Mother Nature's Wrathful Snow-- GBBC coming

     Mother nature certainly showed who was boss recently. Schools and businesses closed, and we received 13(!) inches of snow; and it didn't look like it was going to quit for a while there. The Interstate 81 exit near our town seemed to be constantly clogged with traffic and I'm glad the college was closed and I didn't have to go out in it. But my husband, who works at the college dining hall, couldn't depend on our two small  "unheavy" Chevys-- people with trucks gave him rides to and from work.
     Today the sun is out and I should go outside, but don't have a decent pair of waterproof boots. AND my digital camera stopped working :(  so I don't have any photos of the pretty snow to upload. It is covering the shrubs in front of the front door,  the post holding our mailbox is  covered halfway to the top, and a neighbor broke one of our cheap shovels--- well, her daughter's friend did. Husband told her to keep the other shovel for a while (well, we have two of the shovels you use to dig up dirt and I suppose they won't break--- but the snow is on the wet side now in the sun and I should go out for some vitamin D).
   And today starts the Great Backyard Bird Count! No birds in the backyard now, but yesterday as the snow was coming down I spied a flicker (type of woodpecker) and what looked like a black capped chickadee at our front yard feeder. In the last few weeks I've noticed seagulls  hanging around our one shopping center where the old (now vacant) KMart used to be. You know, I like that store-- it has a better variety of clothing styles than its competitor, Wal-Mart. 

Gulls and other on Great Backyard Bird Count

      
     Gulls and  robins and  others -- oh my! The last four  days (Feb. 15-18, 2013) have been a part of the "Great Backyard Bird Count". I guess they were in my backyard in the sense that they were in my town on the East coast. And the "list" the birdcount.org provided me didn't have
a "Kittiwake" gull (see photo above) on it. The kittiwake is supposed to just be a coastal bird,
from off the Virginia coast all the way up to Canada, but with all the snow and storms we have had in the past few weeks, isn't it possible that they would be around?
     I spied them in town near the college and the Kroeger grocery parking lot, and by Kroeger they were much nearer and their wings looked "really" long! That leads me to believe they are not the more common herring gull, which I guess we do see sometimes in the grocery parking lot too. I remember several years ago, when my oldest son went to college here, that I saw a number of seagulls in the Kroeger parking lot. We must be inland about 500 miles, yet the birds seem to like to make an appearance here, as though the parking lot represented some kind of modern, paved gray beach. Maybe they do find junk to eat in supermarket parking lots. But traveling 500 miles inland seems like an awfully long way to go to get your dinner!
    We also viewed 3 robins (the harbingers of spring!) on the side of a ball field at the local park. It was brutally cold with a searing wind going and it is no wonder they were low to the ground, trying to get out of that wind. Perhaps they were on their way up to new England, though I can't see why. It is even "colder" up there!
   A few crows, vultures and starlings also made an appearance during that time. And my husband spied a pair of attractive mourning doves on the next door neighbor's property. I personally think the birds could have waited another month (by then it will officially be spring), as now is really miserable with cold, whipping winds that make it seem like 19o F sometimes!!
    I am glad to see some more birds around, but that's not so good around our house -- our 8 year old cat probably "loves" the idea of the birds deciding to come back!
   If you want to see how many were counted go to birdcount.org.