Monthly Archives: February 2015

Winter visitors at the bird feeders

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This has been a tough winter for many of our feathered friends. Copious amounts of snow have made it difficult to find natural food and many birds that don’t usually visit feeders have been coming around, hoping for some nutritious handouts to tide them over.

For the first time in my yard I have had a hermit thrush. Hermit thrushes do over winter here on the Cape in small numbers but in 30 years I have never had one in the yard until now.

036 037Another bird that we have all summer but not usually at a feeder in the winter is the gray catbird and yet one showed up about two weeks ago and visits the suet feeder daily.

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This isn’t a great shot but check out that rusty red under the tail feathers!020

Another unusual visitor has been this northern mockingbird. Again, a bird that we know is around even in the winter but which usually stays far away from the feeders.

005 009 011And then there is the visitor to the feeders none of the other birds like to think about but hey, it’s been a tough winter and even the Cooper’s hawks are hungry…

100Many people have been spotting unusual birds in their yards this winter. What have you been seeing?

 

Finding Beauty in a Cape Cod Winter

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This has been quite a month and I’m pretty sure most of us are tired of the “S” word by now. Rain is predicted after beginning as snow for tonight and tomorrow and although it will probably make a mess of the roads I’ll be glad to see at least some of these huge snow piles wash away.

The beaches, though cold, have been stark and gorgeous, if you like that sort of thing, which I do.

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My husband and I took some time off to go exploring down Cape this past week and the reward was well worth it.

We originally aimed for Chatham so took Rt. 28, the southern route. This allowed us to stop at Seagull Beach in West Yarmouth

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and West Dennis Beach

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Chatham was freezing cold and windy so we just looked onto South Beach from the parking lot.

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We decided to head on up to Eastham and stopped at Fort Hill

And Coast Guard Beach

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And First Encounter Beach

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Where you can see how frozen Cape Cod Bay is

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Our last stop of the day was Paine’s Creek in Brewster

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As we traveled the temperature dropped about 20 degrees from morning until late afternoon but we went well prepared. Have you been out and around since all this snow fell? What is your favorite snowy beach scene?

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