January winds down…

The forecast suggested there might be some sun, seasonably cold temps, and no wind this morning. Well, the sun never made it, but as the dearly departed Meat Loaf used to say, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad“.

The nice still air made for great listening, and the birds are really starting to get into the swing of spring. The cardinals, chickadees, and robins were all starting to sing their old favorites.

The river, however, was surprisingly empty, with only a few mallards, the common merganser hen, and one goldeneye drake, but no buffleheads, hooded mergansers, or gadwalls. It will be interesting to see if the coming warm-up brings them back or chases more away.

In any case, the top story this morning was the return of our kestrel, and here she is perched again on one of the guywire flying saucers right over the river.

I didn’t manage to take any other pictures today, which means I can show you more of the pictures from yesterday. Yay! Here’s another herring gull, at the far north end, who found a morsel on the ice in the middle of the river.

There were a few goldeneye hens on the river yesterday, and here’s one with a drake resting in a little sliver of open water at the far north end.

From the island with all the little birds, here’s a goldfinch gleaning the littlest seeds.

And here’s a dark-eyed junco who somehow failed to evade my camera for a change.

Finally, here’s a female red-bellied woodpecker excavating a hole in a tree trunk.

I read on the Pedia of Wik that “The male red-bellied woodpecker takes the initiative in locating a nest hole. He will then seek approval from his female mate by mutual tapping. The female red-bellied woodpecker accepts the nesting hole by completing the excavation and entering the nest hole.” Here’s hoping that’s what we’re seeing here, although he sure did leave her a lot of excavating to complete. Sheesh! Perhaps he has other assets she found sufficiently attractive.