Pine Grosbeak male / Pinicola enucleator

Three days ago, on 16 November 2015, it would have been my older daughter’s birthday. Feeling that I needed to get out for a while, I met up with a group of friends for a three-hour walk in Weaselhead. It had snowed a bit overnight and, though it was mostly sunny, the temperature was around 1°C. This meant winter jacket and winter boots complete with ice-grabbers as the paths were very icy and slippery. 27 species of bird were seen. Only two or three people saw what they reckoned was an owl (Great Horned) in flight from the forest. A Snow-shoe Hare in its white, winter coat was barely visible, hiding in a tangle of bushes.

We had quite good views of several White-winged Crossbills. These are such colourful birds - at least the males are. The females are a greenish yellow, but still beautiful. Their bills are crossed, to enable them to get the seeds out of the cones. They tend to land high up in tall trees, so are not easy to photograph. This colourful male Pine Grosbeak was seen on the return walk - wish I could have got a clearer background : ) Such a gorgeous colour.

"One of the larger members of its family, the Pine Grosbeak is a bird of the boreal forests, found across northern Eurasia and North America, and south into the mountains of western Canada and the United States. A large, unwary finch, it makes periodic winter irruptions into southern Canada and northern United States. It is the largest and rarest of the "winter finches." From AllAboutBirds.

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pine_Grosbeak/id

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_grosbeak

List of bird species seen:

1.Canada Goose-200+
2.Swan sp.,-7
3.Mallard-4
4.Common Goldeneye-1 f.
5.Northern Goshawk-1
6.Rough-legged Hawk-1
7.Killdeer-1
8.Ring-billed Gull?-1
9.Great Horned Owl-1
10.Downy Woodpecker-4+
11.Hairy Woodpecker-1
12.Northern Flicker-2
13.Blue Jay-4+
14.Black-billed Magpie-20
15.Common Raven-2+
16.Black-capped Chickadee-50+
17.Boreal Chickadee-4
18.Red-breasted Chickadee-1
19.White-breasted Nuthatch-1
20.Bohemian Waxwing-100+
21.Dark-eyed Junco-1+
22.Pine Grosbeak-10+
23.House Finch-1
24.Red Crossbill-1 f.
25.White-winged Crossbill-75+
26.Common Redpoll-30+
27.House Sparrow-6