A wider view: sciurus carolinensis, a really fat one. The vignetting is because I shot this with my elph and had to use the flash.

This is from another ink drawing I have been working on for a number of months… the entire drawing is 30 x 44;” this detail covers only a scrap of it.

Perhaps January is a special time for many people, but I think that birders really take this month to another level. Where most people forget resolutions about 11 days into the new year, people who look for birds are often hard at work on their lists to see as many species as possible before Feb. 1st. My January list, for example, is pathetic this year, and today, faced with the dying winter sun and an early a.m. plane flight tomorrow, I am actually considering running out to Central Park to pad… see if I can find a Common Redpoll, for example. I can’t do this for logistical reasons. But I really want to.

Here is what I have seen this January anyway:

Canada Goose
Mute Swan
Wood Duck
Gadwall
American Black Duck
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Pied-billed Grebe
Great Blue Heron
Cooper’s Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
American Coot
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Eastern Screech Owl
LONG-EARED OWL
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Blue Jay
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
American Robin
European Starling
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Juno
Northern Cardinal
Common Grackle
SCOTT’S ORIOLE (not pathetic, BTW)
House Finch
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

From Central Park, from the W. 96th St. entrance and around the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir:

Pied-billed Grebe **
Double-crested Cormorant
Canada Goose
Mallard
American Black Duck
Northern Shoveler
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Red-tailed Hawk
American Coot
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
(1000+ gulls, on the water and the jetty)
Rock Pigeon*
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Blue Jay
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling*
Cedar Waxwing (35+)**
Chipping Sparrow (1, associating with 100+ White-throated Sparrows & Dark-eyed Juncos)**
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
House Sparrow*

* In general, I will probably not list these birds as they are so common that I see them every day.
** While not especially rare, these were interesting: the PB Grebe and the Chipping Sparrow are out of season, and the Waxwings are not always seen.

There are some things that make me happy on a cold winter day. One of those things is to stand at the edge of a body of water and endure blistering wind chills while squinting through a brand-new pair of tiny, expensive optics designed to fit comfortably into a pocket. NEW 10 POWER ZEISS BINS! Bins means binoculars, in case you are of the reasonable portion of the population who would never say such a thing. Who cares if you can’t feel your face and people on the running track around the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir are looking at you strangely? I thought at first that they looked at me because I am bird-watching, but of course this is Central Park and there is nothing odd enough about that to attract attention. I then realized it was probably my hat. Such a hat is obtained only via ill-informed Christmas giving, and until recently only worn during outdoors excursions in Maine. Occasionally I will see someone with something similar, but only as of last winter, when the hipsters in Williamsburg must have decided that it was just ridiculous enough to be cool again. I don’t see too many in Manhattan. But it’s the only one I have out of storage so far.

This is, above all else, the city of the gaze. I’m usually watching the pigeons. While waiting for the subway trains I look for rats. They don’t bother me at all; I find them fascinating, but then again I don’t have to live with them. At least so far; now I have probably jinxed myself.