The Kinglet

This morning, our little golden-crowned kinglet was flitting thru the spruces trees for about 30 seconds. And our junco sighting has turned into an almost-daily one. We're glad to see the temps rise a bit today. Windy too. Of course, we have still seen all the usual winter birds. One chickadee with a deformed beak, getting worse by the day. Snowshoe hares are still coming in, pure white. And an occasional moose tromping thru and getting the birdseed that is available to their snout and tongue.

We've heard and seen big flocks of redpolls, as well as small groups of crossbills, no visits to the feeders though. So many spruce cones and seeds for them.

Our kinglet has been here all winter, apparently. We've seen him about 5 or 6 times since November. That's a first for us.

Hell Freezing Over

Slightly melodramatic - but, after a bit of a warming trend in early February, suddenly the night-time temperature has dropped to minus 15 or more (depending on location) and daytime is not much warmer, as today, at 11 AM it's still only 9. We have seen a number of large flocks of redpolls and siskins flying over various times during the day. Siskins still visit our feeders pretty regularly. One of our black-capped chickadees has a seriously deformed bill which keeps getting worse and worse, looking like a crossbill beak. He is on the feeder constantly, trying to survive. It's so sad. Hope we don't see any more of those.

So a little later in the day, I am editing my earlier post because since I wrote at about 11 AM, I suddenly saw a junco at our feeder, the first one we've seen all winter. I had heard reports of them elsewhere in the area, but not here. So that was great, one new bird. Then a few moments later, my husband looked out and saw a Golden-crowned Kinglet! This little bird has been showing up at our feeders on these very cold days, this is the 4th or 5th time we have seen him this winter. What a special treat. Worth adding to the blog.

Redpolls

This morning, with temp of 11 degrees, clear skies, and lots of new fresh snow, I finally saw a decent-sized group of redpolls clustered around the top of one of our tallest spruces, awaiting the first sunlight. Approximately 10 redpolls (plus or minus) sat there, chirping away. I went out to fatten up the feeders, and their birdsong was actually more melodious than I had remembered. It makes me so happy to hear and see them, probably because these little visitors that usually throng in huge numbers to our feeders, have been conspicuously absent this winter. The normal cycle of redpolls coming in for feed is reassuring.

Later on: We saw our brown creeper around 12:30 PM. Approx. 12-15 pine siskins kept visiting our feeders off and on all day. No redpolls at the feeders. Our snowshoe hare showed up and stayed in close to our house. Totally white, with dark-ish ears and black eyes, very soft padded feet.

Storm Birds

A foot of new snow, and now we have a flock 12 or more pine siskins! It is great to see a few more of our usual winter visitors. Yesterday two spruce grouse burst out of the snow-laden spruce branches while Tom put seeds on the feeder, they were close enough to him that their wings brushed the top of his cap. Magpies fly in and scatter the siskins. Chickadees and nuthatches keep us entertained. Beautiful snowy day.

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.