Under Clear Skies

Ice Storm - Luke Tiller

My Bigby list had majorly stalled since last weekend and wasn’t being helped by the ice storm which left me feeling like  just hibernating for the next couple of months. I just couldn’t come up with anything new the handful of times I popped out anyway. Most amazingly 10 days in I still hadn’t managed to track down a lousy Blue Jay. The last time my dad was here he was amazed by the beautiful birds we had in the yard like Blue Jay and Cardinal. Sadly it usually takes an outsiders eyes to remind you how special those common or garden birds are, however 10 days into my BGBY and my first pair of Blue Jays was a real right for sore eyes. Pre-storm (although this one was a bit of a non-event 8 inches of predicted snow rapidly turning into about 1 and 1/2) on the Saturday the yard was pretty hopping and I also added American Tree Sparrow as a new species, Pine Siskins were flitting around in the birches (one was even picking up grit from the road) and there were about 15-20 Eastern Bluebirds in one giant flock picking at the Multiflora Rose and Cedar berries.

Today I took a stroll out to Meadow Ridge, a nice healthy walk with lots of pulse quickening hills gave me some decent exercise. Between here and Meadow Ridge I managed to find a total of 3 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers which I thought was pretty good (although they seem to be generally increasing in regularity here in winter). I was impressed by how well their mottled black, brown and white backs mimicked the craggy barked trees and nicely broke up their silhouettes as they foraged. A nice addition to my BGBY list. Onwards towards 40 species!!!

New Bigby Species: AMERICAN TREE SPARROW, BLUE JAY!, YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER for a total of 36 species.

Digibinning - easier at feeders!

So I started my Big Green Big Year, or BGBY as it shall henceforth be known, less than bright and early today. First bird of the year was a somewhat prosaic Dark-eyed Junco (digibinned above). My dad thought the name sounded cool – the bird itself is probably a bit of a letdown considering the rather flamboyant name.

I then took a quick break after amassing a sad 9 species in the yard to go meet good birding friends Penny Solum, Joe Bear, AJ Hand and respective families for some brunch. Post brunch we went for some ‘dirty brown’ birding 😉 but I quickly called it a day with frostbitten toes after the 1st stop at Stratford – leaving the rest of the boys to complete their days birding. In the 20-30 mins at Long Beach though I managed to see a couple of ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKS, a 1st cycle GLAUCOUS GULL and a similarly aged ICELAND GULL.

Already home by early afternoon I decided to renew by BGBY by going on a short walk down to the local pond which will be my waterbird mainstay for the year. It was frozen solid but I did manage to collect a few nice birds along the route including a highlight of 2 BLACK VULTURES before I even left the yard and then a lingering Great Blue – which we missed off of the Wilton Xmas Bird Count the other week! Best sighting of the day though were two super cute Red Squirrels which were hanging out near the back of the school – it was there that I discovered how tough digibinning (taking pictures through your binoculars) is without the aid of a feeder to draw in your subject matter – especially with shaky cold hands.

I have already discovered what I love about the BGBY, and that is that it a) makes you start to get inventive about where you might find birds and b) that it brings a whole new level of unexpectedness into your birding world. That’s the same thing I love about the Christmas Bird Count – it makes you start to think of where you might find birds in places that you might never look at any other part of the year. Going off the beaten track like this can produce the most unexpected gems and rarities and if it wasn’t for that little nudge to try something different those birds might never be discovered. OK it’s not like I have ever found anything super rare that way, but at the same time who would have expected to find a Yellow-breasted Chat at a feeder behind the 7th Day Adventist Church in Wilton like we did last year on the Christmas count. Those little out of the ordinary finds though to me are as exciting as chasing a rare bird that is staked out  somewhere across the state.

23 BGBY Species in all for the day – more tomorrow I hope. I think I will knock together a Google Map for my BGBY just to see where I get stuff over the year.

BGBY List:

Great Blue Heron, Black Vulture, Turkey Vulture, Coopers Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Mourning Dove, Belted Kingfisher, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Tufted Titmouse, Black-capped Chickadee, Carolina Wren, Eastern Bluebird, American Robin, Northern Mockingbird, American Crow, Northern Cardinal, American Goldfinch, House Finch, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, European Starling