it out. I figured in the likely scenario that frisbee was not happening, we could at least get some birding in – see if there was anything of particular interest as we head in to count week for the Christmas Bird Count this Sunday. As it turned out, there were a couple people playing catch, so we joined them for a bit, before continuing on.
Rowan was surprisingly interested in birding today, while Connor was much less so. Usually it’s the other way around. Rowan had played on the playground for part of the time Connor and I were playing catch and she opted to go with me along the Path of Hope while Connor decided to play on the playground for a while. I sent her off into the lower brushy area to see if there were any sparrows or thrushes lurking about. She ended up coming up through a (very) minor unofficial trail to try and sneak up on me while I was at the overlook checking out what was on Swan Lake (and there wasn’t much I could see). She wanted to return the way she came, so I went over to the parking for the path of hope – noticing mostly juncos and a few Pine Siskins in the parking lot and at the feeder across the street (earlier Rowan heard then we saw a couple of small flocks flying over – perhaps 30+ birds in all).
Walking down the road, Connor came out to meet me, but Rowan still hadn’t found her way out of the forested area. While waiting for her, Connor and I spotted a Downy Woodpecker – a bird I’ve only seen a handful of times around here over the years. I sent Connor to find Rowan so she could see it also, while I tried to take some pictures. The photos didn’t turn out that great, but fortunately it stuck around long enough for Rowan to get a look at it.
Rowan had found a bird skeleton in the bushes along the ‘trail’ she had been on. She picked up the skull and wanted to pick up some of the other bones, but it sounded like after looking away to get a stick to use, she couldn’t find where the remainder of the skeleton was. She thought the skull might be a sparrow, but I suggested a warbler was more likely, since there were still yellow feathers associated with it. Also, the bill looked better for a warbler, though she and I didn’t talk about that at the time. She carried the skull all the way home so we could keep it. At the time she was talking about trying to figure out what it was by looking in the bird book, but by the time we got home, I think she just wanted to eat lunch, and then forgot about that project.
Rather than retrace our steps, we continued around on Cascade Street, then down Lake Street. Connor decided to head on home to start lunch warming up, while Rowan and I stopped to check out the birds on Swan Lake. I was able to count 15+ Ring-necked Ducks, as well as some scaups and mallards near the radio station. At the peninsula there was the lone Trumpeter Swan, many more Mallards and a few gulls, including the first year Glaucous Gull.
Rowan noticed all the tracks in the snow at the peninsula and said she thought the swan had been walking around a bunch. I’m not sure what made her think they were swan tracks instead of gulls and mallards, but she realized the difference when a couple people came and spread some corn out for the birds. The swan walked over to get some, and then Rowan was able to check out the tracks where she had seen the swan walking. We were both impressed with the size.
Overall it was a quiet day – a bit of wind, but not too much, bird activity seemed pretty low, and there wasn’t a lot of precipitation. What did fall was kind of a heavy wet snow, but there wasn’t enough to add any depth to the thin ground covering that we got overnight.