Thursday, January 1, 2009

New Year's Day - 01/01/09

American Tree Sparrow - Image taken through glass window using Canon Powershot A540 and Minox 8 x 32 binocs.

Started the New Year with a relatively low key day just noting birds on foot around Amherst and on the feeders on the back deck at home. In the afternoon, I spent a bit of time on the Umass campus looking for feeding flocks on the fruit trees and finding some reasonable flocks of American Robins but little else. Large numbers (c.100) of Pine Siskins remain in the North Whitney and High Street areas of Amherst and we managed to draw in a couple to our feeders.

It wasn't the sort of day for standing around and birding with temperatures topping out at 15 deg F and a bitter Westerly wind making it feel even colder, but bringing its own kind of stark beauty.


American Tree Sparrow - This bird has been visiting the deck for about a week. A very nice bird to have on the feeders as I rarely see them around N. Whitney Street.




Dark-eyed Juncos - we usually have about 20 of these visiting the deck.


American Black Ducks - part of a tight pack of 15 on the Umass campus pond in the last remaining patch of open water.

White-throated Sparrow - Orchard Hill, Umass campus.



American Robin - c.200 around Orchard Hill, Umass campus, Amherst.

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