Birds in Winter at Russell Creek

February 15th, the coldest day this year, I saw 4 different birds braving the bitter cold during our morning and afternoon walks.

In our morning walking route, I saw dark grey tiny birds, scurry in the snow looking for food. I saw them again on a window sill along my afternoon walking route. This tiny bird is eastern phoebe.

I saw a tiny bird, similar to eastern phoebe in size and shape, on a bird feeder. This bird has dark eye, and its wing has some brown color feathers. This tiny bird turned out to be Dark-eyed Junco.

During our afternoon walk, we were surprised to see a flock of robins on a sidewalk. As we got closer, we saw many more robins in trees in a neighbor's yard. Robins' golden brown breasts were really eye catching in the snowy day. I was surprised because robins are territorial, they won't allow other robins in their territory. Typically I only see a single robin in a yard. 

Upon literature research, this is not an abnormality. It is natural phenomenon according to Cornell University's All About bird website. In winter robins form nomadic flocks, which can consist of hundreds to thousands of birds. Usually these flocks appear where there are plentiful fruits on trees and shrubs, such as crabapples, hawthorns, holly, juniper, and others. 

 I saw another flock of bird in one tree where many robins perched. These birds have crowns, multi-color breasts. Upon examine photos, I also noticed that they have yellow specks at tips of its tail, and red spot on its wing. Using Google lends, I identified them as cedar waxwing. Waxwing are social birds typically form large flocks per all about birds. I only saw waxwing perching solo on a tree until February 15th. 

When the snow started to melt, temperature was not too low by February 19th, many other birds came out from their hiding places, I saw house finch, mocking bird, cardinal, grackles …. It is interesting to note that robins' nomadic flocks broke, and they returned to live solo!