I really don’t know what to think about global warming – whether it’s a direct effect of pollution or a natural cyclical type of thing. I’m cartoon-Ostrich like when it comes to these scary potential-extinction-of-the-species things, not that most of us, present company excluded, don't deserve it.

Other members of my family have seen an Ivory-bill and Pileated woodpeckers. This is good news indeed. I don’t keep a life list, but I’ve never seen a Hawk owl. A very cool irruption indeed! What a great combination of hawk-owl looking bird they are. I have seen Snowy owls, Great Horned, Barn owls, Spotted owls and Barred owls. These last are the ones that I hear around my home the most. I very rarely see any owls. When I do it is cause for quiet celebration. There are lots of Red tailed, Red shouldered hawks and Cooper’s hawks around as well as Vultures and a few Peregrines. I’ve never seen one, but there are reliable sightings of Bald eagles nearby. I think I saw a couple of Cuckoos last year, but I can’t be sure, although I had lots of time to view them as they perched way up top of the white pine, 100 feet or more. I use to see lots of Kingfishers from my office window that overlooked a little river, at my former place of employment. There are plenty of sea birds along the Rhode Island shore, which is only about 50 miles away, but I don’t get there much. I should. Quail, Grouse, Turkeys, Hummingbirds (only the red throated) too. Many more… Maybe I should start a life list for my own amusement!
There is an empty, third growth wood behind our home that covers a few hundred acres, so the Barred owls have enough room to stick around. There is also an influx of “city folk” into town who like to build ugly 3000 sq. ft. houses for 2 or 3 people to live in. Many have riding horses, or whatever you call them. I worry about the future of my dear owls and the nasty Fisher cats, the few otters and the rest because of habitat destruction. We can tell when there is new construction within a few miles by the way the creatures of the wood behave and the types and numbers that we see right from our kitchen window. This is a source of sorrow and concern. In Rhode Island there are no real wilderness areas, but the Situate reservoir property is about 3000 acres. That helps.
My two favorite bird times were these. When my oldest son was just a year or two old, my wife was holding him in her arms, looking at the berries of a Haw Lantern. As I came out onto the back porch of the house (circa 1754) that we were renting and was walking toward them, a flock of Cedar waxwings perched on the bush and started devouring the berries, which are poison to us. They were within inches of my dear humans. The moved on after eating about half of the berries, which took only about 2 or 3 minutes. How magical and lovely. A few years before, we were sitting in a friend’s backyard. There was a big old mulberry tree there and it was fully ripe. All afternoon Waxwings, Scarlet tanagers, Baltimore orioles and other less showy birds came to feast. Lovely and magical. It was good that we were not sitting under the tree though. That tree is gone as is the farmhouse next to it, and the apple orchard, and the fields, and the mill/skating pond.
We used to get hoards of pretty, tough looking yellow Grosbeaks making a mess of the seed in the window-mounted feeder in the old house. I don’t see them very often in the little swampy valley where we live now.
Good advice – to watch out for flying hand saws, especially the Swedish Bow.
I’m going to visit my brother in Georgia, near the mouth of the St. Mary River, in March. It’s not the Caribbean, but he tells me that there is great birding there. I’m looking forward to it.