Thursday, January 2, 2025

Today we’ve had sun and wind, a strong westerly wind. After a morning walk with Henna, I filled the bird feeders and looked up to admire the mostly blue sky. Just then an adult bald eagle with white head and tail flew overhead soaring from southeast to northwest, occasionally buffeted by the strong westerlies. Sometimes you just have to look up.

High winds continued all day. Around 1:30 PM a 25-mph gust snapped an 8-10″ mature bigtooth aspen across the road from our house. It fell across the road, bounced off the utility lines, then fell down across the road. Our power went out. Aspen is fairly light wood so we were able to quickly move all the small branches to the roadside. Srini fired up the chain saw and we now have 25 16″ aspen logs drying in our driveway. Eversource stopped within the hour and reconnected a line to a utility pole and poof we were back in power.

The bald eagle as well as a white-breasted nuthatch visiting the suet today, brings the yard total for the year to 19 species.

18. Bald eagle
19. White-breasted nuthatch