This past weekend was the tease of March – spring-like weather that gives us false hope that spring is near. I suppose it is near for many, but not for me in my area of upstate New York! I will not be seeing spring weather again until late April, aside from a few similar days here and there like I just experienced. I tried to fit birds into a very busy weekend with some success. On Saturday, I watched my friends fly their Red-tailed Hawk, Rusty.
He is a very handsome Hawk, but unfortunately looks won’t get him live food and he was not very into hunting that day. Could be that he wanted to enjoy the great weather too! He was eventually fed from his lure instead.
Yes, that is a foot hanging out of his mouth. And he made a big mess when he gulped down a huge piece of the chick.
On Sunday, I went out to put up some nesting boxes around my yard. I could hear geese overhead, so I looked up.
The skies were full of migrating geese! Thousands of Canada Geese passed by as well as Snow Geese. It was hard to keep my eyes off the sky! I also saw many Blackbirds and Gulls passing through, quickly riding the winds. There were other individual birds flying by who were going to quick for me to identify. They are also very high up for me in the valley.
My resident Red-tailed Hawks were out gathering nesting material.
There were so many geese in the sky that I accidentally got this photo too.
I took a nice walk down my trails to see if I could find anything interesting. Birds were singing high in the trees, but none were low enough to photograph. I did find some other non-living things of interest: the Pileated Woodpeckers have been busy this winter.
Someone is digging up the holes that foxes used a couple of summers ago. Chances are that this is from groundhogs, but I can hope that my foxes are returning, can’t I???
The very last sighting I had on my trails was a good one! I finally found one of the feeders that the bears stole last time they raided my yard. It was still frozen into the ground, so I will recover it when the ground has thawed.
Back at the feeders, I caught one of my Red-breasted Nuthatches holding on in the winds. He’s not very shy, so he stayed put as I went by.
Not a bad weekend for birds. Spring is on its way!
…sort of.