Day 19.056: Last weekend's goldfinches

We had a lot of goldfinches to try to count last weekend for Project FeederWatch. In the end, we claimed 32, but suspected more like 40.  These photos suggest we were conservative.

The easiest times to attempt to count were like this:

but - as before - they were skittish and didn't stay long.

At other times the tops of the trees were dotted with them like this:

How many do you count? I think 29, 36 and 24 respectively.

Day 19.055: Small victories should be celebrated

…like beating Wordle Bot at its own game:

Day 19.054: Throwback Thursday: 18 years ago

This adorable photo from exactly 18 years ago popped up in Google Photos today. 

Day 19.053: Snow…more!

There is talk of temperatures around 60 degF next week (mid teens degC) and that we might - as a result - see the ground again. Today, however, we had some new snow to deal with.

Enough that the plow had gone by and left a pile to be cleared at the end of the driveway - a little bonus workout once again.

Day 19.052: Saturday birding

Our nature group gathered back at our original location at Laurel Hill Cemetery on Saturday morning. We heard lots of (perhaps hopeful) spring song from several kinds of birds but sightings were less numerous. Here are a few photos. 

American robin

Red-tailed hawk

Eastern bluebird

Downy woodpecker 

Northern flicker

Day 19.051: Bad plumage day?

We spotted this bluebird with a wayward feather on Saturday. We saw it several times during the day (unless more than one was having a very similar issue!)

Day 19.050: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #545

Exile #2 writes...

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus, or, Happy St. David’s Day! We celebrated appropriately enough with Welsh cakes and a big, thankful sigh that there was no rugby this weekend.

In honor of the day, I bought some daffodils and noticed that they came with a very clear warning that they were not edible. Apparently there have been occasions when people have used them in place of onions, so labeling is now general practice, as they are actually fairly toxic. Funnily enough, the Welsh word for “leeks” is “cennin”, whilst daffodils are “cennin Pedr” or in other words, “Peter’s leeks”, so I guess the resemblance has been noted for some time. It struck me that cennin Pedr could actually be a bit of dark humor, referring to St. Peter, due to their toxicity, but Pedr’s identity seems to be lost in the mists of time, and as far as I know, he was just a Welshman with a field.