3/10 This orphan entry has been sitting around for a few weeks waiting to be edited and added to. At this point, I'll just call it done.

Snowed Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday. From Wednesday through Saturday, the temperature dropped and the sun appeared. Found a few nice basking spots between tasks. On the 12th, 13th and 14th the sea ice extended from near the Galankin dock to mid channel in Crescent Bay.

The snow has a scattering of seed from the spruce, alder and hemlock trees.

	February 9	February 10	February 11	February 12	February 13	February 14
Double Crested Cormorant		1	1	1
Pelagic Cormorant	1	1	4	5	2
Great Blue Heron		1			1	1
Mallards			4	4	3	3
Long-tailed Duck		5		4	1	2
Surf Scoter	5	10	5	5	2
White-winged Scoter		7
Barrow's Goldeneye	1			2	1	8
Bufflehead						6
Common Merganser	4	2	1		2	4
Red Breasted Merganser			1
Mew Gull	2	1				2
Glaucous-winged Gull	1	1	1	1	1	4
Gull spp		1	4
Common Murre		1
weather	slight chop	slight chop	sunny, calm	calm cold, ice	calm clear, ice	calm, clear, ice
time	8:15	8:15	8:15	8:15	8:15	9:30

I'm trying to stay a bit more caught up with the data I"ve collected. I might start doing a monthly frequency summary instead of the weekly reports. This last week besides the influx of siskins, there were a few days of White-winged scoters. I'm pretty sure that they usually can be found on the west side of Galankin and Breast islands, perhaps the westerlies drove them in. Harlequins finally made an appearance in the count, I had been wondering when I would see them on the commute, they are around town and I've seen them in previous years between the island and town, but wasn't sure when.

The weather was not inspiring this past week. Buckets of rain (6.3 inches), the flu and deadlines kept me on task or at least in the office.

	2/2/2009	2/3/2009	2/4/2009	2/5/2009	2/6/2009	2/7/2009
Pacific Loon						1
Pelagic cormorant	4	3	2	5	4	5
Great Blue Heron		1		1
Harlequin				2		3
Long-tail Duck	3				6
Surf Scoter	5		1	7	5
White-winged Scoter	3		5	4
Barrow's Goldeneye		3	3	2
Bufflehead	6					4
Common merganser	8	3
Mew Gull			16		6
Glaucous-winged gull	2	1	8	1	1
Gull spp		4
Raven	2	2	1
Crow	1
Pine Siskin			3
weather	west swell, no chop		calm	snowing, calm	raining, west swell no chop	raining hard,se chop, windy

Siskins seem to be more abundant around town and at my feeder this last week or so. At least I've seen many more of them around the island. This last week there were siskins along the trail every day regardless of the weather. Today when I walked around the lake, it seemed like there was a siskin or two every few yards. No, I don't think I was herding the same two around the trail.

The siskins are not what I would call wary either on the trail or at the feeder. I haven't had them eat out of my hand yet, but they let me get pretty close. I can have my hand on the rail while they feed about a foot away on the same rail. The nuthatches and chickadees at the feeder are also pretty comfortable with me, but the juncos are not. They are okay with me on the deck, but not too close.

Although the siskins aren't too worried about me, they do seem to be pretty aggressive toward their fellow birds. The tussles were less frequent when there were 6 siskins at the feeder, but when the number got up to 12 in the late afternoon, the aggression increased. They flew at each other in kind of a face to face aerial combat or crouching with wings slightly spread, with bills open. Birds knocked other birds off the perches, the deck and the suet feeder.

The nuthatches still visited the feeder or rail, but flewn in, grabbed a seed and flew off. The chickadees pretty much adopted the same strategy, but seemed a bit more persistant at trying to get at the feeder. When there was only one siskin at the feeder, a chickadee was tolerated at the adjacent suet feeder, but not at the same feeder. The juncos seemed a bit more able and willing to hold their own .

