Saturday, December 27, 2008

Weird Weather



"Hey man, what's with the heat wave?"
Yes, the photo of this Downy Woodpecker is out of season (it's from May 2007), but so is our weather. I know the weather has been a bit crazy in various parts of the country, and we have been added to that mix. According to our thermometer the temperature got up to 80 degrees today here in our corner of southeast Ohio, and I think it had an effect on the birds. I saw VERY few birds today. Only 1 Goldfinch and only 3 Cardinals - very low numbers for my two most abundant species. And NO woodpeckers at all. Very strange, indeed. Perhaps it is only fair to expect such low numbers in such warm hot weather, since we always observe high numbers in cold, rotten weather.

A cold front is supposed to blow in tonight, so maybe things will be back to normal tomorrow. We'll see!
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3 comments:

Seth and Michelle said...

I love the photo! That belongs in a book somewhere.

80 degrees?? Wow! We were up the the mid 40s today and we thought THAT was a heat wave. Sheesh.

NW Nature Nut said...

I was gonna say something like the Portland Birders did.

The 80's seems crazy! Did you sunbathe?

Heather said...

Seth and Michelle - Glad you like the photo. I thought the thermometer was lying about 80 degrees because it was getting beat up by the sun pretty badly, but when I checked later in the day it still read around 78, so it was for real! We're back to "normal" now.

NWNN - No sunbathing, but my husband and I and our 2 dogs hung out on the deck for a while enjoying it all - it was quite nice. Glad it happened on the weekend and not on a work day!