On this snowy day with freezing rain, Tasha was covered with ice and snow that clung to the tips of her fur. 
TashaShe didn’t seem to pay any attention to it. She was focused on the peanuts Sharon was scattering while Scott worked on unplugging the drain to lower the level of the pond.
TashaOut the window, dark-eyed juncos, also called snowbirds, were appropriately here. The growing number of white-throated sparrows were joined today by over a dozen fox sparrows on their way to their breeding grounds over 300 miles farther north.
I was surprised how close one of the remaining pine siskins dared to get to the red squirrel. The squirrel pretty much ignored the bird and focused on encroaching squirrels.
The herring gull named Clear Eyes was here without her mate (Speckles), making me think mating season is over for her for this year, but Our Gull was here after a long absence with a male I didn’t recognize. Also here looking in the window at me again this year is the gull named “8 & 4.” Her name refers to the 8 o’clock and 4 o’clock positions of the two black dots on its left iris.
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| Herring gull | Red squirrel ignoring Pine siskin | Herring gull 8&4 |
A nice couple from Europe couldn’t register online for a Black Bear Field Course somehow and rightly emailed me at
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| White-throated sparrow | Fox sparrow | Dark-eyed junco |
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center