Holiday This and That

With family here for the holidays, birding has been spotty the last few days. Yesterday I did take off for an hour and hit Peace Valley. Over 7,000 Canada Goose and two dozen Lesser Black-backed Gulls were the highlight in the cold windy afternoon.

I went back there this morning with my brother-in-law from Dallas to show him his lifer American Black Duck. We dipped on the owls near the nature center, and didn't have enough time to pin down an American Tree Sparrow. Birding with time limits is a drag!

This afternoon, we caravaned down to Valley Forge and Amish country. At Washington's Headquarters, a nice Brown Creeper was working the lower trunk of a sycamore tree. While their habit of creeping up a tree and flying down to start over again has been much noted, the thing that struck me today was how insect-like the flitting flight was--almost like a moth as it flicked itself down the trunk and along a few branches. It's been a long time since Brown Creepers have been a regular part of my birding fare--they were hard to come by in Central Texas--so it was nice to watch one for a few minutes today before it moved on to another part of the park.