Audubon bird count

For the last ten years we have been doing the traditional Xmas bird count for the Audubon Society at Pleasant Valley Conservancy. It's an interesting exercise, and sometimes a challenge because of the weather. That wasn't a problem this year, as the photo of Kathie shows. But the bird count was quite low.

The snows came early again (like last year), but perhaps more significant, so did the cold weather. Lots of zero (and even below) days. One of the earliest years for Lake Mendota freeze-up.

If you were a bird and had wings, wouldn't you head south?

For the first hour of the count, we saw almost no birds. Finally we stumbled on a cluster of the usual suspects (juncos, tree sparrow, blue jays, etc). This turned out to be at the east end of the Conservancy, near a neighbor's bird feeder! Later we did spot a few more species, but in all, it was a quiet day.

The snow shoeing was great, though!