Goodbye Winter!

OK, I'm being a little optimistic here. We still have a substantial layer of snow covering the ground (which has been the case for at least the past two months), but that snow is getting slushy, and we're starting to get the year's first well-above-freezing temperatures. The 50 and 60 degree F temperatures predicted this week seem practically impossible after months of frozen landscapes, but here we are!

Before the winter's accumulated snow melts away, and before spring really starts to peek in, I'll say goodbye to deep winter by sharing some sights from these first frozen months of 2021.

The cold weather made for some really beautiful and interesting landscapes this winter. On January 8, a layer of frost appeared only on the topmost portion of the ridge visible from our house, as if deposited by low clouds:

On February 26, some combination of melt, freeze, fresh snow, and winds produced these intricate lines across the surface of our meadow:

In our woods and meadow, winter plants have made for similarly stark and interesting views. I'm always struck by these Black Cherry trees (wrapped in Virginia Creeper vines) that grow on the edge of our woods, and on this January 22 afternoon, it seemed to me that the gray winter sky was a river between these trees' reaching branches:

These seedheads of Virgin's Bower (Clematis virginiana) are one of the few soft things in this landscape, and they were lit up by a rare bit of sunlight on January 9:

We've been happy to see our familiar animal neighbors this winter -- and some surprising visitors, too! We've kept our feeders well stocked with sunflower and niger seeds and suet, and the birds have certainly made good use of our offerings! Here's an American Goldfinch on January 9 (with blue sky!):

This handsome House Finch was checking out the snowy roof just outside one of our windows on January 22:

I love seeing Blue Jays add their fancy costumes to otherwise bare winter scenery (this picture is also from January 22):

When the snow got deeper, the Red Squirrels started making tunnels to get to the feeders. Here's one of these industrious creatures popping out of its tunnel on January 29:

This flock of Mourning Doves spent some time resting in one of our trees on February 5:

On February 22, I watched our three most common woodpeckers -- one individual of each species -- cling motionless to the branches of an apple tree near our house while a bitterly cold wind and snow blew in. The three woodpeckers were each hunkered down on the same side of their given branch, getting some protection from the wind. Here's the Downy Woodpecker (a male):

The larger Hairy Woodpecker (a female):

And the Red-bellied Woodpecker (a female):

 

This winter has brought two species of birds to our yard that have been rare visitors to our property in past years, but this year they've become regulars! Red-breasted Nuthatches are not especially uncommon in this general geographic area, but I'd only seen one of these birds in our yard once before, in April 2018.... But then this winter I've seen one or two Red-breasted Nuthatches every week since mid-November. I love these dainty little birds! They work over trees in our woods, and more recently they've been snatching sunflower seeds from our feeders. None of these birds has given me a great opportunity for a picture, so here's the best I've been able to manage (on February 19):

And then there's Common Redpolls! Again, I'd only seen one of these birds in our yard once before, in December 2018, but -- incredibly -- we've had up to three Common Redpolls at once visiting our feeders every week since early February! Here's one of these fancy northern finches on February 18:

The birds are starting to gear up for spring. Male Northern Cardinals started to sing from the tops of trees back in February, and Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, and Dark-eyed Juncos have since joined in. Here's a cardinal taking the stage to sing on March 3:

With the warm temperatures this week, it's going to be hard to keep me inside! I love each season, and I'm ready for the change -- goodbye, winter!

Assorted Winter Yard Sights

Winter is so quiet and static, compared to the riotous diversity and quick change of the other seasons. It's nice, really, to have a couple of months of white-brown-green landscapes, bare branches, and just the core wildlife regulars, so I can enjoy the silence and consistency, notice details in my environment that I've never noticed before, appreciate surprises when they show up, and celebrate even gradual change. My chart of eBird checklists on our property over the the past three months (December through February) shows only 23 species, which is fewer bird species than I might find during a single walk around our meadow and woods on any given day in May. And of those 23 species, only about 14 have appeared on our property with any regularity during that time. (If you're curious, here are the regulars: Mourning Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Blue Jay, American Crow, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Carolina Wren, House Finch, American Goldfinch, Dark-eyed Junco, Northern Cardinal.) Our regular winter non-bird creatures (the ones we've seen, anyway) are the White-tailed Deer, Eastern Cottontail rabbits, Red Squirrels, White-footed Mice (or possibly Deer Mice), and Meadow Voles. And that's it. Winter is comparatively simple, but even so, these past couple of months have brought plenty of interesting sights.

