Nice end to January, but silent February.

January continued to be exceptional for me in the BY-squared.  I finally sighted a female Hairy Woodpecker to go with the fairly reliable male.  A flock of 22 Cedar Waxwing and 4 Eastern Bluebirds helped add to the FOY totals for the yard, on the 25th.  On the 27th I watched a Carolina Wren trying to break up a peanut it pulled from the feeder.  On the final day of January I heard a faint Northern Flicker in the distance, and just after sunset a pair of Great Horned Owls were heard calling from the woods.  The owls pushed my month to 35 species.  Really well above what I thought was realistically possible.  It made me hopeful for February.  

February so far has been pretty uneventful.  I've added zero FOY the birds, and only managed 21 species so far. The 1st started out not too bad with 17 species.  My high for a day in February in the yard is 21 species, with other highs of 20 and 19.  I thought 4 more species would be fairly easy to add.  I've added them but it has taken 9 days to add those 4 to my total since the 1st.  

I did manage to swing by the Millpond and added Hooded and Common Mergansers, along with my first tagged Trumpeter Swan.  I googled the tag and it popped on another eBird checklist from Ontario.  Other "highlights" this month have been a very drab Chickadee that I thought was maybe a candidate for Carolina, a Sharp-shinned Hawk sitting on the feeder when I came home from Chaos, and the male and female cismontanus are still pretty regular at the feeder.  

​I still need 12 more bird this month to try to beat the high for the month of 32.  Seems easy when I hit 35 last month.  I doubt I get another Chipping Sparrow, or Cackling Goose or Bald Eagle with the lake frozen over.  Mallard is doubtful with the freeze also.  Chaos is really trying to intrude everywhere now and hindering doing too much.  

I've been trying to get caps of Junco tail feathers.  I think this is the cismontanus female.  It looks like maybe 3 nearly solid white on the left side with just a thin line on r3.  It's been so dark hard to keep up the speed.  

This Slate-colored is mostly white on r6-r4 with a small strip on edge of r4.