It’s been a tough winter. Fortunately a mid-January thaw (referred to as “wintermission” by The Weather Network and virtually no one else) brought about a temporary rise in temperatures and spirits two weeks ago. I managed to remove the sheet of ice that covered my driveway as a result of the freezing rain we received earlier in the month, and have been able to walk on the sidewalks without fearing I might fall and injure my bones, joints or back. Unfortunately the thaw ended about a week ago, temperatures dropped, and winter returned. We got more snow last weekend, and this week the deep freeze returned.
Because the weekends have been either brutally cold or snowy and messy I have not been able to add many birds to my year list. It took me 15 days into the new year to add American Goldfinch to my list, when I found a group of four of them sitting in the tree next to the bus stop. That brought my year list up to 33, and I didn’t add another bird to it until the following Saturday when I found some Golden-crowned Kinglets at Sarsaparilla Trail.
The Pathless Wood 