Now that both the NH Audubon Society Winter Bird Count and the Cornell/Audubon Great Back Yard Bird Count are over, I can share my excitement over what I was able to record. For both counts, birds only made an appearance on 1 day (even the GBYBC, which last 4 days - they only appeared on Sunday).
Ror the Winter Bird Count, I was excited to have White Breasted Nut Hatch, Juncos, Cardinals (1 male and 1 femal) and the greatest sightings were cedar waxwings (3) and Eastern Towees (5). The Eastern Towess are rare for winter and I supplied photos to help confirm my identification. The towees were infatuated with my crab apple (or cherry - have to wait for summer to identify). Sorry the pictures are crappy, but they were taken thru plastic covered windows and at a high digital zoom, so you gets what you gets.
For the GBYBC, I had chickadees, titmice, the WB nut hatch, purple finches, juncos, downy woodpeckers (male and female) and another 12 Eastern Towees, 1 red bellied wood pecker and 4 chipping sparrows (rare for winter).
I was thrilled the birds showed up as I don't seem to have regualr visitors so far. The red bellied woodpecker was a surprise at the end of my watching yesterday and attacked the suet feeder with gusto (much to the woodpeckers' chagrine).
This bodes well for my summer bird watching, expecially since there is running water just over the property line which will help to attract them.
Awesome! I had to work the entire time, getting home after dark every day, so I wasn't able to count.
Posted by: Ruth | February 18, 2014 at 08:44 AM
Cop Car was so kind as to point out gently (and in a private email) that those are robins, not towhees. Yep, that is true, and my excitement over having towhees was unwarranted. Oh well, next year maybe.
Posted by: bogie | February 23, 2014 at 08:30 AM
Ruth - that is too bad. I am lucky that I don't have to work weekends, or at least when I do I can work from home as long as I remember to bring my work computer home.
Posted by: bogie | February 23, 2014 at 08:31 AM
Bogie--Seeing robins where you did when you did is not to be sneezed at! Robins are just towhees in disguise - same color palette. If anyone wishes to compare a photo of an E towhee to the robins that you show, they may go to Cornell Lab's All About Birds.
The two species are certainly similar enough in looks to make my poor synapses grab the wrong name! (I owed you a favor. You may recall that the "female house finch" photo that I posted some time ago was actually, as you were kind enough to educate me concerning, a female rose-breasted grosbeak - which had not even occurred to me!)
Posted by: Cop Car | February 23, 2014 at 09:30 AM