December 30, 2011 - 2
Backyard Sightings For Last Week:Including northern cardinals, dark-eyed juncos, purple finches, house finches, goldfinches, chipping sparrows and song sparrows. Carolina wrens, pine warblers, and black-capped chickadees, catbirds, mockingbirds, brown thrashers and brown creepers. Red-bellied and downy woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, blue-jays, northern flickers, white-breasted nuthatches, tufted titmice, mourning doves, crows. Also, grey squirrels, deer, and the opossum that was taken off the report last week because it hadn't been noticed recently. Also, a big hot air balloon was spotted climbing the mountain just yesterday.
Cool Sightings Of The Week:
Last Friday morning while standing in the driveway, my friend said hey, snow geese, and about a hundred of them flew over the mountain as we watched. Easily distinguished from Canada geese, the snow geese are obviously different and their whiter shade is visible, even in flight. I've seen snow geese in the area in years past, sometimes finding farm fields simply full of many thousands of them, but I've never noticed them crossing the mountain before.
Also this week, I saw the belly of the beast! Well, actually, it was the belly of a red-tailed hawk. It was just this morning and I was looking out the window, noticing that there wasn't a lot of action at the feeders, when, suddenly, there it was! Seeming to come from out of nowhere, the hawk flew through the air about ten feet above the pond, in hot pursuit of one small bird that looked like it got away in time. I couldn't help but think that the hawk stayed around for a while though, as the birds didn't return to the feeders for some time afterward.
Winter's kindness has our days growing longer here in the northeast, finally. Catching sight of a flock of snow geese this week and getting to see a hawk fly through the yard was very cool!
Heard on 89.7 WDVR FM every Friday at 3PM during Anything Goes!
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