As 2015 winds to a close, I finally find myself with time to share some sightings I've had in my pocket for a month or two!
Our little suburban-yard-on-a-peninsula has been doing an amazing job of attracting birds, and I love seeing the feathered creatures that show up to pick over the dirt/weeds or grab sunflower seeds from our feeders. Since about November (when I took most of these pictures), the cast of characters has stabilized, and I've gotten to know some of these northwestern birds pretty well.
Red-breasted Nuthatches are so dainty -- especially compared to the White-breasted Nuthatches I'm much more familiar with. We don't have any White-breasted Nuthatches in our yard, but we do get frequent visits from their smaller, fairy-like cousins:
This fellow posed for me before diving down to grab a sunflower seed; nuthatches are so pointy:
And they get extra adorable when all puffed up:
Seed obtained, it's off to a nearby pine tree for processing:
Black-capped Chickadees are often around:
But Chestnut-backed Chickadees are especially frequent visitors. I love these little birds in their fancy brown vests:
Down on the ground (but sometimes bold enough to come up to the feeders), we get lots of sparrows. Our Dark-eyed Juncos are of the Oregon sub-species, with their brown bodies and coal-dipped heads:
The Fox Sparrows here are also different from the eastern version of this species; they're darker ("Sooty," as the subspecies name says):
I think Fox Sparrows have the handsomest triangle-patterned breasts:
These are almost certainly my favorite sparrows around here; they're big and bulky and beautiful, and they're super fun to watch as they dig up the ground:
The totally new sparrow for me is the Golden-crowned Sparrow, another bulky-looking bird that's often running over the ground in our yard:
Golden-crowned indeed, although these winter adults and juveniles are pretty plain compared to the adults in their summer breeding costumes (which I've not yet seen in person):
Even in the winter, I think these sparrows are quite handsome:
As for finches, House Finches stop by every few days:
But our most constant finch visitors since about mid-November are the Pine Siskins:
What beautiful yellow highlights you have in your wings, fancy bird:
These little birds are extremely bold -- we can easily stand inches away from them as they eat from our window feeders -- and they're also incredibly bossy. (The Pine Siskins who showed up at our feeders last winter in Ohio were the same way.) If one of our siskins wants to eat from the feeder, it will invariably scare off other birds (including other siskins) who want to try to grab a seed. Some siskins are almost always around -- we often have one bird camped out at each of our three feeders -- but a few times so far we've gotten some big flocks of siskins coming through our yard all at once. Paul took this video of one of our Pine Siskin fiestas in early December; I'm sure traveling in a big flock like this has its advantages, but it sure doesn't let anybody get food easily from our small feeders:
It's been such a treat to get to know our November and December yard birds. Who knows what birds will show up in our yard in the new year!
Whew!! I've been cooped up inside for several weeks now, working toward a huge deadline. But now the deadline has come and gone, the work is done (yay!), and I can finally get outside again for some relaxing wanderings in the woods. And how perfect that this new freedom has come just in time for some really great spring-like weather!
It was gorgeous yesterday morning when I visited Osbornedale State Park. The animals were definitely feeling the onset of spring, too! So much of the park was just the same as when I visited here at the end of February last year; aren't seasons amazing? A male Northern Cardinal was singing jubilantly from the tallest trees:
Male Red-winged Blackbirds were all over the place, calling and flashing their bright shoulder patches:
A tiny Golden-crowned Kinglet fluttered around in the woods, checking out the sap flowing from a tree trunk:
Mmm, sap:
I love how the same place can be so similar from year to year, but there's always something new to see. The Eastern Bluebirds I met here last year were absent, but dozens of American Robins were foraging in the stubbly fields:
I'm happy to see Dark-eyed Juncos while they continue to hang around for another month or so:
I was also very happy to meet a few Fox Sparrows under the trees; I think these birds are super pretty, and I only see them every once in a while:
An Eastern Chipmunk watched me from high up in a vine-covered tree:
Happy almost-spring, little mammal! That's quite the fortress you've got there, and a lovely throne.
My favorite surprise of the day was a trio of Hooded Mergansers in a small melted corner of the pond -- two fancy males and a plainer female. These birds are so much like perfectly carved and painted statues, it's amazing:
Those are some really awesome costumes, especially when the males decide to raise their hoods:
Female Hooded Mergansers are also very pretty, of course, with their own funny fancy hair:
I am definitely excited for the many more spring happenings soon to come!
Spoiler alert: There's a Beaver at the end of this post. I know, I'm excited, too! But I have lots of other things to share from today's awesome woods walk, and I feel like I need to save the best for last. So don't worry, we'll get there! (Or, skip to the end if you want instant Beaver gratification.)
I spent a good chunk of this afternoon wandering through the fields and woods of a nearby park, enjoying the bright sunlight that made the day feel almost warm. This time of year most of the field's plants are dead and brown, but there are still cool things to see, like these fantastically puffy milkweed seedheads:
And there were lots of different birds out today taking advantage of the field's bounty, including several sparrows. A big Fox Sparrow popped up briefly from foraging on the ground -- these birds are not extremely uncommon in Connecticut, but this is only the second time I've seen one here, and I just love this one's rich red "beard":
Dark-eyed Juncos were everywhere, handsome little puffballs on bare branches:
And a single warbler was flitting around, fairy-like, among the goldenrod stems. This rather nondescript little fellow is (I'm 99% sure) an Orange-crowned Warbler, quite rare for this area (or at least, there are hardly any recent eBird reports of this bird around here). In any case, I was happy to get to meet this very active, very plain bird:
As the sun was going down and I was leaving the park, I walked past a small pond and stopped to admire the amazing ice patterns forming on the water's surface (seriously, how does this happen?):
And then when I turned around, this stump jumped out at me (well, not literally, but you know what I mean):
Huh, now that looks suspicious! Somebody definitely worked hard to bring this tree down, and recently, too:
I've seen years-old beaver-chewed stumps in other woods around here, but never anything as bright and fresh at this. And now that I'd been confronted by this stump, I took another look at the pond... and saw the many chewed branches along the water's edge (making a very pretty pattern, actually):
And is that a pile of sticks -- maybe even a growing lodge -- on that island in the middle of the pond?
I'm sure I've seen beavers before, but it's been many, many years, and I've never seen one in Connecticut. So just in case, I decided to wait and see if the creature who cut the branches was actually hanging around and might make an appearance. And sure enough, after just a few minutes, I heard the sounds of splashing and ice cracking, and then a beaver's nose and ears surfaced:
And there's a beaver tail!
The beaver played coy for a bit, swimming around under the ice. Soon, though, it swam over to the shore, and after some more ice cracking (to make a hole, I suppose), it grabbed a nice thick branch and brought it back to the island, emerging entirely from the water. There you are, Mr. (or Mrs.) Beaver!
The beaver was really into chewing its stick, and didn't seem to mind that I was sitting right there taking pictures:
So exciting! Beavers are basically awesome, and I really hope this one gets to stay in this pond -- I know beavers and humans can clash over property and tree use, and the beaver population is growing (after actually having been extirpated from Connecticut in the mid-1800s... how crazy is that?), but this pond is in a state park, so.... Fingers crossed! If this beaver doesn't mind living in a place where people visit and travel, surely we can spare some of the trees that make this part of the park pretty, right? I guess we'll see.
Right now, anyway, there's a very happy beaver here with lots of sticks to eat. I couldn't resist recording a quick video of the beaver in action -- if you turn up the volume and listen really closely, you can even hear some chewing:
