The Great Backyard Bird Count is this weekend. I spent three hours birding today, watching my feeders and walking in the woods to see what was out there. Overall I had a pretty good day for a warm, wet February day. For the GBBC, I record all the birds I see and the maximum number I see at one time. For instance, if I see 2 cardinals at 7:00, 4 cardinals at 8:00 and 3 cardinals at 9:00, the number of cardinals I report is 4 since that is the most I saw at one time. That system eliminates the possibility of counting one bird multiple times. I may start keeping records like that every time I go birding. There were a few nice surprises today. A Barred Owl flew into a tree and looked at me for a couple of minutes before flying off. While at the new pond, I heard an interesting bird call that I couldn't identify. I walked into to woods to find three Hermit Thrushes making the calls. As I walked further into the woods, two Great Horned Owls were sitting in a tall tree watching me. I saw them before I made them fly away. That was neat to look at them. If I had only had my camera . . . An interesting observation is I saw no American Goldfinches. The woods should be full of them.

I'm not sure why (climate change? hurricane?) but several of the oak trees still have green leaves on them. Mostly willow oaks and water oaks have them, but there were even a few post oaks that still had leaves. I just wonder why that happened. It's interesting that trees considered to be deciduous (trees that lose their leaves in the winter) have not this year. On many trees that lost their leaves, I noticed buds coming in. Spring is coming.

Birds Seen 2/13/09 and numbers (31 species): Eurasian Collared Dove (4), Mourning Dove (1), Great Horned Owl (2), Barred Owl (1), Red-bellied Woodpecker (2), Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (1), Downy Woodpecker (1), Northern Flicker (1), Pileated Woodpecker (2), Eastern Phoebe (1), White-eyed Vireo (2), Blue Jay (2), American Crow (3), Purple Martin (1), Carolina Chickadee (2), Tufted Titmouse (3), Carolina Wren (1), Ruby-crowned Kinglet (3), Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (3), Eastern Bluebird (2), Hermit Thrush (3), American Robin (22), Gray Catbird (1), Northern Mockingbird (1), European Starling (5), Yellow-rumped Warbler (37), White-throated Sparrow (2), Northern Cardinal (2), Red-winged Blackbird (10), Brewer's Blackbird (45), House Sparrow (5)