I’m like that in all aspects of life and birding is no different. I plan ahead to increase the odds of having great experiences.
Since I started birding in Feb. 2015 I have seen a lot of the usual winter suspects that are now turning up such as the Common Goldeneye ducks so I don’t feel a huge urgency to get out there (although I do want that flock of Evening Grosbeaks still). I do hope this week to get out to Mount Uniacke to hunt about for a Black-backed Woodpecker and some White-winged Crossbills with a birding friend, and at some point in January to the Valley to look for Short-eared Owls but other than that no big plans. Just the usual walks in the woods that I always did even when not a birder.
And so I must plan. I will have to travel to New England in the Spring for work so will make a day on the weekend to visit “warbler mecca” in Kent, CT.
It’s funny how a dirt road in a town I’ve never visited could be something to look so forward to isn’t it? This post I found in a birdie google search turned up this fellow’s account of River Road:
And I do so hope to see a Cerulean Warbler. We do get them in NS but I don’t think they are easy to find. It would seem they get a nice variety of both warblers and non-warblers in the Spring in Kent. I can’t wait!
Closer to home, I am looking forward to a trip to Cape Breton in June of this year. I have family in Sydney so can always make a trip in the summer. Not to mention how wonderful Inverness Beach is, but I digress.
You will find me some morning in June at Money Point at the crack of dawn hunting for Bicknell’s Thrush. Thank you for this tip and location Richard Stern.
Bicknell’s are not plentiful these days from what I understand and it will be tough for me to distinguish them from the other Thrush species I’m told by anything other than sound. I do love a challenge and think this will be as fun or more fun than looking for a Cackling Goose in a large flock of Canada Geese. Not for everyone, but great fun for a field birder.
Up until now the only Thrush I’ve been able to identify and photograph is the one that fills our forests with it’s beautiful sound all summer in Nova Scotia, the Hermit Thrush (and you know Joel Plaskett likes this one right?).
As lovely as all this is to dream of, the ground is covered in snow and these adventures are many months away and so I have started to watch the BBC series “The Life of Birds” to keep it together in the interim 😉