Day 59 - 150th Species
The loon playing the "5" is not a clue... It was from a Canada 150th Anniversary logo.
The slow going of February has continued. Tomorrow I'll write my monthly recap for February, and mostly focus on the slow month it was. Not a bad thing though. But before that lets talk about today. In the past month there have been a handful of species that escaped me. And this winter we didn't have a single report of a species I have come to expect annually. This kind of throws a wrench into the gears when you plan and things don't line up. In the past 10 days though 2 species that became must gets popped up on my radar and eluded me on my first attempt to find them. So this morning with fingers crossed, and a tank full of gas I set out to see if I could bring them in before they were gone for the year, with no guarantees for the winter that's now just 9 months away.
It didn't take long to track down both--cutting right to the chase in less than 3 hours I had my targets, and as luck would have it I only ran into one birder I knew. I'm almost hesitant to talk about it, because what if they follow this blog? I doubt they do, but what if? Eek. I guess if this person found out, I actually wouldn't care, I really like them, and I think they would keep my secret for the upcoming 10 months. So I shared my finds with them, but then, I didn't report them to the local lists or put them in eBird. It would be too obvious at the moment, and I'm fairly certain several Narnian's are following the blog. So I apologize for not sharing my sightings, but at the same time, others have reported them in the last week, so I am just a chaser at this point.
One of the birds that had eluded me up till now was the Unscrupulous Marauder. This darn bird had popped up 3 or 4 times in the past 58 days, and I had tried 3 or 4 times to find it--without luck! Today I found it lounging right out in the open like it hadn't a care in the world. I followed this up with a Loud Dancer. There must have been 7 or 8 reports this winter, and I just hadn't been able to pick one up--until today. Mission accomplished, with these two birds, I technically don't need to chase any other regular winter visitors to Narnia. There are still 2 birds I could try to get in the next week. If that happens the winter was basically a great success.
I'll talk more about misses tomorrow, and the plan for the coming month. Tomorrow is my extra day for 2016--Leap Day. Can I add a bird on this day that might just be the key to breaking a big year record? We'll see...
New birds today: 2
Year List: 150
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