Winter Update 2015

It's not very wintery here in 'Winterpeg'. It has been very, very mild so far. The snow came late, and now it's melting! It's been up to 4 Degrees Celsius (39 F)!! Now there are large grass spots around the yard.
It is not often at all that you can go biking in December! We can't even go snowmobiling anymore because there isn't enough snow.
Also, every year we set up a skating rink in our backyard, this year, it looks likely that we won't. Not only because it's so warm now, and there is another reason...
We are going to Florida soon! We are going to drive there over Christmas, we're leaving on the 16th, only a bit more than a week. It's going to seem like an extra short winter, because it's warm and because we're going to be away for a few weeks. It's going to be strange for me, because I've never been away for Christmas, and I'm used to -20-30 C days all winter.
We are going to miss the Oak Hammock Marsh Christmas bird count, but going to Florida is worth it. We'll see many lifers I'm sure, I've never been down south before.

Two Saturdays ago, we went to Oak Hammock Marsh with Christian Artuso, to look for owls. We saw 12 owls in total, 3 owl species. We saw 2 Snowy Owls, 8 Short-eared Owls, and 2 Great-horned Owls. The main focus of the trip was Short-eared Owls, which was a lifer. I will try to make a post soon.

I haven't been posting too much, except for Weekly What Bird and Feathers on Friday, I've been quite busy with school, and learning a language (Dutch). In November I also did a writing challenge month.

Here is a photo earlier in November, as you can see it was still green, sometimes we have snow then.

Pileated Woodpecker

 For several days in a row, William saw the Great-horned Owl (I'm pretty sure most of you know about it, it has been coming back to our yard every winter for many years) and took some nice photos.

Great-horned Owl

Great-horned Owl

Great-horned Owl

We've had some other special birds around our yards, Grosbeaks! This is the first year we've had Evening Grosbeaks here, and the first year in many that we've had Pine Grosbeaks. In fact,  the last time I saw a Pine Grosbeak was before I was even interested in birds!

Evening Grosbeak

 The first time a Pine Grosbeak has been at our feeder for four years.

Pine Grosbeak

Pine Grosbeak female

 This Pine Grosbeak hit the window. I waited a while, and thought it might be dead, so I went out and checked on it, it wasn't. I went back inside and waited a while longer, after a while I thought it might be dead. When I went out to look at it, it flew away.

Pine Grosbeak