It's been fairly uneventful in terms of new birds here, I haven't seen any
new species around Jug Bay since Jan 5.  And the diversity has dropped
fairly significantly compared to the week after Christmas, when the temps
were cold and it felt like winter.  We have some interesting other natural
observations however; I have been hearing spring peepers making single note
calls on occasion for a week now; our daffodil bed is going nuts, most of
them emerged and many are 3-4 inches already; today we had our earliest
flower blooms that I can ever remember - our snow bells are out in full
bloom; our mature red maple appears to have swelling buds; and a deciduous
magnolia is definitely budding.  It may be my imagination, but I think the
male goldfinches seem to have more defined black and white in their wings
now, and their yellow seems brighter to me than it was a month ago.
I won't speculate on the weather, but I hope winter is not over, the
exciting reports of golden eagle and barnacle goose get my winter birding
juices warmed up!

Jeff Shenot
Croom