Winter Birds

  I have found that looking for birds in winter varies from looking for birds in the summer. In the winter the birds are fewer and far between so you need a car to cover a lot of ground to find them. Sunday was such a lovely sunny day I couldn’t wait to get outside and go look for birds. The sunshine on the whiteness of the snow was so pretty it made me forget all about how cold the temperature was. I was going to Harpersfield to look for winter birds, those migrants that come down from the frozen north to spend their winters here. I was hoping for a triple find like the first time I went to Harpersfield when I found a rough legged hawk, snow buntings and horned larks.

  Well I didn’t exactly find all three species this time, but no matter, it was a lovely drive. At first I didn’t see any birds. I turned up a road toward a barnyard where there were lots of pigeons and starlings, not exactly rare species around here. I continued on that course thinking that I should probably turn the car around and follow my usual route when smack dab in the middle of the road in front of me was a huge flock of snow buntings. I’d estimate there were about 120. They flew off... of course. I stopped the car and waited to see if they would simply circle around in a  group and return to where they had been picking up grit in the road. They did just that, but they didn’t stay there very long. Once more they all flew up and circled around, this time settling down in the field on my left. I still had a pretty decent view of them which was good because when you find snow buntings you have to check through the lot to see if there might be any lapland longspurs. Easier said than done, the birds didn’t hold still for a minute. They scurried here and there. I did my utmost best to see if there were any differences in the birds, but I didn’t find any. They all appeared to be snow buntings. The birds flew up into the air again and I watched as each bird dove and turned in perfect sync with the others flashing their white undersides when they, as a group, changed direction. I wondered if a lapland longspur might appear a little different in the group as they flew about, maybe a little more darker or perhaps a little more chunkier, but I still could find no differences in these birds.

  I drove back to the usual route that I follow when looking for birds. The last thing I needed was to get lost. The scarcity of birds was proving to be discouraging. I expected to find one raptor in the trees or soaring in the air but the only raptor I managed to find for the day was a red-tailed hawk no where near this location. I was a little encouraged when I found a group of eleven wild turkeys strolling around someone’s yard. Maybe there would be more birds ahead.

  All around me was a rare phenomenon of nature. Snow rollers lay about in the fields everywhere. These snow rolls are formed by the wind which blows a chuck of snow across a field of snow and in doing so the snow picks up more snow thereby creating a cylinder of snow. Most of them appear hollow in the middle. These reminded me somewhat of small round hay bales and varied in size up to that of a basketball. It seems many of the larger ones had the help of gravity so that after the wind formed them they rolled down the hill increasing in size as they rolled.

  As I neared the end of my search I caught sight of some small birds flitting about in a bush. They were tree sparrows, another migrant that came down from up north. All in all I had thirteen different species for the day.  I can’t wait for my next chance to get out and look again for the winter species I couldn’t find this time.

Happy New Year everyone and good birding.