MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!
Month: December 2024
Winter seems to be trying to get here
While we do not seem to be getting quite as much snow as was forecast, it definitely has been snowing for hours and hasn’t yet stopped. No new winter birds have yet arrived in our yard. Maybe they are waiting for more snow. Mostly it’s American Goldfinches and Mourning Doves for now. The goldfinches (often over 30 of them) have been crowding around the feeders.
The doves (sometimes over 40) hustle around ground, or perch in the spruce tree, waiting for the snow to stop.
Right now, however, everybody has departed from our yard, spooked completely by a Cooper’s Hawk that barreled through the yard in hot pursuit of one of the doves.
SOMETIMES…
Sometimes birding is not about chasing birds, or even about seeing them, but is about watching for and waiting for them. Right now, while we still have the residents, such as Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, most of our summer birds have left for southern climes, not knowing we were going to have a mild fall, and basically no winter yet.
Our normal wintertime birds are mostly somewhere north of here in Canada, with only a few having finally drifted down to the northern part of the state recently. Although we’ve had a few light snows, right now there is no snow on the ground. It’s mid-December in central Wisconsin!
So birding now is more about watching squirrels eat bird seed in my yard than it is about watching birds.
Winter is coming they say- it’s supposed to dip below zero (degrees F) at night two days from now and to barely rise above it during the next day. And maybe there will be an inch of snow. Slowly, slowly. Maybe more birds will arrive soon…