The birds have been active at the backyard feeders since early this morning with no signs of slowing down. Here eight cardinals and a sparrow are jockeying for another chance to partake.

The temperature has dropped more than ten degrees to 37° F during the day as rainy, wintry weather returns after a yesterday’s sunny 65 degrees.

Early this morning before the rain started, I counted birds for a half-hour and then submitted a second checklist for the Great Backyard Bird Count. My very first checklist ever was submitted yesterday on Day 2 of this annual event. Both days there were some birds I could not identify, but I was able to report 68 birds. These are what I counted yesterday:

Start Time: 1:45 PM – Total Birding Time: 45 minutes – Number of Species: 10
Mourning Dove – 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker – 1
Fish Crow – 2
Carolina Chickadee – 1
Tufted Titmouse – 1
Eastern Bluebird – 2
Song Sparrow – 1
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) – 1
Northern Cardinal – 6
House Finch – 2

Today’s checklist looked like this:

Start Time: 8:30 AM – Total Birding Time: 30 minutes – Number of Species: 16
Mourning Dove – 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker – 1
Blue Jay – 1
crow sp. – 1
Carolina Chickadee – 1
Tufted Titmouse – 1
Brown-headed Nuthatch – 2
Eastern Bluebird – 1
American Robin – 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler – 3
Song Sparrow – 1
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) – 1
Northern Cardinal – 12
Red-winged Blackbird – 12
Common Grackle – 6
House Finch – 4

An Eastern Towhee and more robins showed up today after I finished counting so they were not included in the tally.  This is just a snapshot in time though and perhaps someone else reported them.  In a moment of serendipity, one interesting sight today was a large group of Red-winged Blackbirds accompanied by grackles and other blackbirds. It was only two weeks ago I first spotted a Red-winged Blackbird in this backyard garden and marveled at the Exceptional Sighting. Today for a fleeting couple of minutes, there were a dozen.