Counting the birds

We have a good friend in the neighborhood who is a legit birder. She goes on trips to watch and photograph birds. She's on the board of the Great Salt Lake Audobon chapter. She has several sets of binoculars and a scope. And she's one of the nicest people around. Recently, she's taken Ollie under her wing, along with a couple of other kids who like birds. As a result, Oliver has learned a bunch about birds. And so have I! Latest year we had the opportunity to go on the Christmas Bird Count activity. 

We counted birds in a specific area of Salt Lake County and then reported them to the group who will then report them to the chapter who then gives the numbers to the national organization and hopefully that gives us an idea of what the bird population is up to. We spend several hours in the cold and snow looking and counting birds.

We had the opportunity to spot several birds. Of course we saw California gulls and Canada geese by the hundreds, but we also saw a Kingfisher, a bald eagle, a red-tailed hawk, a Great blue falcon, a pie-billed Grebe, American coots, and many ducks including the pintail, the ruddy, the shoveler, the bufflehead, the golden eye (Common and Barrow), the green winged teal, the gadwall and this Hooded Merganser. This photo is courtesy of our friend. 

There was a dinner that evening with the Audobon chapter and it was really neat. Ollie and his two birding buddies were the only kids there. Oh, and Ansel. He didn't get to go on the count. And even though his attention span for looking at birds dwindles after 4 minutes, he couldn't bare to miss something that Oliver was doing and so he got to come. The kids' favorite part of the night was the sparkling cranberry juice and raffle. They each came home with prizes. 

I stink at recalling the birds.  I can spot a moving, flying creature from very far away (thank you contacts!), but my best guesses always tend to be wrong. Still, I try. And truth be told, I was reading the bird guide Ansel received at the raffle the other day, and hopefully someday in the future I can point and say, "hey, there's a Clark's Grebe!" And be right.