This year nearly 80 members of the Peterborough naturalist community coordinated our 66th annual Christmas bird count. The count happened in December, but I’m only now writing about it since I have caught up from the holidays.
There have been lots of recaps and personal accounts in the newspaper and people’s blogs, but I thought there would be no harm in adding my story to the stack.
After finally meeting up with our group we made our way down to the area surrounding the Peterborough airport. It was a slow start to the morning, only making out some starlings and chickadees on the horizon. It was to be expected, the temperature was below 30 degrees. We made our way down the the Otonabee river and teased some red-bellied woodpeckers out of the silver maple swamp. It was one of the most beautiful mornings I’ve ever seen on the Otonabee, steam coming off the river and the sun sparkling in the ice that had formed on the tree branches.
The Otonabee show’s its beauty in the depth of winter’s cold.
Our big sighting for the day was two bald eagles soaring side by side along the treeline, one perched up on a tree branch in clear view for all of use to gaze upon. Unfortunately, I was unable to get any decent pictures at such a great distance.
Despite the cold weather, it was one of the best bird counts I’ve been on, I’m quite looking forward to next year. Hope you can make it too!
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