Bathed in sunlight

Almost embarrassing to say that I think this snowman was the highlight (for me) on yesterday's Bird Count, lol! The sun was shining exactly on it, while the surrounding area was in shade. Yesterday, 1 January 2014, was the 21st annual Fish Creek Park New Year's Day Bird Count and, as you can see from the blue sky, it was a gorgeous day out there. Sunny, calm, -8 to -5C, with 5cm new snow that had fallen overnight. We walked from 9:00 a.m. till noon, and my small group covered the area from Bebo Grove to bridge 6 and back. Twenty people turned up for the Count in this part of the park, so we split into two groups. Other small groups covered other parts of the park and just after noon, some participants met at Tim Horton's for coffee and lunch. Always tastes so good after being outdoors for a few hours : ) Always feels so good to meet up with friends and spend a few hours in this way!

Results for my small group (the other half of the group had very similar results, also with a total of 11 species) are listed below. As you can see, nothing spectacular or rare, though we did look in vain for the Three-toed Woodpecker and kept our eyes open for one of the tiny Northern Pygmy Owls that had given us so much pleasure two or three winters ago.

Downy Woodpecker-8
Hairy Woodpecker-3
Northern Flicker-1
Black-billed Magpie-4
Common Raven-20
Black-capped Chickadee-37
Boreal Chickadee-1
Red-breasted Nuthatch-1
White-breasted Nuthatch-5
Townsend's Solitaire-2
Bohemian Waxwing-300

Talking of snow, CBC News reported on 21 December 2013:

"December SNOWFALL in Calgary has broken a 112-year record according to the city. The City made the announcement in a tweet Saturday morning after weeks of on-and-off heavy snowfall left many residents complaining about the lack of snow removal in parts of Calgary. "A total of 43.8 cm of snow has fallen in Calgary this month. We haven’t seen this much snow in 112 years!" tweeted the City."