Smog and clammy air and stagnation. Before the feast, we head out for a quick jaunt along the tracks. The cormorant of two days’ ago is nowhere to be seen, and at the later hour of 10:30 AM, not a creature seems to be stirring, except the local red squirrel with its ducklike quacks and other complaints. Pepe, the cat, at first thought he was adventurous, but once confronted with the vastness of it all, he refuses to budge, seemingly in panic mode, so Paola takes him back to the car.
Once again, as two days ago, the ducks are at the near end of the pond. They’re having none of us, however, much to the chagrin of my mother-in-law, and quickly take off in a flurry of splashing and quacks, Mallards and the much smaller Green-winged Teal.
Nemesis No More
Walking back, I spot two raptors in the Gap, diving at each other, up about the level of the ridgetops, one clutching something in its talons about the size of a squirrel. The clutcher is a Red-tailed Hawk, but the interloper, with longer, narrower wings, is a Rough-legged Hawk, the last raptor missing for the Plummer’s Hollow 200, now at 203 species for 2023. The Red-tail executes a series of avoidance maneuvers, and the last I see of the two, they are heading over the top of Sapsucker Ridge. I notice later that someone spotted a Rough-leg not far up I-99 a few days back, and with how rare this species now is around here, I wonder if it could have been the same one.
Inspired by the almost sunny weather and the hope that it might return, I set up shop on the balcony for a while in the 50-degree winter heat.
Rock Pigeons and European Starlings are up and about, the latter as boisterous as the former are mute, and both seem a bit too stirred up. I scan the horizon by the towers for a Peregrine or some other predator, only to catch the incongruous sight of three Herring Gulls heading steadily north, two darker birds and a light-colored individual. I don’t know that we’ve ever had this species in December, but like the Ring-billed Gull, it’s not unexpected as it moves between the bigger bodies of water and rivers.
With the Fox Sparrow of Dec. 23 and today’s Rough-leg and gulls, that gives us three more species for Count Week, which pushes the week’s total to 80.
Christmas continues to yield surprises. A few minutes after the gulls, one of our local Cooper’s Hawks perches obligingly on the tallest sycamore beyond the confluence, and is still there an hour later after I tire of snapping photos and retire for some last minute cleaning prior to the arrival of the rest of the family.
After the guests have left, I step onto the balcony again to put out some recycling around 4:30, and immediately hear the rattle of a Belted Kingfisher who has chosen this of all days to show up after more than a month’s absence. On cue, another long-absent local streaks by, this time an American Kestrel.
The Deluge After Christmas
At time of writing (5 AM on the 28th), it’s been raining and misting and pouring steadily since Tuesday. At some point it will let up enough to get out again, and on the last day of the year, when they’re not working on the tracks, I’ll be able to visit the pond for the last time. Mostly, I’m working my way through a seemingly endless stream of Swainson’s Thrushes to finish the May cataloging, leaving “only” September and October to process before I upload everything. The number of frustratingly unidentifiable shorebird calls is almost depressing, but suffice it to say I’ll have plenty to do through the dark months, and perhaps a few more species to add to 2023. Starting on the first, I’ll be turning this year into a book, posting when I can on here, and also beginning the long process of creating the “Birds of Plummer’s Hollow,” a species-by-species project with a three-year duration.
Meanwhile, the only birds of note have been a trio of three very hungry Brown-headed Cowbirds that showed up at Mom’s feeders on Wednesday, not a first for the last week of the year, but quite unusual, nonetheless. What is it about rainy weather and blackbirds?