A Brief Winter Warm-up

Yesterday's temp hit 40 degrees! And today was another extremely nice day to be outside. At the time of writing this the high temp for the day has likely not been recorded yet but I'm guessing it was just a few degrees above 40 today! When I arrived at the park this morning around 10am there was still just a little bit of hoarfrost left on lower lying and shaded vegetation. There wasn't much left and by the time I was done with my walk there was none. Near the foot bridge over Shingle Creek on the north end, I ran into a fellow birder friend of mine and we decided to go in search of Owls. I picked an area where I'd last seen one and we started in. In not too much time we did locate a Great Horned Owl but he was up in some thick trees right in front of the sun. I took a few pics before he flew off and this was the best photo I got. I sure enjoy seeing them but it's been a long time since I've had a decent photo opportunity. Today was again not one of those! Oh well, it is nice to know they are still around the park. I'm guessing they will be getting ready to mate in about a week or two. Besides the Owl today, I saw the following birds: Black-capped Chickadee, Northern Cardinal, House Finch, Blue Jay, Dark-eyed Junco, House Finch, Hairy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, American Robin, Mallard and I heard but didn't see American Goldfinch. In addition, another birder friend of mine later pointed out a Northern Shrike to me! I only got one very crummy photo not even worth posting here. But I'll count it on my "Northern Shrike Sightings" list on the right hand column of my blog. There was one last bird for me to see today and that was another Raptor –a Red-tailed Hawk. He was perched high above the Duck Pond on the southwest corner of the park. This is a fairly common place for me to see them. I don't know if they are watching the Mallards or what. Although I'm sure a Red-tailed is capable of taking a Mallard, I think it take a bit more energy than they are willing to expend on any given day. I snapped only 1 photo of the Hawk perched before it looked directly at me and moved on.

Early signs of Spring

This Saturday morning I arrived at the park just after 8am. Technically today is the LAST DAY OF WINTER!!! The temp was a steady 34 degrees all morning and there was a very fine frost coating on everything. It was kind an unusual frost in that if you bumped the branches, it would fall right off like a heavy dust. Somewhere before the bridge I almost stepped on a Woolly Bear caterpillar on the trail. I thought for sure it was dead and left over from last fall until I noticed it move ever so slightly. When I picked him up he could barely curl up into a ball probably due to the cold temp. I think this is the earliest I've ever seen any caterpillar before. As I was making my way around the park I faintly heard a single bird call off to my left. I paid no attention and kept walking for a bit until I thought about when I'd last heard that sound. There it was, the first Red-winged Black of the season. Again I thought this seemed a bit early but I heard or spotted 3 or 4 more before making it around the park. I was walking the opposite way around today so I was coming around the ball fields near the end. Since the path around there is always icy I decided to cut across the baseball diamond and started to notice these odd looking patterns. They were trails or tunnels through the grass made either by mice or voles underneath the winter snow. At first glance, I think this photo looks a lot like an aerial view of a river system taken from an airplane.