2/28/2021 0 Comments Oh, it's on...After a mid-February that set all-time records for low temps (-30 in Hastings!) and made this birder reluctant to get out in the field, the snow is now melting, the sun building strength, and the birds on the move in earnest. Like an ice dam giving way, the waterfowl have finally broken loose from the south and have flooded their way into Nebraska in skeins that stretch to the horizon. Check out these Snow Geese (likely mixed with the smaller and less common Ross's Geese at a ratio of something like 98% to 2%.) How many geese is this? Dear daughter Phoebe, what's your guess? (She's helping out with some Sandhill Crane population studies in Kearney and has been given a training course game where you're given a series of photos of flocks of birds and have to estimate the number to within 10%.) The numbers of geese, especially the white geese, coming through central Nebraska in February and March is really astounding. It's not uncommon to find flocks like this... And it's not just waterfowl. One of the most under-appreciated mass migration events taking place simultaneously involves the little brown birds most often noticed after snow storms when they gather at the roadsides to get seed and gravel (the seed for food and the little rocks to fill their crops and grind the seed up, since they don't have teeth.) I say "little brown birds", but you'll see they're really quite colorful if you get a close look at them. These big flocks are comprised of a mix of Horned Larks and Lapland Longspurs (which should be a sports team name, don't you think?) The longspurs alone can occur in flocks 50,000 strong. It's quite a spectacle. And I bet you can guess which bird is which in the photos below... I've added several new species to my year list this weekend, including Ring-billed Gull, Green-winged Teal, and Fox Sparrow, and I'll be surprised if I don't find more this week as lakes and marshes open up from their long freeze. What are you seeing and hearing?
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