A walk around Hedgehog Mountain Park on Wednesday morning produced little of note, but a stroll at Florida Lake on Thursday was more rewarding with a fly-over White-winged Crossbill, a Barred Owl (my first for this patch) in flight in the woods just after sunrise, and two flocks of Common Redpolls (18 feeding in a Paper Birch at the lake’s edge and another flock of 12 passing overhead).

Last night, Rutgers football imploded once again, blowing an 18-point third quarter lead to Louisville, losing 41-38 on a field goal with 20 seconds remaining. Ugh. Really, it was a fitting end to a disappointing (regular) season. Luckily, a few hours before the game, Rutgers accepted a bid to play in the International Bowl in Toronto on January 5th.

As disappointed as I am that we are heading to the International Bowl, we are actually lucky to be going to any bowl, really, after a couple of the performances (like last night’s second half defensive meltdown) this season, and finished the season 7-5. While I do use the term “disappointing” for this season, when we consider that we’re going to a bowl for the third straight season and when I was in school they only managed 3 WINS in my final three years, we really can’t complain all that much. If only we didn't have such high hopes for this season; damn those expectations! But, the fact that RU fans are “disappointed” with 7 winds really says something – we’ve come a very long way! Yes, Ray Rice may enter the draft, and we’ll be losing 3 senior starters on the offensive line, and two critical starters on defense, but each of Schiano’s recruiting class gets better and better, so the future looks brighter for the program each and every year.

While I have heard a number of friends and fans complaining about the team going to the International Bowl – and yes, the Big East really needs, and deserves MUCH better bowl tie-ins – I for one will be there to support the team, and I will be quite happy to be going to my third bowl game in three years. Plus, Toronto is a beautiful city, and I really look forward to making my second visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Of course, I will also be scheduling an extra day or two for some birding – which, given the finchy-ness of this winter, could be a very good time to bird southern Ontario. The lakeshore of Toronto can offer excellent waterfowl and gull watching, plus, there’s also the chance of northern owls; maybe I’ll finally catch up with a Boreal Owl!

Speaking of birding in Ontario, and speaking of the potential for winter owls, here another one of Jean Iron’s great boreal irruptive updates from that province. Apparently, a crash in vole populations is fueling the very significant irruption of Northern Shrikes, which is quite evident here in Maine. The boom of reproduction of voles this spring led to a productive breeding season for predators, hence the quantity of immature shrikes that we are seeing. Hopefully, owls will be on the way soon!

Meanwhile, this morning, I stayed local again, and checked out the Harraseeket River in South Freeport to see if any Barrow’s Goldeneyes have arrived yet. I scanned from the town landing and from Winslow Park, but no Barrow’s yet. There were more Bufflehead and Common Goldeneyes around, however, so the first Barrow’s of the season can’t be too far behind.

And finally today, there’s finally some good news to report for the wintering Monarch Butterflies in Mexico.