Sunny, 52 degrees,
and ====windy
 |
| Lemmon Road |
It’s a beautiful sunny day
save for the breezes which are kicking up as I write these words. The soft zephyr that introduced the
morning is already gaining some momentum.
The forecast high for the day is 52 at at 10:00AM we are already
there. I scouted around Bear
Mountain close to home this morning to see if anything was active prior to the
real gusts developing. I’ve
generally found that windy days are not the best for birding and I believe it
is because the ambient noise of the rustling leaves makes it difficult for the
little guys to hear predators moving in.
So, they play it safe and stay hunkered down. Maybe and maybe not, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to
it.
As I walked down
Lemmon Road on the flanks of Bear Mountain, still more evidence of the power of
Superstorm Sandy can be seen throughout the forest. This tree has to be over a hundred years of age, but was
little challenge to the force of Sandy’s winds. Blowdowns like this were seen all over the southeast. In one section of these woods, acres of
shallow-rooted pines was uprooted in several hours.
The birds bore out my feelings on
birding on windy days and I was hard pressed to see or hear any signs of avian
life along this stretch of dirt road.
The sole representative of the bird world was the cry of a lone Raven
high over adjacent Donderberg Mountain.
I figured I’d move down to
lower ground where the effect of the winds might be mitigated. Indeed, down at Iona Island, the winds
did seem less. But less is a
relative term and the winds were still brisk enough to ruffle the feathers of
this Mockingbird which came in to see what I was up to.
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