The year is almost over when the holiday season begins but it’s a wonderful season. Despite everything (like COVID) this starts one of my favorite times of the year. Friends, family and good cheer–and that’s just part of it. I love birding in the winter, in fact, that’s the best time to go birding because there are fewer mosquitoes, ticks, and poisonous snakes with which to contend. No more spraying down with bug spray and struggling to put on snake boots before I can go outside!

And birds seem to be more visible in the winter, mostly because of a lack of leaves on the trees (of course–nothing like stating the obvious), and we get a new variety of birds. During the summer, we have mostly Chipping Sparrows, which are cute, but that’s only one species. Wintertime brings us White-throated Sparrows, Song Sparrows, Swamp Sparrows, Vesper Sparrows, Savannah Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, and the occassional Lincoln’s Sparrow in addition to the cute little Chipping Sparrows. And while we lose many of our brightly colored warblers, we gain Palm Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and a few Orange-crowned Warblers. In exchange for the Red-eyed Vireos which leave us, we get Blue-headed Vireos, and the Hermit Thrush replaces our Wood Thrush.

This year, after planting thousands of trees on the swamp cutover, I was initially sad to see that most of the varieties of oaks we planted didn’t make it, but most (if not all) of the cypress are doing well and other trees like Sweet Gums are starting to grow. A lot of folks just consider Sweet Gums to be a “trash tree” that is not very useful for wildlife, but those folks are wrong. Dead wrong. For the first time in a long time, we’ve had Purple Finches arrive for the winter and guess what they are eating? Sweet Gum seeds. In fact, they spread just as many seeds as they eat as dozens of seeds pop out of the gum balls while they pry loose a few to eat. The American Goldfinches love the Sweet Gum seeds, too, and I see small flocks of both varieties of finches high up in the tops of our Sweet Gum trees.

So I’m not that disappointed to see more Sweet Gums sprouting up.

And while the trees are just about three feet tall or so, cattails and swamp reeds are growing everywhere. I’m seeing all sorts of birds here which I haven’t seen before and may have only seen once or twice in my life before this. Just a couple of days ago, I was walking through the center of the cutover tract (we call it our Karson City tract) and was shocked to see a Sedge Wren. My heart was beating like a drum when I saw it–I’ve only glimpsed Sedge Wrens twice before in my life. What an honor!

If we have Sedge Wrens, then we might also have one or two Le Conte’s Sparrows as we are right on the border of their wintertime range. I’d love to see one of those Sparrows, in addition to the elusive Lincoln’s Sparrow. There might be other birds too such as a Sora, which I haven’t seen in our area. Yet. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? That’s the fascinating thing about birds: they move around and show up in new areas all the time.

Speaking of birds new to our area: we also have a Bald Eagle cruising around. Just a few days ago I saw one. It was following a huge flock of White Ibis that likes a swampy pond in the far reaches of the Karson City Tract. The eagle paused for a break in one of the trees along a run (stream) used by the ibis before it took off again and headed toward the swampy pond.

The last two years, there’s been an immature Bald Eagle haunting the property off-and-on and it appears the bird has finally reached adulthood. I’m glad to see that it has remained in the area. It’s not around all of the time, but it’s thrilling to see it once in a while, cruising overhead or sitting in one of our trees.

All of these creatures make me wonder what else is out there that I just haven’t seen yet. So it’s time to get out there and roam around a bit. One hundred acres is a lot of territory to cover.

Well, I hope you have time during the holidays to go outside and see some of the wonders of nature. Enjoy the spirit of the season and the gifts that winter brings to us!

Oh, and don’t forget the Geminid Meteor shower which should be a good one on the night of December 13/14, 2020. Take a few moments to stand outside (preferably in a dark area) and wait about 20 minutes for your eyes to adjust so you can get the full impact. We’re going out with a couple of friends to the Karson City Tract where it will be super dark and plan to make a night of star gazing and meteor watching.

Best wishes for an amazing holiday season!