December Red-winged Blackbird!

Becky and I were having lunch today when she noticed a male Red-winged Blackbird at the platform feeder on our patio. Now that's an even bigger December surprise than the American Tree Sparrow from a few days ago (which is still present, as well). The sun was out and the temperature was warmer, but motivation for birding/digiscoping was entirely absent today. Yeah, it happens. Probably would have been a great day to try for those Snow Buntings!

Maybe birding might have been in the picture, but we had a late start to our day. We became diverted from grocery shopping, spending the better part of the morning trying to track down the owner of a Black Labrador we found roaming down 5th Street. We slowly followed it in our car for a few blocks and then observed the animal standing in the middle of Highway Q looking a bit puzzled. Time to intervene! We called the dog over and it was super friendly...clearly someone's pet, had a collar but no ID tags! We went door to door for awhile, seeing if anyone recognized the dog, but we finally had to give up and handed it over to the Waunakee Police.

So I settled for backyard birding:

American Robin
Cedar Waxwing
Northern Cardinal
Blue Jay
American Crow
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Red-winged Blackbird
Mourning Dove
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Black-capped Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Dark-eyed Junco
American Tree Sparrow
House Sparrow

Red-winged Blackbird image © 2005 Michael McDowell