	1/26/2009	1/27/2009	1/28/2009	1/29/2009	1/30/2009
Horned Grebe					1
Pelagic Cormorant		1	1	2	3
Great Blue Heron			1
Long-tail Duck		2	2
Surf Scoter		5		1	2
Barrow's Goldeneye	5	1		7	17
Common Merganser		6
Mew Gull		3		2
Glaucous-winged Gull		6	3	3	2
Gull spp	5		5	4	3
Common Murre					1
Bald Eagle		`1	3
Raven				2	2
Crow		1
Weather	snowing hard, windy	slight chop	calm	raining	westerly, rough
Time	8:15	8:15	8:15	8:15	8:15

My note taking needs a bit of work, the weather comments are a bit on the weak side and it seems that I managed to misplace the count from the 31st. It was snowing on Saturday and after dance class, I walked up the Indian River trail a bit past the first bridge. It was snowing hard enough, that I couldn't see the any of the peaks, nor did I see many birds. The muskeg was nice walking, the underlying snow hadn't melted, but compressed into a nice hard layer beneath the 3-4 inches of new soft snow.

This was the week of recurring boat issues, which were hopefully resolved by a serious infusion of cash. New wiring, running light, lower unit oil, throttle cables for the aluminum boat and new throttle cables for the bayliner. Given the fun I was having with boats, it is kind of a wonder that any birds were counted.

The 19th , 20th and 22nd had intensely beautiful sunrises. On the 22nd there was pan ice in Crescent Harbor.
Noticed a male Hooded Merganser on Swan Lake on the 21st in the small area of open water near the 4-way stop.

	1/19/2009	1/20/2009	1/21/2009	1/22/2009	1/23/2009	1/24/2009
Common Loon		1
Pacific Loon			1
Pelagic Cormorant		5		2	1	6
Long-tail Duck		1	7	2	2	2
Surf Scoter	1	1		2
Barrow's Goldeneye	8			23	3	17
Bufflehead						3
Common Merganser	9	8	2	6	7	9
Mew Gull	1
Glaucous-winged Gull	1	1	1	1		3
Gull spp	4		4		4
Bald Eagle				1
Raven				2
Weather	calm, clear	calm	calm, raining	calm, clear	windy, light snow	calm, overcast
Time		9:15	8:15	8:15	8:15	8:30

Still catching up. Saving a months' worth of data for entry is really not the best idea.

	1/12/2009	1/13/2009	1/14/2009	1/15/2009	1/16/2009	1/17/2009
Horned Grebe						1
Double-crested Cormorant						2
Pelagic Cormorant	1		4	4	4	1
Blue Heron					1
Mallard					3
Scaup sp.			3
Harlequin	3
Long-tail Duck					2
Surf Scoter	7					10
Barrow's Goldeneye				21	2
Bufflehead						4
Common Merganser			5	5	20
Mew Gull	1
Thayer's Gull				1
Glaucous-winged Gull	3	2	4	5	2
Gull spp.	2
Common Murre						1
Crow				10		4
Weather	rough, raining	calm, raining hard		grey, calm	clear, calm	clear, calm
Time	8:15	8	8:15	8:15		8:45

The morning of the 17th was the first of several intensely colorful sunrises.

	1/1/2009	1/2/2009	1/3/2009	1/5/2009	1/6/2009
Common Loon	1		1
Pacific Loon	4			2
Pelagic Cormorant	3	2	6	1	4
Great Blue Heron			1
Long-tailed Duck	2		3	1
Surf Scoter			16	12	12
White-winged Scoter			5
Common Goldeneye	3
Barrow's Goldeneye	22	27	21	21	19
Bufflehead	6
Common Merganser	8		8	16	12
Red-breasted Merganser	3
Mew Gull					1
Glaucous winged gull	1		2	1	2
Gull spp					3
Common Murre				1
Marbled Murrelet			2
Bald Eagle	1		1		1
Song Sparrow			1
Weather etc	Cold, sunny, calm, Noonish	Snowing hard, 3:30	snowing, 1:30	9:30, chop	8am, calm

The next set of observations

	1/8/2009	1/9/2009	1/10/2009
Loon sp.		1
Pelagic Cormorant	3	3	4
Harlequin		2
Long-tailed Duck		1	1
Surf Scoter	12	7	4
Barrow's Goldeneye	3		16
Common Merganser	3	17	6
Mew Gull			5
Glaucous-winged Gull		3	7
Gull spp.	6
Marbled Murrelet		1
Weather	snowing hard	rough, chop and swell	calm
Time	8am	9:30	8am

Walking home through the commons on the 10th saw a flock of redpolls. At least they sure looked like redpolls in the waning light.