No new year birds. I knew that this day would come, and I knew it would be soon, because there aren’t many birds that I know of that are around Anchorage that I haven’t yet seen this year, and I plan to be around Anchorage at least a couple of days.
There are some birds around though, and I tromped out beyond the Anchorage airport today in the new soft fluffy snow to try for one of them (Townsend’s Solitaire) but it was not to be found. It is likely that I heard it a fair distance from me, but it fell silent and I could not locate it. I amused myself by taking pictures of snow on branches. There’s something about snowy branches that I cannot resist, so I did enjoy the walk very much. I did have Black-capped Chickadees, a few redpolls and a couple of Black-billed Magpies to entertain me on the walk.
On the drive back past the airport, I saw the Northern Hawk Owl again. Since I also cannot resist taking pictures of owls, I stopped and took a few, including pictures of the owl preening high in a tree.
My plans for the immediate future are fuzzy, but on Sunday I’m going to Homer to bird with Aaron Lang, so I expect to add a few birds then. In any case it will be fun to bird with him.
Lynn Barber's Birding Blog 