Baby It's Cold Outside....

We've had beautiful sunny weather here over the last week or so, but man has it been cold! Temperatures in the mid-20s plus breezy conditions that makes the wind chill factor in the teens. Not the type of cold we're used to dealing with here!

Most of the wildlife-watching has occurred from the car as a result, or at least after a drive and then a brief hopping out of the car. Over the long holiday weekend last week, before it got THIS cold, my dad and I did a COASST survey at Fourth of July Beach (no finds) and then birded the redoubt road, hoping for some early season short-eared owls. We didn't find any owls, but did see a northern shrike (192), my first of the year. The lighting wasn't right to photograph it, but on the other side of the road, a quartet of deer were perfectly illuminated in the late afternoon sunlight.

The sunrises have also been stunning. On this morning I just missed the amazing pink clouds on my way down to Reuben Tarte; as the sun became visible the clouds immediately darkened, but it was still worth a picture:

Yesterday on my way to town to do some Christmas shopping, I stopped at Dream Lake where this time of year trumpeter swans are usually hanging out. There were also American wigeon, ring-necked ducks, and bufflehead on the part of the lake that wasn't frozen, and northern flickers, golden-crowned kinglets, song sparrows, and golden-crowned sparrows foraging along the edges.

Trumpeter swans on the frozen edge of Dream Lake

Trumpeter swan with a female bufflehead

Trumpeter swan with wigeon and a ring-necked duck taking off in the background

Next up, unless I find something unexpected, I've been going through a bunch of older photographs for a few different projects, and in the process I've been picking out some pictures for a different sort of blog...