January 2018 Recap

From extremely cold to extremely warm January sure took us for a ride! See the month below through our lens!

Brown's Lake Bog - January 1st

Ah, our frozen annual new year hike. Besides the group of deer, it was a nice quiet walk in the cold. Lots of snow, lots of lichen, just the way January should be.

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Wooster Memorial Park - January 15th

A fresh blanket of snow fell (and was still falling) as we made it out this day. Against the snow you can see the remains of late sturdy plants like the sweet Cicely and beech drops below.

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Barnes Preserve - January 17th

Although cold, the clouds parted, the sun came out, and the bird activity sky rocketed (no pun intended). I've almost always had really great luck birding at Barnes Preserve, this trip started with a winter molt red-tailed hawk, then I watched as a harry woodpecker picked apart a praying mantis egg, followed by a slew of different sparrows, cedar waxwings, a robin, a coopers hawk, and ended with a kestrel perched high in a tree! 

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Browns Lake Bog - January 17th

As the day went on and the sun started to go down, the light became golden across the kettle bog. As I was leaving I took a moment to stand in silence which was interrupted by tiny squeaks from up above - 3 little golden-crowned kinglets flitted high above, sitting for only a brief pause, then off again to another branch.

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Farm - January 21st

Visiting my family's farm I came across a great variety of unique lichen!

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Funk Bottoms Wildlife Area- January 23rd

The first signs of the Skunk Cabbage!

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Johnson Woods - January 26th

A warm spell melted all the snow and made for an unusually nice day. This time of year is great to visit Johnson's Woods, you can really fully see just how large the old oaks are. The warmth also brought out a wide variety of birds - what sounded like a flock of redwing blackbirds (I couldn't see them for a proper ID),  a flicker, a pileated woodpecker, and I was graced with hearing the call of a barred owl!