Around 7am, when the temp must have been about zero, and
there was a lull in taxi business, I swung into Stewart Park to
scan the lake, an amusing thing to try, as a low thick blanket
of fog covered every bit of open water. But a single SWAN
sat on the ice in the distance. I set up my telescope with its
window-mount to determine whether it was Mute or Trumpeter
or (predictably, yes) TUNDRA. The next surprise was a small
bird zipping across my foreground view to the trunk of a tree
along the nearby lakeshore: the firat BROWN CREEPER I've
found this year, which is likely a measure of how little I've
been looking at tree trunks rather than imminent springtime.
Later I passed a male RING-NECKED PHEASANT strolling
along the shoulder of Neimi Road, another first for my year.
I assume I can count it since it is farther from the top of the
fence at the game farm than they typically glide.
My final new sighting today was a sign of spring, or at least
of hopes of spring. In the snowless area below a tall spruce,
an AMERICAN ROBIN stood watch, as if a worm or insect
might move and catch its eye. It just stood there until it was
joined by 3 EUROPEAN STARLINGS. They hustled about
with bills constantly poking at the ground trying to pry open
the thatch and sod, and evidently hitting a pretty solid surface.
One Starling did pick up something sluglike. The Robin lunged
at it, but the Starling quickly gulped it down. Time to go back
to berries. I've been seeing Robins regularly near my house
by Cass Park, sometimes in the woods, sometimes in a wet
ditch among cattails and such, sometimes in a grove of berry-
covered hawthorns, but this was the first time on a bit of lawn.
--Dave Nutter
