The temp this morning was 24 degrees below zero... without wind chill. That was just the ambient air temperature.
That's cold enough to freeze the tail off a peacock! That's cold enough to freeze the wind in mid blow! It was so cold it was hard to breath if you stepped outside. I'd imagine it was pretty bad for the birds too. The high today was only -1.
To quote the Birdchick (http://birdchick.com/blog.html): "People were feeling sorry for house sparrows". On the way home from Madison today, I spotted several Red-tailed Hawks, a lone Rough-leg, two Kestrels and about a dozen crows. That was all. The raptors were out only to hunt so they could keep warm.
I hope you all are keeping warm out there. It's darn cold here.
Hopefully, this cold will bring some more northern birds south. Aaron Holschbach in Arena, found a golden eagle this afternoon (most likely minutes after I passed by the same area with out seeing the bird).
Oh well, I'll get Goldens eventually.
Keep warm,
Happy Birding!
3 comments:
Amazingly, we haven't even had a tiny bit of winter here along the German Baltic coast yet, an area normally comparable to southern Michigan regarding winter climate. Just 5 days below freezing, that's all. Up to now, this winter has been wet and grey, we haven't had a single all-sunny day for almost 2 months now and if the sun ever decides to shine again, people will have to "google" it to know what's going on!
Happy winter birding!!
hey chris,
you think -24ºF is cold, try skiing when it's -32ºF!! :P without windchill of course! with windchill from going down the hill it was about -54ºF haha...needless to say, we were inside until it warmed up a bit.
lol David, that is cold!! -24 is pretty cold for this part of WI...although, I bet you guys are taking a beating in ON.
Post a Comment