A Pretty Slow Start but a Few Highlights

 

Glaucous Gull,
South Kingstown Town Beach

    I have to say, the beginning of this year has not exactly been high adrenaline for me.  For my friends reading this, I sound like a broken record but up until today (February 9 and 10) I had not had consecutive days off with nice weather since I got back from Florida on November 19. If I was lucky, I'd have one dry day out of the two, but many times it rained/snow both days I wasn't working.  Add to that, much of January was around ten degrees and I wasn't driving down to South County to freeze. 

   However, my biggest complaint really isn't the weather, when I have gotten out, I haven't seen too many birds. I live for experiences and I've had a few that I'll mention below, but it hasn't been balls to the wall crazy like the beginning of last year. 

Highlights-

I'd say the highlight of the first six weeks of 2022 was a Painted Bunting. There was one in Jamestown and I got to see it. It was a beautiful male. The light was not good when I saw it, so the photos are decent but do not do the bird justice.

Today (Feb 10) I got to see two rare birds in Stonington, CT. My friend Sue went to visit her mother in Stonington and stopped at the harbor to see if the Thick Billed Murre and Eared Grebe were still there. She found them and sent me a photo. Since I was heading down I-95 anyway I decided to go look for them. I was about thirty minutes away. Sue was kind enough to stay there. When I got there she brought me to the vantage point she had seen them from. The birds were far away (the Murre might have been over a quarter mile away or murre, see what I did there?) The photos aren't worth much, but the view in the spotting scope was great.

  So far I have gotten a total of three photo upgrades. Two of those are only because the previous photos were so awful. I got upgrades on Fox Sparrow and Hooded Merganser for that reason. The Glaucous Gull put on a show and walked right up to me. The photo below was not cropped. However, I had great shots of Glaucous Gulls before. These photos stand out because of pure white this individual is. Just beautiful. 

Hooded Merganser

Fox Sparrow

Glaucous Gull

With spring right around the corner, I should be getting more active. The early migrants will start showing in five or six weeks. Stocking trucks will be delivering trout to our favorite lakes at the same time. As for me, the weather can only get better, right?