Counting Birds

Don't forget, for NH birders, the NH Audubon Society Winter Backyard Bird Count is next weekend (Feb. 12-13).

Then the next weekend (Feb 18-21) is the Great Backyard Birdcount, for all of North America, put on by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

WS told me a couple of weeks ago that he had seen a cardinal. I thought I had heard one, but thought that it may have been a blue jay immitating a cardinal (why it would do so in winter was beyond me). Then we had the -22 temps, and i figured for sure that if there was a cardinal, it was probably done for.

Then Wednesday, I got home after the snow storm and looked out the kitchen window as I was getting ready to go shovel. And this is what I saw:

 

As I took the picture from the bathroom window, the male took off, and the female came to inspect the snow covered feeder:

 
Needless to say, before I started shoveling I filled the feeders. I have made sure to keep something in the platform feeder besides peanuts (for the jays) and cracked corn (for the doves).

We haven't seen either one since then, but today when we got home from the weekly Saturday morning running around, we both heard one of them (the male most likely) calling.

Hopefully they will make an appearance for one or both of the bird counts - I've never counted a cardinal so that would be just awesome.

Comments

[Cop Car]

Bogie--I know that birds have minds of their own, but I wouldn't expect cardinals to be a rare winter sight in your part of NH. (They are, after all, named northern cardinals!) Hope you get them on your count.

I'm hoping to be here for the GBBC; but, your dad did the counts while I was still working and I'm sure that he can still handle them quite nicely should the Red Cross activate me. (I'm on call this month.)

[bogie]

NH is the extreme northern edge of Cardinal's range, and only started appearing hre (according the my book) in the last 20 years.

Additionally, it has only been in the last 2-3 years that we have had cardinals in the summer.