December owns an outsize reputation among months due to its status as the Northern Hemisphere’s gateway to winter, though hosting Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, and sundry other holidays doesn’t hurt either! Ironically, as climates change and seasons shift, this month just doesn’t seem as cold as it used to be. Nonetheless, those old December poems still resonate. Here’s a verse from John Keats’ In Drear-Nighted December:
In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
I don’t plan to spend any time this weekend petting about the frozen time. Instead, I hope to get out to where winter waterfowl are massing. Corey has no concrete plans to go birding this weekend, but we all know he’ll be out there! How about you? What are you doing this weekend and will you be birding? Share your plans in the comments below.
Whatever your plans this weekend, make time to enjoy SkyWatch Friday. Also be sure to come back Monday to share your best bird of the weekend!
Keep your eyes to the skies. Maybe you’ll see an albatross!!
I won’t see an albatross but I might see a Bare-necked Umbrellabird, my lifer Sulphur-rumped Tanager (fingers crossed), and a bunch of other sweet rainforest birds when I do the Christmas count at Veragua Rainforest Center in southeastern Costa Rica.
http://www.veraguarainforest.com/facilities.html
I’m going to be zooming up for the Falcated Duck at Colusa NWR in the morning before work. I might get a little birding locally to Sacramento on Saturday.
This afternoon in New Rochelle, NY we got to pass a pair of binoculars around to watch some Hooded Mergansers with our 9 year-old and 11 year-old girls. One of them replied that the males reminded her of Killer Whales. Walking alone in the same woods yesterday I got to stare into the orange eyes of a Great Horned Owl. The air felt nice and crisp – finally the feeling of winter is in the air!