Page 69 - The Hunt - Winter 2024

There’s no better time to commune with birds than in cold weather, starting with your own backyard.
BY ROGER MORRIS | PHOTOS BY HANK DAVIS
You may not realize
it, but a brisk day in winter is prime-time birdwatching. You could join a local
group on an organized walk—just don’t expect a cardio workout. “You see a bird, you stop, you watch
the bird. Then you walk until you see another bird,” says John Mercer, who runs three- to four-hour field trips for the West Chester Bird Club. “You might walk about a mile in an hour.”
There’s also nothing wrong with a spur-of-the-moment solo walk. “I try to see something different about the birds each time,” says Joseph Francis, president of the Delaware Ornithological Society. And you don’t need a feeder to attract birds to your own backyard. “Many different birds love cracked corn,” says Steve Cottrell, president of the Delaware Audubon Society’s board of directors. “Just spread it on the ground when there isn’t any snow.”
In winter, it’s easier to locate and follow birds in flight because there’s less foliage to hide them. In some cases, they’ll even pose for you on a fence post or power line. Winter is also for ducks. Mercer loves to shepherd watchers via carpool
to the Delaware and New Jersey coastal regions, going from pond to pond.
“It’s very hard to find a bad place to
see birds locally,” Francis says. “Delaware is among the top 10 places for birds nationally, so any park or any garden
will work. But it’s good to go someplace with a mix of habitats.” According to
the Delaware Bird Records Committee, there were 429 species in the state at
last count—most local and some more transient. “In early winter, you see birds that breed in the far north and are usually just passing through on their way farther south,” says Francis. “Then there are those in adjacent areas moving up or down looking for food.”
An Eastern bluebird strikes a classic pose.
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