I've already posted about the flock of Evening Grosbeaks that visited our feeders in early December. Those fantastic birds stayed around for four days, and then they moved on for good. (I wonder how many years it will be before I see another Evening Grosbeak.) Just a week later, though, on December 13, we had another surprise at our feeders when a single Common Redpoll showed up:

I haven't seen a Common Redpoll since I came across a small flock of these little finches at the Connecticut shore in 2013. These birds certainly aren't common around here, and my understanding is that it's quite special to have one visit your feeder. Either way, I was delighted to meet this streaky brown-and-white creature, with its pointy yellow beak and perfect little red cap:

The redpoll seemed to thoroughly enjoy the nyjer seeds at our feeder:

While I watched the redpoll, I also had the opportunity to see one of the Meadow Voles that had taken to boldly foraging under the feeders around that time (I haven't seen these creatures outside of their burrows beneath the snow in a while, but there was a span of a couple of weeks when we saw them frequently in the open and munching on dropped seeds) -- look at this cute little rodent face:

The redpoll stayed around for a few hours and then moved on. I'm happy to host these rare northern visitors in our yard, even if only for a little while!

On the morning of January 14, a layer of ice on twigs and branches made for some amazing sights in our meadow:

By around 9:45 AM, clear sunlight (in January! amazing!) lit up the icy trees and created all sorts of interesting textures and patterns:

Perfectly ice-coated treetops made for quite a view through a telephoto lens:

Even an old spider web outside our kitchen window was beautifully highlighted by frost and sunlight:

By a couple of hours later, the sun had melted much of the ice, and this male Red-bellied Woodpecker looked very pretty in his sunlit apple tree:

The half-melted landscape was in some ways even more interesting than the fully iced version of two hours earlier:

I don't know how the sunlight melted the treetop ice on the hillside into these distinct lines, but I think the result is amazing, like wave-shaped sand on a beach:

On January 27, I wandered through our snow-covered meadow and admired the intricate patterns of dead flower stems -- many of them from seeds we planted -- against the pristine snow:

These Black-eyed Susan blooms were strangely pretty from above:

I love the graceful shape (and reddish color) of this Little Bluestem stalk:

And these Common Yarrow stalks made interesting shapes against the snow:

While walking in our woods on February 2, I came across the signs of what seemed to be a rabbit festival, with more rabbit droppings than I think I've ever seen in one area, as well as -- this is new to me -- spots of shockingly red pee:

The next day (February 3), a walk in the woods turned up a spider -- what a robust creature this must be, to be out and about in February, with snow still on the ground:

On February 17, I wandered outside under an amazingly blue sky; I love sunny February days:

This Blue Jay perfectly matched its gray-branch and blue-sky surroundings:

A Dark-eyed Junco sang quietly from within a sun-lit bush (practicing its song for breeding season?) and then emerged long enough to have its portrait taken:

An American Tree Sparrow also made an appearance:

This is such a handsome sparrow, especially against the clear blue sky:

I stopped to admire (as I do every time I pass by) the fuzz-tipped buds of this Allegheny Serviceberry tree I planted last year:

At another edge of the meadow, I was surprised to see the incredible amount of old Yellow-bellied Sapsucker holes on this very old apple tree, and just as surprised that I'd never noticed all these holes before now:

The afternoon light perfectly set off some big pine trees on the wooded ridge across the street from our house:

On February 21, a temporary thaw and bright sunlight brought out a cobweb-like tracing of snowy remnants on the hills across the valley:

As I write this on February 25, we're getting frigid winds and fresh snow, and it certainly still feels like winter. But changes are happening: the daylight is getting noticeably stronger and longer, the cardinals and chickadees have started singing in recent weeks, and I even spotted some crocus leaves emerging from the ground way back on February 10. I know that March will bring more tantalizing signs of the coming spring, and I'm excited to see what will happen during this year's more active seasons.

