This killdeer showed a real lack of situational awareness: came prancing up to me as if the chain link fence between us made me invisible! Maybe e was just very eager to be counted in the #GreatBackyardBirdCount!
#GreatBackyardBirdCount special visitors today included a Cooper’s Hawk (being seen off by our Crow Neighborhood Watch) and a pair of chestnut-backed chickadees, possibly the first time I’ve seen them in my yard!
Doesn’t this one look as if it has pollen on its wee fiz?
The annual #GreatBackyardBirdCount is underway. I just finished a long walk around our neighborhood where the most common species I saw was the beautiful Cedar Waxwing. I love their little bandito masks. #birds#birding
Usually I go out New Year's morning to a wetland and start my year bird list out right, but this year, between work and getting back to running, it'll be a slower start. My #birdsof2023 list starts with a quick park walk this morning:
My first #GreatBackyardBirdCount of the weekend wasn't wildly diverse - 11 pretty expected species - but it all counts. One of the really useful functions of GBBC is seeing population trends in the most common birds. And I did get one new one for the year list that had somehow hidden from me until now.
The #GreatBackyardBirdCount continues. This morning, I spent an hour at Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge, picking up a decent list of birds, including 5 new for me for the year (Officially anyway. I'd seen kestrels before but not counted them in a list):
Probably my last birding of this year's #GreatBackyardBirdCount, a quick wetlands walk that produced four new species for the year for me. The highlight was a pair of Canvasbacks, which I generally only see a few times a year at most. And finally some butterbutts. Where have you been hiding?