The First Bird of the Year

Happy New Year’s Day!

This morning I woke up filled with excitement. A new year and new birds to be seen. The first bird of 2012 was the Common Redpoll. I watched six Redpolls at my feeders for a minute and then two Black-capped Chickadees flew in, and two minutes later nine more redpolls came to the feeders. As I was studying the Redpolls I saw there was a Hoary Redpoll in the flock. A Black-billed Magpie flew past the feeders and frightened the Redpolls away. After only 10 minutes I had already seen four species of birds, a good start to 2012 especially six hours north of the US border in winter.

Common Redpoll,