Perk Up Your Ears

These days of snow, rain and gloom after those tantalizing warm days of early spring - every year I seem to forget that winter leaves so reluctantly. 

But spring is around the corner, and some of our early birds are here. In the last few weeks bluebirds, phoebes, white-throated sparrows have all arrived, along with flocks of robins. Geese and crows are making their nests. Woodcock have been here for a month. Mergansers, wood ducks, and mallards are in the rivers, and bufflehead and ring-neck ducks on the larger ponds.  A few hardy peepers were calling before the ponds refroze and wood frogs ("croakers") are on the move. At my feeders, siskin and goldfinches continue to swarm, along with juncos, purple finches, and song sparrows. A few tree sparrows and bohemian waxwings are still about before they head north for the summer. 

In anticipation of the birding season, we're offering two fun and informative events:

Celebrate Earth Day: 100 Years of Bird Conservation & Basic Birding Tips

Friday, April 22, 7 - 9 p.m., Weeks Memorial Library, Lancaster
Join Dave Govatski and me for a look at a century of conservation through the Migratory Bird Act, plus learn some tips on identifying more birds through knowing habitat and behavior. 

The Music Around Us : An Avian Audio Tour

Thursday, April 28, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m., Franconia Town Hall
Expert birder Charlie Browne will present how learning songs will make you a better birder, and enrich your experience outdoors. Great for beginning and experienced birders. 

Both events are free, with donations gladly accepted. Refreshments will be served. 

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 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.

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

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.