Redpolls! And Other Foggy Shore Sights

Today was full of surprises. First, I had planned to head out to the beach this morning, but then I woke up to find an unexpectedly thick fog outside. And I mean thick -- the weather forecast said visibility was at 0.2 miles, but I think it might have been less than that at some points. Even so, I was eager to get outside and take advantage of the brief warmth (today's high was over 50 degrees), so after some waffling, I grabbed my chance and set off into the fog. I had another off-putting surprise, however, when I reached my planned destination, Silver Sands State Park, only to find the park's gates closed. Well, OK then!

As a final attempt to get to the shore, I headed off next to Milford Point, and as it turned out, that was the perfect place to be. Even though the day started with two unfortunate surprises, it was all good surprises from then on -- walking in the quiet, enveloping fog was a great experience, and there were a ton of very active creatures around. And the best surprise came as soon as I got out of my car. What are all those little birds hopping around in the weeds on the edge of the parking lot? Oh! Redpolls!

Common Redpolls are one of those species of northern finches that venture south into our area in the winter, but only in certain years. This happens to be one of those years, but even so, redpolls are fairly uncommon in Connecticut, and this was the first time I'd ever seen them. So I was very happy to get to watch these little stripey birds as they sought out tiny seeds among dried stems:

These redpolls were incredibly bold, too -- they would startle and fly up into the trees every once in a while, but then they'd come right back down to forage within a few feet of me. The whole situation was very cool. And can I just say, I love the outfits on these birds. The males had an extra rosy pink wash down their chests (unfortunately, none of the boys wanted to sit still to have their pictures taken), but the females were gorgeous, too, with those perfect velvety caps (what a fantastic color!) and black goatees -- and is that a tiny blush of pink on this girl's cheeks?

Yes, you are a very pretty little bird. I hope you're enjoying those seeds!

What a great start to this morning's adventure! I spent quite a bit of time with the redpolls (who knows when I'm going to get to see them again), and watched several other small birds foraging in the same area. This Song Sparrow must've been picking through the mud, if that large brown glob on its beak is any indication:

Finally, though, I tore myself away from the parking lot and headed down to the beach, where the fog made much more of a presence. It felt distinctly weird to see the shore fading away into nothing:

(Also weird: ice on the beach! That isn't something I expected to see.)

Large flocks of geese, ducks, and other shorebirds filled the area -- they kept emerging from the fog as I walked, and I could hear the sounds of many more birds out there than I could see. This group of Canada Geese and Brant seemed to be floating in space, with no horizon in sight:

It was cool to see these two types of geese side by side, their similar patterns of dark and light making interesting shapes in the fog (the Brant are the smaller birds in the front):

It still seems strange to me, actually, to see Canada Geese hanging out on the beach, but there you go:

Several large flocks of small shorebirds kept flying up and down the shoreline, and one flock of Dunlin (one of Connecticut's more common dippy winter shorebirds) cruised right by me:

I caught up with some of these guys later on, and I got to marvel at their funky profiles:

And then they flew off again. Dunlin butts!

At one point, the wind started to pick up, and the fog lifted for a few minutes to reveal some stunning views across the marsh:

I really just cannot get over that marsh grass and its fire-like glow. OK, just one more picture before the thick fog descends again:

In the end, I'm very glad that I ended up going for an adventure on this foggy, wondrous day. And I'll close with one last sight.... Out of the thick fog, a strange creature emerges:

(At least, that's how I see it. I suppose it could also be a branch.)