CBC 2017

     It's that time of year- time for the Christmas Bird Count! I once again joined the Prospect Park North team and we tallied up 48 species including some oddballs like a house wren, a grey catbird, and an Eastern Towhee. Many birds from Prospect were also considered saves-- meaning no one else birding Kings County had those birds in their territories they covered.

For History of the CBC: http://www.audubon.org/history-christmas-bird-count
For "Raw Results" of the Kings Co. Tallies: http://prospectsightings.blogspot.com/2017/12/xmas-count-raw-results.html

For 8 hours of being out, I kept to a smaller lens, my 70 x 300mm. I would have been much more sore today with anything bigger. Weather was cold, with snow on the ground from the previous day. It was really quite beautiful, scenery-wise. By later, the day did warm up and was a bit more comfortable, but it took a few hours to get there.
Here are a few "captures" of the day...

The rose garden, early. Quite frigid with fresh, powdery snow - but even as a winter hater, it was pretty darn lovely.

We spotted many a hornets nest from last summer. And it was explained to us by team leader, and naturalist, Paul how these nests host over wintering insects and how they can also attract birds, looking for an easy meal.

Literally, on cue, a red-bellied woodpecker creeps up the branch and just digs in as if it overheard us and thought, "WOW, great idea!"

This bird was not shy about getting in there to grab some goodies.

Yum!

Seeds put out by an anonymous bird fan in the Vale of Cashmere attracted in Blue Jay, Cardinal, White-throated and song sparrow, as well as a few house sparrows. Earlier in the day we spotted a grey catbird here, before the seeds were present.

A mourning dove, whom was foraging in the compost piles behind the zoo, and potentially warming up on the heat the decomposing matter creates.

A downy woodpecker was foraging on these sweet gum seed balls. Also, nearby this area, in the Midwood we saw the parks one and only black-capped chickadee for the count (crazy!).

A brown creeper, creepin'.

The days junk bird- great blue herons, they were active, we saw 2, but then saw those (presumed) same birds flying from one waterway to the next.