Feeling good about February

The daytime highs are currently slipping- tiptoeing -into the upper 40’s. Today we reached 48f (9c) degrees by about 4pm. Since winter in Helena really took hold on November 4^th, and we have spent so many days and nights waaay sub-zero, this felt amazing.

Blue skies – snow is disappearing – icy trails are terrible in the morning, but reasonable in the afternoon – all in all, it feels like spring will come back. Today’s midday walk was shorter than I had hoped – due in no small part to the fact that the trails were still quite icy – nevertheless, I heard or saw 9 species of birds in about 30 minutes. That was terrific. Two new species for the year we observed: Red Crossbills, and White-breasted Nuthatches.

So, those two species, plus the redhead Duck that I saw this morning bring our Feb count to six. Well ahead of the average for Feb and approaching the record of 9! Feb is not the best month to find year birds in the Helena Valley. (see chart on NatureMT.com)

I came home and started working on a new recipe for cookies, made more than just a few Superb Owl puns and am now settling into do some work on the natureMT.com site before I start into the Smothered Burritos that I plan for dinner.

All in all, it has been a good day and February is off to a terrific start and next week in the Great Backyard Bird Count.