Ravens

Who will survive after we have all left the planet.....tough birds, withstanding cold temperatures, frozen everything, still finding food and still flying above us making those vocalizations that are almost understandable by human ears. Check yesterday's Peninsula Clarion for a great photo:

http://www.peninsulaclarion.com/

Scott Moon has had other great photos of ravens, as well as other birds. The photo of the NW crow is one of my faves. His website:

http://moon.photoshelter.com/

We have to appreciate our ravens, part of the Native Alaskan lore and heritage, and one of the most ubiquitous birds in Alaska, winter or summer.

Christmas Bird Count, Final Version

Today the long-awaited count was in the paper, from all around the Kenai-Soldotna area. We were glad to see that our three special birds, the saw-whet owl, along with our 1 brown creeper and 2 golden-crowned kinglets, were in a fairly exclusive group, that is, only 1 saw-whet, 4 kinglets, and 2 brown creepers total were seen that day. Our backyard provided an important contribution to the total count. As it happens, a saw-whet has only been recorded twice during the history of the Christmas bird count. Additionally, our sightings of Stellars Jays seem to be a big part of the total count. A lot of great birds were seen that day, and I wish I'd seen some of them. The Townsend's solitaire must be one of the most unusual birds sighted that day, and of course, it is always fun to see the beautiful Bohemian Waxwings.

Last year a northern shrike was here the day of the bird count, but that was partly because we had a pretty good number of redpolls at our feeders, and this year we have, so far, seen one redpoll at a feeder. Seems odd, but we have figured out possible reasons.

Times like this, though, a person would love to see something really exotic show up, even as exotic as a summer bird. Would be fun to go birding in a warm climate and see what migrating birds might be there. But for now, we'll keep our eyes on our little backyard habitat.

Wildlife Inside and Out

We saw two spruce grouse today, out in the backyard, as it snowed, blew snow around, and generally was miserably cold out. The temps have gone up to mid-teens, so it's a bit warmer, but with the wind, doesn't feel it at all.

Earlier I wrote about seeing the saw-whet owl out on our spruce tree in the backyard. With all the voles and mice around, he had plenty of food for a few days. We also ended up with 15 mice in our house! We only know that because we had spotted one running around inside the bathtub, thus knowing they were in the house. So we set up mousetraps all over and caught a total of 11 right by the stove. Three in the crawl space. And one bather. I would have loved to have our owl enjoy those mice, but they chose a warmer place to die. And so - now it seems the vole and mouse population has tanked, and we are seeing no owl. However, there are still a lot of white snowshoe hares out there, plus our beautiful chickadees, one pine siskin, nuthatches, three stellars jays, a couple of magpies and gray jays and then today, the spruce grouse. Things could be worse.

The New Year

Have nothing much to report. It's been pretty frigid for the most part, since mid-December. We have seen only a few birds the entire month. This past week we had one redpoll and one pine siskin. Scouts. Have had a couple of flyovers of a small flock of redpolls, but they haven't stopped at the feeders. The local Forestry person says it might be because of the abundant crop of spruce cones last fall, and even now there are many spruce cone seeds on top of the snow and glazed icy surfaces. Yesterday we saw a couple of spruce grouses, and attributed that to our sprinkling of gravel on the icy paths. Although, we do have spruce grouses in here year-round, even if we don't see them all the time.

Yesterday, driving across the Kenai River flats, even though the river is mostly frozen over solidly, there was a flock of about 8 brilliant white gulls flying overhead.

We are looking forward to more birds, hopefully soon.