Snow Snow Snow

I decided to go for my first cross country ski of the season today, as there is enough snow. But as I was skiing, I was also birding! I was surprised by what I had seen back in the forest. A small, noisy group of Wild Turkeys made a brief in-flight appearance in between the hawthorns. Had a couple Horned Larks fly-over calling over the period, as well as House Finch's. About half-way through my ski, I came across a little pocket of birds, at leased 10 B-C Chickadees, and one of each Brown Creeper, Downy, and Hairy Woodpeckers, and soon-after had a Cooper's Hawk fly by over the trees chasing a Mourning Dove, I lost it before I could tell if it caught it, so I'll never know, but there always cool to see around. Near the end of my walk I found another about 6 Chickadees in a group with a single Common Redpoll, first one I've seen up-close at my house for a while. Also, at about the same time, I had a single, lonely Common Grackle fly over! Its getting fairly late for them to still be around!

Black-capped Chickadee from a few winter's ago