BIRDS BEFORE THE SNOW FLEW IN

Last week we mentioned that Feb. 12-15  was the International (GBBC) Great Backyard Bird Count.  How we looked forward to this!  Jim and I had planned to do Saturday and Sunday together, but Thursday got an update on our local weather, so I called Jim that night and said we had better go tomorrow. 

Friday turned out to be chilly and dark but we had an excellent day, finding 47 species.  We even ate our picnic lunch in the warm car with his wife Gigi.  We were glad we  pushed our days ahead,  as we had on Saturday the heaviest snow in many a year, mainly attacking the coastline. It snowed for two solid days giving us perhaps a foot and a half.  Sunday afternoon the sun came out, just in time to set, but not before Jim and I spotted more birds.

While it was not the greatest number of species spotted on Shaw at this annual count (top 68) it was good for so few hours put in.

World numbers- in spite of cold weather in so many lands exceeded past years:

 176 countries participated

  267,866 individuals participated

  6,208 species were observed

For us the highlights of the day (and night) were 2 Great-horned Owls, 2 Red- breasted Sapsuckers  and 33 Varied Thrush (highest count on any given day was 8). *

*These special birds (cousins of the Robin) nests in Alaska, Yukon Territory, and mountains in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. They prefer moist conifer forests,  Moving to lower elevations during the winter where they can be often seen in towns and orchards and thickets, or they might even migrate to California. Seen in flocks during winter of up to 20 birds, they fly eastward in winter, showing up in just about any state, then returning to the west coast for breeding.

Our next major count is in May-  Migration Day, but we don’t think we will wait that long!