Snow Birds at Trustom

I had big plans for today. When I got done skiing yesterday, I came up with a route to go birding all day today. I was going to get up at the crack of dawn and see how many species I could see. It is a new year which means what was old hat a week ago is a new species for a new year list. I dare say, some of the more obsessed birders look forward to birding on New Years Day more than they do Christmas morning. Last year New Years Day fell on my day off. This year it was Sunday, and I always work Sundays. So needless to say, I was looking forward to starting my new list.

I have not checked the weather in a few days. Last I read it, today was supposed to be cold and sunny (high of 31). So I was quite surprised when I woke at 6:45 am to see a blanket of snow on my car with more coming down. I scratched my plans and put in a movie to watch. I checked the weather and the snow was supposed to stop around 11 am.

Considering there is only about nine hours of daylight right now, leaving the house at 11:30 meant I wasted almost half of it. Instead of driving from place to place, I decided to concentrate on Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge. There are two reasons I chose to go there. There is a variety of habitat and a very busy bird feeder at the parking lot. Secondly, I could go for a hike. I planned on making at least one of my stops a place to get some exercise anyway.

At the bird feeder, I picked up my first ten species within seconds. There are always plenty of blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, and downy woodpeckers at the feeder. I put my waterproof boots on, grabbed my ski poles for walking sticks and went looking for birds.

I only ended up seeing 29 species for the day. I easily could have seen fifty if not for a wasted morning. However, I saw two species I did not see in Rhode Island in 2016. They were brown creeper and golden crowned kinglet. I never saw a creeper anywhere last year, so that was good news.

I did get some exercise. I walked the snow covered trails at a fast enough speed to sweat. I did all the trails, I guess they cover about two miles or so. It really didn't matter though, when I got home I rode the exercise bike (yuck).

If the weather is nice next Friday, I'm going birding again. There are still plenty of easy birds left (such as gulls, many ducks, and even robin) that I should be able to double my number. The smart play would be to chase the rarer birds and find the common ones as I go. Either way, I should probably check the weather Thursday night, that way I won't wake to a surprise of white.

Author's note. As of right now, the person that has seen the most species in Rhode Island is up to 94. Total number of species seen by all participants, 125.