Visit to Blue Hills- January 28th

We were able to get out to Blue Hills this past Sunday since it was such nice weather (sunny and in the 30s- a relief from Friday's frigid temperatures). We went to the area east of Ponkapoag Pond. We had been out there once before to go to the Ponkapoag Bog area- one of my boyfriend's favorite areas in the park. We'll have to go back there in the spring to see what kinds of birds there are since it's such a unique part of Blue Hills.

A friend had given me a tip to expect some Northern birds to come down from Canada due to the cold temperatures. However, he was expecting them to be down on the Cape and I never made it down there this weekend. Nonetheless, we heard a lot of different calls while we were out in Blue Hills, but weren't able to spot very many. That's the difficult part about being in mature woods- we can hear them but can't spot them since they're up so high. I'll have to start looking into binoculars. I have the Columbia pair from Christmas so that's a good start in terms of getting familiar with how to use them.

The best spot of the day was at a bend in the path where there was a sunny little clearing. There I spotted some chickadees, titmice, nuthatches and a kinglet.

Earlier in the hike I spotted something that looked like a darker, drab-colored nuthatch. We consulted the Sibley Guide when we got back and it turned out to be a Brown Creeper.

Tufted Titmouse:

Brown Creeper: