Up where I live in Alaska, snow covers the ground for about five months out of the year. Besides watching and feeding birds at the feeders I like to go to the beach and look for things there.
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Wintering birds, especially waterfowl. I actually added several new birds to my life list and/or photo list last winter, including some rarities for my area (Southwest US).
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You get ruffed grouse!? You must have the right habitat for it!
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I suppose mixed forest does sound good for ruffed grouse, but I never thought about it.
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Winter birds close to us include Dark-eyed Juncos and American Tree Sparrows. Some years, we get Snowy Owls at the Airport which is 15 minutes from our house. We can also get Rough-legged Hawks near us.
I have fallen 4 or 5 times in the last few years and once - really badly - on some icy snow. That means we try to keep track of paths that are paved and shoveled. Fortunately, we have quite a few in nature or wildlife areas close by or within an hour or two. Otherwise we like to visit areas with wildlife drives - places where we can spend 2-5 hours just driving around looking for something.
Mostly, in the winter, it’s whatever birds we can find and the dried remnants of the previous summer’s plants. Lichen and fungi on trees are a possibility but since we don’t hike a lot in the winter, not a large part of what we observe.
Mostly, I switch to other hobbies or maybe taking on a personal project at iNat (like trying to sort out lots of mistaken IDs on hedge parsley in the Upper Midwest US).
If we wanted to be really adventurous (a little harder with age - can’t drive after dark, anymore, for example), we’d visit Sax-Zim Bog in upper Minnesota where their winter birds are very different from southern MN.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=119816&subview=map
I think the unpredictability of weather up there has me cautious. But lots of folks visit from all over the world so don’t let my caution dissuade anyone else from visiting. :-)
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I’ve seen that spot on iNat before! I came across it looking at observation clusters for owls and it stood out. Northern Minnesota winter temperatures have to be pretty brutal, but it’s on my list!
There are lots of YouTube videos of people visiting Sax-Zim. Sparky Stensaas, who is the founder and director of Friends of Sax Zim Bog, has a YouTube channel that covers the Bog (although not it’s exclusively Bog content).
https://youtube.com/@sparkystensaas?si=do2m87v1jEINBjey
The videos give a decent idea of what conditions can be like.
‘Brutal’ would depend on one’s expectations to a certain extent. The birds that draw people to the area are the winter birds and we get WINTER in Minnesota, especially northern MN.
I’ve seen videos of people visiting the Bog that don’t have snow/ice scrapers for their car windows, don’t have gloves, and only a mid-weight jacket. They might kind of laugh at that but it’s not really safe. Temps can get dangerously low.
https://www.weather.gov/dlh/2014jan
Roads could get snow covered and slippery and the car should have decent tires for snow. And one should be checking the weather and prepared for anything (snow, ice, fog, wind, etc).
But, lots of people visit, there is good info available from the Friends of SZB, and you can hire guides that will drive you around if you don’t feel confident driving in the snow.
Check out how hardy people participate in the Christmas Bird Count:
https://youtu.be/6j-9Rkm8eFQ?si=euZkq22V74eUTVGY
And, you can visit in the summer (don’t need to worry about snow but you should be prepared for mosquitoes, flies, and ticks). They have a bioblitz in the summer when I recognize lots of iNatters helping with identifications in different categories of life.
Minnesota lies in a migratory flyway and we not only have lots of birds, we have lots of nature areas, and lots of birders and naturalists. I feel really lucky to live here. But, I will admit… winters are long and can be hard. (Or at least, historically they can be. The warming climate has messed with our winters lately.)
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In Delaware, we can get some relatively mild days, but there’s still not much to see. I like to get recordings of birdsong for IDs on here. And, because the light fades so quickly in the afternoon, I sometimes hear owls. Mostly I use the mild days to explore new parks and/or trails that are easier to navigate without heavy vegetation and get a sense of which ones might be most promising when the seasons change. So, I think of winter walks as “scouting expeditions” for spring and summer iNatting.
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ah, you’re lucky… In my area there are only some finches and siskins (and sparrows of course) during the winter, so… I’m more a ‘summer observer’ guy…
Cool pictures by the way!
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Thanks!
That was last winter though, and this year I’m hoping for some more action at my bird feeders… more finches perhaps :) and tits (Eurasian blue tits are the most common here)
Hopefully you’ll get more this winter! I will say every since I installed several native plant gardens around the property we’ve been getting way more birds that I had seen before.
Photo’ing birds against snow can be a challenge but can also produce some really clean shots (snowy field was in background).
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Very nice! The eye really stands out.
Just now I came across this thread (again), when I decided I’m going to find all the isopod species my hometown in southern Spain has to offer. Turning stones and logs is always a possibility for me and might yield some other interesting overwinterers as well.
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Awesome shot!!!
Wow! Is that a meadowlark?
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A just-captured Horned Lark which were common on the snow-covered fields.
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I live near Fairbanks which is right about at the center of the Alaska mainland. With plenty of snow now, tracks are everywhere. Just yesterday while on a short hike in the hills around my house, I saw tracks of fox, snowshoe hare, red squirrel, moose, and grouse. I just watched an online presentation by a local tracking expert so I hope to get better at the smaller critters – especially voles vs weasels.
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A weasel in it’s winter coat would be a very cool find! The ones around here don’t change color for the winter, but they’re still one of my favorite animals to watch.