Birds and Lichens on a Gray December Day

Heavy overcast and rain through much of the day. Late in the evening it turned to snow.

I had limited time outside today. Paul N. messaged me about the Brambling near Lazaria Drive.

I headed over and got a couple of brief looks at it high in the alders. It seemed to be focused on getting alder seeds from cones. Perhaps it will stick around and come down to the ground more later in the winter.

Paul had looked for a lichen I had mentioned to him, but hadn’t been sure he had found it. We went out to Starrigavan and I showed him the Hypogymnia vittata I had noticed earlier this fall (without realizing what it was at the time).

I stopped at Moller Park on the way back. Paul spotted the crane at the far end of the track.

Sunset was still 40 minutes or so away. However, with the heavy clouds, the light was already dim and fading more.

Connor saw a pair of Red-winged Blackbirds down the street. I wasn’t able to go look at the time, but apparently they didn’t stick around very long anyway.

The past couple of days I’ve made a quick review of my bird pictures from this year. I’m going to try to put together a Sitka Birds calendar and offer it through a print on demand service. I’m treating as a low cost experiment to see how much interest there might be. If there’s enough, I might consider investing more time/effort/money into making calendars in the future.

My iNaturalist Observations for Today

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