Let me start by saying that I love hunting small game. Birds and bunnies. They are delicious, and I take much more satisfaction with small game than big game. It is just a matter of personal preference. I have taken three black bears and 15 caribou in my time, and I have called in bears, otters, coyotes, wolves and moose, all with my own voice. However, walking the woods or the tundra for grouse and ptarmigan in Alaska, or the Great Plains for pheasants as I have done maybe 10 times, surpasses all the other joys I get from the outdoors.
It also has a lot to do with working with a good dog. Upland hunting requires numerous skill sets. Picking the right kind of dog, then training them. Next, understanding the habits of the quarry. And third, stamina and marksmanship.
For those who hunt ptarmigan with a snow machine and a .22 rifle, I say “Good for you,” but frankly, I would rather take them on the fly. What greater sport is there than shooting at an almost completely all-white bird flying against an all-white background?
Yet I have a soft side for our feathered friends. A nesting pair of cranes elegantly dance and walk across our yard in the summer. I can get songbirds to feed out of my hand. I can call in songbirds, owls, loons, swans, geese and ducks. Each species’ plumage bespeaks of a cosmic Artist, who manifests Himself not only with “purple mountain majesties” along with planets, stars and galaxies, but also as a delicate painter with the finest touch, not only with flowers but with birds.
So, I joined once again the nationwide Christmas Bird Census, sponsored by the Audubon Society, which has participants that approach 80,000, mostly in the U.S. and Canada. The Kenai Peninsula has a circle of census takers in the Homer area, but also for us in the Central Peninsula. As we all know, we are enduring another snowless winter, with bitter cold to boot. Thermometers can vary wildly during cold snaps. Temperatures varied from -13 to -4 on the Kenai.
I’m glad I wasn’t birding in the Interior.
Most of the time, we scanned the skies, empty of anything but eagles and ravens. Don’t ask me where the songbirds go when it is this cold. I am not an expert, but we looked for barns and stables, thinking that birds would be attracted to warmer environs and hay. One stableman was shoveling out pick-up truck loads of horse apples, likely the weekly cleanings from three horses, but there wasn’t a tweetie bird in sight.
Even when you are bird watching from a car, you still need to get out and walk through likely areas. My Brittany usually can sniff up a spruce grouse, but not this day. So, we took a dead-end, and all of a sudden there were plump birds, looking like so many quail, flitting about. I knew instantly what they were and told my wife to grab her binox.
Racing back-and-forth in gangs from their perches in spruce trees to the “feeding station” of a berry-laden tree, were Bohemian Waxwings. They are so beautiful. God carefully drops different colors of red, yellow and white paint in amongst their otherwise slate-grey feathers, and puts on the bird a smart-looking crest and roguish black mask.
For His own reasons, God hides himself from us, but gives us hints all the time, if we know how and where to look for Him.
Then there was more empty sky-scanning – driving over 70 miles by the end of the day. Suddenly, there were scads of small birds, swirling wildly amongst birches, alighting only for a moment. They then disappeared by the time we got out of the car, which was stopped selfishly right in the middle of an icy subdivision road.
There was a small driveway entrance amongst the towering white birches, almost like a Bev Doolittle painting. Only it was birds, not horses, which were hiding in the branches. My wife is always nervous that someone is going to come out and scold us away – wielding a gun – but this neighborhood looked too good for that. And there they were, about 30 redpolls gorging on catkins.
As we approached sunset at 3:30 and were in our final neighborhood of the day, suddenly, an even larger flock of waxwings appeared. The day’s total was about 80.
Then there are the people who, when they learn what you are doing, don’t mind your car blocking the road or having you stare at their house bird feeders with binoculars. The only two nuthatches we saw were at Tustumena Smokehouse. I went in, chatted with the super friendly owner, whose shop was loaded with fishing & hunting photos. He told us where his bird feeders were.
At the redpoll stop, a charming home was laid into the birches, and my wife suggested that I go up and explain ourselves, which I often do. There was an Italian name on the door, Toniones, so I knew I would be OK.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
But it got more interesting. The man and his wife, slightly younger than us, were from KANSAS, and used this very small but beautiful home as their summer getaway for fish and cooler temperatures. They came up for a two-weeks White Christmas and, of course, were wondering where it went!
We did see 31 eagles and 60 ravens, along with five gray jays and five magpies. Our count of only eight species was a record low for me, but then again, so were the temperatures.
I wrote on this topic a year ago, where there is other advice about winter bird watching, here.
It’s a lousy winter – so far. If we don’t get snow, go ice skating and ice fishing, but don’t forget the brave avian creations that soldier on in the dark hours and slim pickings.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
