WINTER SUMMARY

It has been quite a winter!  I know I am in the minority, but I have enjoyed it.  A great result of such a cold and snowy winter is that even  I  will be ready for spring!  Usually it starts getting warm and Linda & I are bemoaning not enough cold and snow.  This year, we will be OK with what has passed <grin>.

 It was cold this year, colder than usual!  I looked back through the calendars on AccuWeather (follow link and click on "month") and it really WAS a lot colder!  We had the following temps of zero and below: 

Dec 17  -7
Jan 2     0
Jan 3    -7
Jan 4    -12 (!!)
Jan 23  -2
Feb 7   -1
Feb 11  -6
Feb 12  -8
Feb 17   0
Feb 18  -2
Mar 1   -2
Mar 4   -5
Mar 7   -1


On a warmer note, our bird list for September - February in the Hop-Brook area near our home has 43 species  (birds marked with * were our winter stay-arounds and were with us most of the winter):

Pileated Woodpecker on our tree

Canada Goose
Wood Duck
American Black Duck
Mallard
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Great Blue Heron
Osprey
*Cooper's Hawk
*Red-tailed Hawk
*Mourning Dove
*Eastern Screech Owl
Great Horned Owl
Belted Kingfisher
*Red-bellied Woodpecker
*Downy Woodpecker
*Hairy Woodpecker
*Pileated Woodpecker
*Blue Jay
*American Crow
Common Raven

Hooded Merganser pair

*Black-capped Chickadee
*Tufted Titmouse
*White-breasted Nuthatch
*Brown Creeper
*Carolina Wren
*Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
*American Tree Sparrow
*Song Sparrow
*White-throated Sparrow
*Dark-eyed Junco
Snow Bunting (actually at the playing fields on Fairbank, but close!)
*Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird 
Purple Finch
*House Finch
*American Goldfinch
 
 And for wild mammals, we saw fox, deer, coyote, fisher, muskrat, otter, chipmunk, rabbit and the ubiquitous squirrel.

Who says there's nothing going on in the winter???  
Try to get out right around dawn and listen to the birds sing!  They know spring is here!