Winterfest, 2009

So, I go out to Hills Creek State Park for the Winterfest sponsored by the PA DCNR and find I was correct. There was no snow anywhere except in the neat little windrows created when they plowed. The lake did have 10" of very solid and, I'm sure, hard ice. There were fishermen out there and even a few skaters. This boy-o stayed on shore. If I had been meant to walk on water, I would have run for President. Besides, three surgeries on the lower back and an aversion to sudden twisting movement and impacts with hard-as-concrete surfaces, makes me want to stand on things with much, much higher coefficients of friction than slick ice.

There was, of course, no skiing or sledding owing to the lack of snow, (I did see one youngster sledding down the grass slope and noticed his toboggan had a very slick undersides. Of course, if he had fallen off he would have gotten one heck of a rug burn from the frozen turf.) There were demonstrations on maple syrup making, a crafts table for the kids, a geocacheing activity with a small course to be run, ice fishing talks by one of the rangers, and birdwatching walks--which is why I was there.

We had quite a few members of the Tiagdaghton Audubon Society there to both lead the walk and participate in it. A DCNR ranger gave a talk on winter birds and bird feeding before we went on the trail with nearly 30 people. It's way too many for a successful bird walk. Experience tells me 5 to 8 maximum is what seems to work best vis-a-vis in group size. Larger and it's too noisy and some will never see the one bird back in the bush before it flies away. For me the ideal size is 2. I always want back-up when it comes to identifying that one difficult species you're sure to see. Anyway, like I said, 30 people is way too many.

We had little success in spotting birds in the cold and at mid day. Only three species can I confirm: Canada Goose, American Crow and Black-capped Chickadee. Even their numbers were pretty low. I'm sure the Chickadees came to see us out of curiosity as much as we were looking for them. The geese were flying overhead and their presence surprised me some as there was no really open water on the lake and the streams flowing in and out are quite narrow. The crows sounded and behaved like they were mobbing something in a pine/hemlock grove, but we couldn't spot what it might have been. Perhaps they were just getting things "understood" as regards to the nesting season approaching.

Oh, and DCNR had lots of free hot chocolate and hot dogs. Since the temperature maxed out at 32 degrees, the hot chocolate was welcome. And since the two bird walks were sandwiched around the noon hour, so were the hot dogs.

All in all it was a nice day and we did make some contacts with the DCNR folks as well as the people who went on the walks.

And it didn't start to snow until around 4 PM when I was back at the Aerie.

Speaking of back at the Aerie....I wasn't home for two minutes and had just taken off my coat when I spotted a Sharp-shinned Hawk as it swooped in and made an attempt to snare a meal at the bird feeders. I missed and went off to sit in the trees across the yard for half an hour before giving up and moving on. That makes both the Cooper's Hawk and now the Sharp-shinned hawk visitors to our feeding station. Hopefully the Sharpie will be back.