After Thursday night’s victory celebration, I wasn’t out the door nearly as early as I had hoped for on Friday morning. Then, it began to rain. However, Allen and I did make a short trip to the Armond Bayou Nature Center – where I had originally planned on heading after Challenger 7 Park on Wednesday. However, the occasional showers, gusty wind, and long wait for breakfast tacos abbreviated our visit. This park, especially the restored prairie, really seemed worthy of further exploration.

I only added Cedar Waxwing to my unofficial "trip list," but I did get more opportunities to study Orange-crowned Warblers. Plus, I was impressed by the size of one of the Pine Warbler flocks that I happened upon. The varied habitats, and lengthy trail system of this park no doubt held many more suprises. Well, maybe next year, although to be honest, our sights are set much higher than another trip to the Texas Bowl!

I arrived back in Maine Friday night, just before 9pm. At 6:45am Saturday morning, Bob rolled up to join me on the Brunswick-Freeport Christmas Bird Count – and we met Rich a short while later. Exhaustion from my trip, and a mildly sprained knee (apparently thanks to my late-night sprint after a cab when one of my friends realized that she left her wallet in it – luckily, I caught the cab, but my knee paid the price!) failed to slow us down. However, the weather soon slowed us down significantly.

By 9:30, light flurries turned into a steady snowfall, and by mid-afternoon nearly 4 inches has fallen. Heavier bursts of snow limited bird’s activity, and our ability to detect them, but we pushed on. However, when Bob nearly put his 4WD light SUV in a ditch, we decided to call it quits at about 2:30. We covered about 2/3rds of the territory, producing only 25 species (my 4-yr average for this territory is 30), led by 239 Black-capped Chickadees and 152 American Goldfinches. 21 Wild Turkeys were under the same feeder that they have been for the last 3 counts, and our “best” birds were a flock of an undetermined number of Common Redpolls that passed overhead, calling, but never seen.

Now, sleep deprivation, poor nutrition (just what food group is beer in anyway?), and sitting next to someone who was sick on the plane has rendered me feeling like I was just hit by a Rutgers blitz (I’m guessing I feel a lot like KSU’s Quarterback did on Friday morning!). So, tomorrow’s weather forecast calling for rain and ice will actually be welcome. I’m thinking tea and the “other” bowl games will be on my New Year’s Day schedule!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!