Owl Prowl Sunday!

It looks like we'll avoid the snowstorm coming up the coast, so our walk Sunday evening March 20 is still on. Let's hope for continued improvement to the forecast, and we might see the rising moon.

We'll listen for saw whet owls and barred owls. 

We'll meet at 5:30 p.m. at the entrance to Pondicherry National Wildlife Area on Airport Road in Whitefield, just across from the power plant. It will be chilly, so bring something warm to enjoy when we linger at the viewing platform over Big Cherry Pond, hopefully under the rising moon and hearing owls calling.

But whatever the conditions, walking in the woods at night is a great sensory experience! 

For a map and more details click here. 

Signs of Spring!

A chipmunk! One emerged over the weekend and hung out at the bird feeder. In the woods, purple finches, goldfinches, and pine siskins are chattering like crazy. And a new singer: the brown creeper, the only nuthatch-like bird who always likes to go up a tree (nuthatches typically creep downwards). And in the woods, snow fleas, peppered on the snow. I saw a teeny spider yesterday afternoon on the snow. This morning walking a woods trail I felt across my face the  most delicate sensation,  a spider's trailing string of web, which it uses to float hither and yon.  

Brown creeper.

We will start our spring bird alerts in the next few weeks (red-winged blackbirds reported from Bath yesterday, along the Connecticut River Bath, so we know the migrants are on the way!). It won't be long before we hear woodcock. If you'd like to receive our bird alerts, please e-mail us.

Two "Winter" Walks Upcoming

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What a bizarre winter we've had. From -20 Sunday morning to 52 (!?) as I write Tuesday afternoon.

The rambunctious wind has already scoured the overnight snow/ice coating from the fields.

A sign of spring! Yesterday the cardinal who's been hanging around the neighborhood all winter (and making everyone smile) started singing! He's a grand fellow, and all the finches, juncos, chickadees, nuthatches, and kinglets joined in. At our elevation of 1,300 feet, cardinals don't usually hang out; in the 20 years I've lived here in Sugar Hill, I've only seen one other male, and one female - sadly not at the same time! One spring that male sang for weeks, to no avail. 

Regardless of the weather, everyone is invited to two (hopefully) winter hikes:

Cooley-Jericho Community Forest on Sunday, Feb. 28 at 1:30 p.m. 

Rising Moon Owl Prowl at Pondicherry Refuge, Sunday March 20, 5:30 - 9 p.m.