My birding today was a little bit of yard observation and a short trip to Spenard Crossing.
The main highlight in my yard was a group of five Steller’s Jays. All winter long they’ve been coming to the feeders in ones and twos, but they were a group today, including the half-beaked bird that I had only seen by itself before. Today they were mostly single-mindedly grabbing peanuts, flying to the back of the yard and pushing the peanuts down into the grass and soggy yard and returning for more peanuts. Before long they had emptied a couple of cups of peanuts from the jar.
At Spenard Crossing, most of the usual winter birds were there (Black-capped and Boreal Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Steller’s Jays, a Bald Eagle, Common Mergansers, and Mallards). The Common Goldeneye numbers had increased from 1 or 2 to 7. The small neck-ringed Canada Goose that has been wandering around Anchorage was also there. New for the year to the area was a pair of Gadwalls.
Although birders keep hoping for new species to arrive, realistically we do have a few more weeks (at least) of wintertime inactivity before we can expect many migrants. We keep hoping though.
123 species so far
Lynn Barber's Birding Blog 