Day 336: December 2nd - How many more?

Partly sunny, upper 40s, calm winds

       We were out in the field for much of the day, but our concentration was on picking out the perfect 11 foot Christmas tree with three of our grandchildren.  We drove out to Slate Hill, NY via I-84.  We noticed our first Red-tailed hawk perched roadside and began counting along the 18 miles of interstate we had to travel.  By the time we exited the highway, we had tallied 9 of the hawks.  We could only imagine that if we saw these 9 out in plain sight, how many more must be back just out of view?

     Having used my child-labor to help cut down and drag the Balsam fir several hundred yards out of the woods, we tied it to the roof of the RAV and began our trip home.  We did make a short stop along the way in Oxford Depot to check out the fields of Goose Pond Mountain State Park.  My oldest grandson spotted a little Downy woodpecker working on a stalk of phragmites, but before I could get the camera trained on the bird, it took flight.  Then we began to see sparrows popping up into view briefly before descending back down into the cover of the grasses. 

         All three grandkids kept spotting one here, then another over there and oh, here’s one right in front of us!  As with the hawks earlier in the day, we began to wonder just how many of these little brown jobs there were in this field in front of us.  We had Savannahs and Songs, but we could only stay a short time and who knows what other species the tall grasses were concealing.  And we just kept wondering ….. how many more are in this field?