We had our first real snow of the winter today. :) I love it when the trees in our yard get all delicate and feathery:
And when endlessly layered webs of these transformed branches fill our windows' views:
The birds managed to work through an entire (small) feeders-worth of seed today. But that's perfectly fine with me. The birds get food, and I get to see them up close in the snow. Hello, Mr. House Finch, have I really never posted a picture of your species on this blog before? Well, you picked a nice setting for your first portrait:
Hooray for snow. :)
The past few days have been generally gray and cold, but the avian activity in our yard just keeps speeding up. The chickadees and titmouses make traffic jams when two or three of them try to come to our small window feeder at once (we definitely need to get another one of these things soon). When the process goes smoothly we can stand for minutes and see visits from bird after bird after bird.... It's basically non-stop action around here!
Usually the chickadees and titmouses just fly in, take one seed, and fly off. A few of these birds, though, are kind of picky, and they'll toss away three or four seeds before they find one they actually want. (The sound of sunflower seeds pinging off our window is pretty common by now.) So now there are seeds on the rooftop below the feeder, but the birds don't let these seeds go to waste! This past Thursday, I discovered that I could sit with my camera sticking through the open window and get right at eye-level with these rooftop birds.
Hello, Black-capped Chickadee, finding anything good?
It's a novelty to be close to Dark-eyed Juncos, because these birds don't want to sit on our feeder. They're happy to clean up dropped seeds on the roof, though!
I love the hints of chocolate in this bird's feathers, as well as its utter roundness. (Where's your neck, bird?)
This last bird was here for the Red Cedar berries rather than the sunflower seeds, but she was also especially close. Is this not one of the prettiest female Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers ever?
We've been getting a bunch of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers in our yard this fall -- more than in previous years, I think -- but they've mostly been juveniles. This adult female is definitely gorgeous, with her sleek black bib and full red head (I took this next picture a couple days later, but I'm pretty sure it's the same bird):
I wish there was a way to know for sure whether this is the same female who stayed here last winter and made sapsicles in our maple tree. Even if it's not, I'm hoping she'll stay around. Sapsuckers aren't as common in Connecticut as some of our other woodpeckers, and I feel really lucky to get to see these creatures so often in our yard.
So go ahead, weather, stay cold and gray! There are plenty of things to see right here.
Owls are awesome. Big white owls from the high arctic are super awesome. Really, Snowy Owls are practically mythical creatures for me. So when multiple Snowy Owls started showing up along Connecticut's coast this past week, I couldn't not go to the beach and try to see one. (I didn't take advantage of the last Snowy Owl invasion, in 2011, and I wasn't going to let the current invasion pass me by!)
I went to Milford Point yesterday morning with my spotting scope in tow. This tool turned out to be absolutely essential, because while no big arctic birds were in range of my binoculars on the beach or in the marsh, the scope picked out a suspicious white and gray shape aaaaallll the way out on a rocky breakwater far offshore. It was tiny and distant, but I watched it turn its round white face and preen under its gray-barred wings. Yay, Snowy Owl!! There was no way my actual camera could reach that far, so I took some blurry photos through the scope with my phone:
Look, an owl! See it? ...How about now?
OK, so yes, it was really far away, but I watched this awesome (tiny) creature for a good long while nonetheless. This was a rare encounter indeed, and even this less-than-perfect view was still extremely exciting. I love that these creatures exist. :) And you never know, maybe I'll get a chance to see another Snowy Owl this winter if they keep showing up and hanging around.
Other big white birds were haunting this beach during my visit, too. Mute Swans are non-native, but they sure are impressive (and I still just cannot get over the color of that marsh grass):
One pair of swans was settled on the beach, and they didn't seem to care when I walked by. Pretty bird:
Their necks are so fuzzy, and so collapsible when it's time to rest:
A male Northern Harrier was hunting along this beach as well. I don't think I've ever seen a male harrier before, and now I understand why they're often described as "ghostly." This bird's gray and white costume fit well with the overall gray day:
All these big white and gray creatures definitely made for an awesome trip to the beach!
It was all gray and wet today, but yesterday was gloriously clear and warm. I couldn't very well pass up the chance to go outside with weather like that! It'd been a while since I was last at the shore, so I headed off to Milford Point for an awesome beach-filled afternoon.
The tide was the lowest I've ever seen it here, and I walked across wide expanses of wet sand under the prettiest blue sky (a sailboat makes the scene even prettier):
Actually, most of the ground I walked on was covered with mussel and oyster shells (and beds of living shellfish, too). It felt very strange to be walking right on the ocean floor:
Mysterious creatures buried in the sand kept spitting jets of water into the air as I walked here. More molluscs, perhaps?
The scenery was undeniably cool, but my favorite part of the visit was a big flock of Snow Buntings (at least 100 birds) that kept flying back and forth across the beach. These little birds are super cute. Of course, they wouldn't come near (or sit still) enough for close up pictures, but their white/black/brown costumes made a cool sight as they blew around the beach in their little chirping flurries:
I've only seen Snow Buntings a couple of times before, and only at the shore in winter. It was cool to see so many of these fancy little winter visitors at once!
Some more familiar winter shore birds were around, too: dozens of American Black Ducks, a flock of Brant, and a couple of Common Loons way out in the water.
These two Red-breasted Mergansers were foraging close to the shore:
They were pretty well synchronized in their underwater hunts, a pair of snorklers floating by:
I couldn't resist taking a picture of this handsome Ring-billed Gull, too:
Then the afternoon got later and the light got redder, and the scenery was awesome in new ways. I love this brilliant marsh grass (with what I'm assuming are high-tide markings):
I'm glad I took advantage of the lovely weather to visit the shore!
Friday was a lovely (if a bit chilly) late fall day, and I decided it was high time for a woods walk. (How has it been over a month since my last walk in the woods? Not cool! I was feeling some serious woods withdrawal.)
I ventured out to the Bent of the River Audubon sanctuary, where I had a couple of absolutely lovely visits this past summer. The fields are now brown, and the trees are mostly bare, but this place remains wonderful and welcoming.
There were creatures all over the place, but I'll just skip right to my favorite. Pileated Woodpecker!
OK, Pileated Woodpecker butt. Let's try again. Pileated Woodpecker!
:) I think Pileated Woodpeckers are one of the best things around, and I so often see them only as flashes of big black and white wings or hear them hammering in the distance. This lady and I kept crossing paths during my walk, and I'm very glad she decided to stay and work on this tree fairly close to me on our last meeting! This is the first time I've been able to watch one of these awesome creatures for any length of time and at anything resembling closeness. I love her black and white stripes, of course, and that brilliant red crest, but now I have other things to admire, too, like the scale-like pattern on her belly, and the small yellow spot at the base of her beak.
I couldn't very well just walk away with such a (relatively) cooperative Pileated Woodpecker right there, so here are a couple of videos of the lady at work. She has quite the powerful stroke with that beak!
While I was watching this woodpecker, a big Gray Squirrel came ambling down a tree a few feet away from me and looked at me curiously:
On another part of my walk, I came across this rather zealous Eastern Chipmunk:
Birds were foraging all over, too, including a couple of funny little Brown Creepers:
And the fields were filled with sparrows. Hello, handsome Song Sparrow:
There's a lot of gray and brown out there right now, and many cool things to see. I'm definitely adding Bent of the River to my more-frequently-visit list!
