Last week, my family traveled to New Hampshire to ski in the White Mountains.  The skiing was fantastic, but I’m here to talk about the birds.  We drove up from Charlottesville over the course of two days, stopping periodically to chase continuing rarities.  We saw our life bird tundra bean goose at East Reservoir Park in Philadelphia, and our lifer tufted duck at Captain’s Cove in Connecticut.  In addition to the tufted duck, Captain’s Cove proved to be a productive birding stop in general, with several hundred lesser scaup and a glaucus gull.  Two peregrine falcons briefly appeared over the frozen river and proceeded to dive at a lazily soaring red-tailed hawk, which fended them off by flipping over in midair. 

Once we arrived at our destination, the town of North Conway, NH, we were struck by how few and far between the birds actually were.  On several occasions we walked for hours in the snow-covered spruce woods and could find little more than a few black-capped chickadees.  However, one day my brother called me outside early in the morning to point out a flock of four pine grosbeaks sitting in the top of a tree just outside our house, munching on berries.  They were puffed up against the cold, making them seem even larger and rounder then they normally do.  It was only the second time we’d ever seen the species, the first being in Glacier National Park several years ago. 

Another day we decided to hike from Pinkham Notch onto the slopes of Mount Washington.  It was bitterly cold, so we covered as much of our skin as possible.  Even with gloves and a balaclava, my hands and face were soon cold.  However, the trail was steep, so my core quickly warmed up beneath my multiple coats.  The scenery was gorgeous.  More than a foot of snow blanketed the ground and weighed down the spruce bows.  We passed several small streams, all of them almost completely frozen, with the ice making intricate shapes along their banks.  One waterfall was particularly beautiful, with formations of gigantic icicles covering its rock face.  About two miles in we got to a flat spot with gaps in the canopy and were able to look up at the treeless caps of the mountains.  It was a landscape much more reminiscent to me of the Rocky Mountains, and utterly unlike anything I’ve seen before in the East.  We were in the bottom of a huge bowl, with white capped peaks rising up on three sides of us.  Directly in front of us, a massive wall of snow spanned the gap between two peaks.  Even though it was only two in the afternoon, the sun was low over the mountains, casting the snow in tints of gold and pink. 

Once again, the birding was very quiet on Mount Washington, but we did encounter three boreal chickadees feeding in a grove of spruce.  We were first alerted to their presence by almost imperceptibly quiet “tsee” calls.  A patch of snow fluttered to the ground, and I raised my binoculars to focus on a plump, brownish bird with a large white ear patch.  The chickadees were much more muted and warmer in coloration than the black-capped chickadees we’d seen earlier, but their slow, deliberate movements among the snowy evergreens had a certain charm.  Other than the two chickadee species, we only saw two other species on Mount Washington, a downy woodpecker and a common raven. 

The real highlight of the birding part of our trip came on our way home, when we stopped at Salisbury State Park in Massachusetts.  We were lured there by tantalizing eBird reports of winter finches, but we were under time pressure to drive the twelve hours back to Virginia before a snowstorm hit that we worried might make the roads impassable.  The entrance road to Salisbury led through a partly frozen brackish marsh, which was inhabited by hundreds of American black ducks.  We also spotted a few common goldeneye, mallards, and buffleheads.  Inside the park we drove to a snow-covered campground, which was notable for its extensive sameness.  Every campsite was alike, with a pine tree, a fire pit, and sometimes a picnic table.  It wasn’t long before we heard the calls of red crossbills and located a large flock foraging in the pines.  I spotted a smaller, streakier bird, and watched it until it turned to face me.  Sure enough, it had a bright red dot on its forehead, one of the most obvious features of a common redpoll, a finch I’d never seen before.  The redpoll briefly dropped down onto the ground, before moving off with a group of crossbills.  American tree sparrows foraged on the snowy ground, and large flocks of snow buntings wheeled about in the sky. 

A local birder told us the location of two long-eared owls that were wintering in the park, and we followed her directions to them.  Although long-eared owls are present in Virginia, they’re very rare and hard to find, so we’d only seen one individual before those two.  After the owls, we walked out onto the beach and scanned the Atlantic Ocean for ducks.  White-winged scoters and common eiders were the two most abundant species, a striking contrast from Virginia where they’re among the rarest of the expected sea ducks.  In addition, we picked out a few surf scoters, long-tailed ducks, and common loons.  Three sanderlings foraged on the line of the breaking waves. 

The time forced us to leave Salisbury to start our long drive home.  Normally I find being in the car for long trips tedious, but the week had been so filled with activity, sights, and birds that the time to sit and relax felt welcome.