Hope your New Year is off to a birdy start. Mine started off a little weird.

We spent New Year's at Neil and Lorraine's. It was low key but loads of fun, including having duck soup while watching "Duck Soup". My first bird of the year was a crow in Neil's yard which I thought appropriate considering he's a horror/fantasy writer. Of course I can't get a new year started without something wacky happening. A cat got a hold of a red-breasted nuthatch. I went out to get the bird away from the cat and inadvertently let the cat into the house. While being scolded for bringing a cat and with a wild bird into a house with more cats I somehow got the nuthatch away from the cat and onto my butt. If I were a hard core listing kind of gal I would immediately start a "Birds on My Butt" list, but there are enough birding weirdos out there, I'll let them have that title to play with. The nuthatch survived unscathed and was witnessed yesterday and today feeding hardily.

This morning I was walking in the woods down by a creek. On a high hill up away from the creek was a very tall pine with a large dark lump draped over one of the top branches. For a second I thought it was a great gray owl sitting at a very odd angle. As I focused my binoculars, the shape leapt into the air and took flight. It was a turkey. I had never seen a turkey that high in a tree, it was at least 150 feet above me and then to see it fly from that perch, over the road was spectacular...and a little silly, it had that little tail looking thing hanging from it's chest which kind of takes away a bird's majesty when it soars overhead.

So, weird new year, but fun new year.