Sunday, January 9, 2011

Snow Tracks

Today was about 30 degrees at 7:30 a.m. 

The park was unbelievably quiet. I went for a long walk all around the gardens, the river and the pond. Not a peep or sighting of any birds. Since the snow was fresh, there was only one thing to do… Look for animal tracks.

I saw some rabbit and squirrel prints and plenty of things that I wasn't sure of, but I saw the prints pictured above and thought it was possible they were fox prints. There were no snow boot prints in the fresh snow which is why I didn't think they were from a dog.

Eventually, I took a path near the Winchester St. entrance that leads behind the little brick house. It's usually filled with briars and pretty much impassable, but today it didn't look so bad. It's here that many birds were hanging out - at least our chickadees, juncos and titmice. The titmice were busy pecking at tree bark looking for bugs and rummaging in the snow. At right is a photo of one of them as it poked it's head up after it had been rooting around in the snow looking for something good to eat.

As I took the shortcut into the lower gardens, I ran into Ian! We did the gardens together and saw very little except a partially eaten robin which was sad. Guess the hawks or something had to eat.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Fog's Rolled In!

7:15 a.m and it feels pretty warm - high 40's/low 50's.

The park is as foggy as I've ever seen it! Can hardly see ahead of you. Very atmospheric. Pretty quiet too.

The lower gardens had a crow, mockingbird, cardinal, juncos and tree sparrows. Didn't see much else.

The rest of my travels only yielded a very vocal blue jay, some chickadees performing some of their amazing gymnastics and 25 geese flying overhead.