It was Thursday, Dec. 29, and it started off as a predictable gray winter day. This would be my last full day at home before heading off for a holiday weekend with family. Thus it was my last chance to try to tie the record for birds seen in the month of December (30 species set in 2015). Things did not look promising.
Three species that I had seen in 2015 did not show themselves in 2016. The first was the northern flicker, a member of the woodpecker family that makes random appearances at my feeding station that do not seem to be correlated with weather or season in any way. The second was the red-winged blackbird, a species that was probably present because of the mild El Niño weather. The third species was the real problem. In December of 2015, an adult male rose-breasted grosbeak started hanging around the feeders. This bird represented an X-Factor that would be difficult to replace.
As of 9 a.m. on Dec. 29, I had only managed to replace two of the missing species, albeit in rather spectacular form. The first replacement was the red-breasted nuthatch. If you’ve been following my column you’ll know that a pair of these delightful little birds appeared in October and have made themselves right at home in my yard. The second replacement, a real dazzler, was an eastern screech owl.
This is a species known to haunt my neighborhood, but is seldom heard and never seen. I detected the owl on Dec. 16 when I headed out to the garage on my way to work. A fairly constant wind had kicked up during the night and a small drift of snow had formed on the lee side of the garage, where the doors happen to be. There, I noticed a very interesting set of tracks in the snow. A mouse had run along the garage door, and a bird had clearly made a try for it. Based on the energy of the weather and the freshness of the tracks, I devised they had been made within the hour. Based on their size I determined that they were made by a small owl. The screech owl was the most logical choice since I have never heard a saw-whet owl in my neighborhood.
So, I had my X-Factor species to replace the rose-breasted grosbeak, but I was still one species short and time was running out. As it happened, so was my supply of firewood in the garage. The relatively nice weather outside had me thinking that an hour or two moving wood might be a pretty good idea. “Good” goes with “fun” rather infrequently, however, and I was feeling far too lazy to pull myself away from the window and get to work. “Perhaps later,” I thought to myself.
Later turned out to be impractical due to the arrival of a snowstorm that I hadn’t expected. This storm was dynamic and included many sudden starts and stops. When the snow fell, it fell hard, which can cover a lot of birdseed quickly. I had to make several trips out to the railing to remove snow and replenish the seed. My attention was so desperately needed that I couldn’t possibly move wood. I felt much better once I rationalized it all out like that.
Eventually I decided to putter around the house doing odd chores and tidying up before my trip. The snow continued to fall in fits and starts. My wife Susan was all snoodled up on the couch with a good book and the wood stove was nice and hot. Several pleasant hours passed until the clock struck two o’clock. This is a particularly busy time at the feeders and I decided to resume my vigil by the kitchen window. It looked like I wouldn’t tie the record, but I thought I’d give it one last try. And am I glad I did.
At 2:09 p.m. a sudden flash of feathers announced the arrival of an immature sharp-shinned hawk. It came in from the west, made a close pass around the southeast corner of the house to see if it could surprise any birds on the deck, and then, foiled in its attempt, landed on the north railing. Species 30 had arrived and the record was tied! Would I get a photo, however?
I was frozen in horror. My camera was sitting on the table directly behind me, but did I dare move? The hawk was close enough to see me, but it was at an angle that might have show a reflection of the outside world instead of a view to the inside. If it saw me move it might fly, but if I didn’t move I wouldn’t get a photo. My only choice was to trust in the mercy of the photo gods because I knew this opportunity was going to be very short-lived. I uttered a silent prayer and turned.
I was in the right place at the right time and Nikonus rewarded me. The hawk didn’t move when I grabbed my camera and raised it into action, but everything else went wrong. In my excitement I forgot to check the camera settings and found that they were completely wrong for the conditions that had evolved since I took photos of a squirrel earlier in the morning. The shutter speed was far too slow, which produced an overexposure and lots of streaking wherever a snowflake passed. I didn’t even get the camera squared onto target. Somewhere on another plane I could hear the deep rumble of Nikonus chuckling to himself. He gave me my chance and I blew it. Nikonus is a stickler.
I made a quick adjustment, took a deep breath, and fired again. This time I directed a prayer to Iso, who is far more compassionate and forgiving. All I needed was a little time. As my camera fired away the hawk suddenly turned its head and looked in my direction. It didn’t look directly at me, but it seemed to be aware that something was going on in my general vicinity. Or, perhaps, Iso had heard my prayer. I didn’t dare stop firing because I could sense that my time was running out. The hawk turned its head to the north, took a half step to the right, and then exploded into flight toward the spruce trees that separate my yard from my neighbor’s.
Each frame was time-stamped, which allowed me to determine that only 47 seconds had passed between the first and last photos of the hawk. The frames taken after my prayer to Iso were all much better, and I even recorded the hawk’s departure. Had I been doing anything else, I would have been completely unaware of the hawk’s arrival and would have been stuck with 29 species for the month. All hail Nikonus and Iso!
Bill Danielson has worked for the
National Park Service, the US Forest
Service, and the Massachusetts State
Parks. He has been a professional writer
and nature photographer for 19 years and
he also teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com
for more information, or go to Speaking of
Nature on Facebook.