I was looking forward to this. This year I had a large flock of Common Redpolls (that's not common for us)& quite a variety of Native Sparrows & Finches however when I got my paperwork printed off and headed out on Friday NO BIRDS!!!!! All that's been around are a few Chickadees, Nuthatches, Cardinals...my regular year round bird and not many of them at all. I was counting 50-60 various birds at my feeder last week. I have not even had to refill my feeders this weekend (I normally need to daily)RATS!

I had a ton at my feeder to count. Did the quick 15 minute sample because I know what I've been seeing all winter and in recent weeks, which reflected what I saw at the feeder on Friday morning.

White-crowned sparrows have been here for a few weeks and I had a pair of Pine Sisken on my deck 2 weeks ago, but they don't visit my feeder. Also saw an American Kestrel within the last week. So, no data sent for the Pine Siskins I saw or the American Kestrel. I almost feel like I'm cheating Cornell not reporting recent sitings, but, so be it.

Dax

Oh, lisa11310, that's exasperating! I had my usual feeder birds plus turkeys, with a surprise appearance of two Common Grackles and a Northern Mockingbird on Friday. They must have been migrating through because I haven't seen them since.

I submitted those feeder counts but also made a few forays to local watery spots to see what was around.

This is the fifth year in a row I've reported Green-winged Teal in the Ellisville Harbor State Park. It's near the upper limit of their winter range and I've learned where and when to find them slurping mud on the mudflats. Eighteen teal this year.

My other main project was seeing if I could find a large flock of Common Eiders that might be floating with the current on the Cape Cod Canal. On my second stop along the Canal (at the Rail Road Bridge) I found a few Common Eiders, Red-breasted Mergansers and Common Loons.

Common Eiders

Red-breasted Merganser

Common Loon

I hit the jackpot on my third stop at the Mass Maritime Academy where there were around 250 Common Eiders floating around. There may have been a few other species of birds in there but I didn't see any. I couldn't really photograph the scene but I tried. Believe me, there were a lot of Common Eiders there - maybe that's why they're named "common".

Today is my usual Project FeederWatch count so I'll submit those counts to GBBC too. I'm still hoping for the first Red-winged Blackbirds to arrive, but time is running out.

Claire

lisa...Did your redpolls come back any of the days you observed for the count? I have a large flock of Common Redpolls too and I was able to count them this year. Yeah!! I started out back in Dec with a flock of about 50-60 Pine Siskins and about 6 Redpolls, then the Redpolls just started multiplying and the Siskins started leaving. My largest count was on Saturday...had 160 Redpolls (140 today)! They are crazy, they are so flighty and all take off in a group. When there are that many on the deck and they all take off you can actually hear it. It is easiest to count them in the early morning as they fly in and sit in one or two of our silver maples. I take a picture of the tree top then I get my binoculars and count any other species I see in the tree, then I count from the picture (on the computer) how many birds were in the tree, subtract the number of other species and I get my Redpoll total. Only way to get an accurate count with that many birds, would be easier if they sat real still but they kinda flit from branch to branch alot. The tree/s are only 50 feet from the house so very easy to see what I am counting.

Donna

No Donna....sadly none of them have returned. My feeders sit empty. Most of the snow has melted and I think even the Juncos have given up on winter here. I had such a wonderful variety and I was really looking forward to counting them, I would love to send in "guestimates" of who was here the day before the count began but it's to hard to tell 60 birds from 100 in a guestimate....LOL watch they will all come back tomorrow when it's over.

Lisa, we haven't had any Juncos around for awhile now, I don't think they are normally gone this soon but I can't remember really. We don't have much snow on the ground either, I put 2-3 inches snow depth on the GBBC site but there are areas with no snow like in the fields and around the trees. We are supposed to get 2 inches of snow tonight/tomorrow and then more on Wed/Thur I believe not sure how much though. I am sure the birdcount will be larger tomorrow than it has been for this count.

Donna

Of course!!!!!!!!!!They are back.....well not all of them, but a smaller flock of mixed birds. The temp dropped and there were a few flurries this morning. I look out and had to laugh, they just did not want to be included in the count. ; )

Well done, Claire! I'd be very happy to see 250 of any bird at one time. Nice shots. I like the back shot of Mr & Mrs Teal. Great area to explore.

Jane