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.
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