- Only eating pork (bacon, pork, ham etc) and beef (yes burgers too) once a month each. I am attempting to reduce my meat consumption but only a fool would go cold turkey on poultry. I have had my one pork product this past Sunday brunch at Savorez (Pork belly and Trout Taco).
- Birding at least once a day and logging it in eBird even if just a tally of my feeder birds out my office window.
- My only year listing this year will be my 5 Mile Radius birds. Sure I will chase any new NC birds or lifers and probably go on some pelagics, but this will be the first year in 4 years that I will not be doing a "NC big year". You know you are addicted to listing when you make a resolution to stop doing big years.
- Running at least 5 days a week. I have done at least 3 miles a day for five days in the first week and I am on track for another 5 day week this week. I am getting old and I hurt all over.
I bet the pork and beef one falls first as I love bacon and my favorite dish in Wilmington is the Pork Belly Bahn Mini sandwich at Yosake. I don't think I have ever turned down a gourmet burger when offered one either. I also have some client dinners coming up soon for work, and it's hard to turn away a free filet mignon.
Back to birds... In the first week I spent a bunch of mornings at neighbor's houses looking for Western Tanagers. I know of at least 2 houses maybe three in Wilmington that are hosting Western Tanagers. That being said I dipped every time the first week. But the consolations were pretty good...
A brighter yellow Orange-crowned then the previously posted one.
Eastern Bluebird
American Goldfinch
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Chickadee
Cape May Warbler
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Brown-headed Nuthatch
Downy Woodpecker
Red-winged Blackbird
Lots of good bokeh on this day.
Hmm, is it really winter?
A quick trip to Airlie Gardens one day yielded some new 5MR birds.
Northern Cardinal
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Anhinga
White-throated Sparrow
Carolina Wren
My first thought on this was a Mottled Duck! Are you kidding? I missed Mottled on my big year last year... and this one was 50 yards from my house..... Further inspection revealed this was the love child of a Mottled and a Mallard. The chest had too much rufous coloring and the throat was not totally free of streaks. The tail had a little hint of lighter colored feathers.
White under wing was nice....
But way too thick of a white border in the speculum... By the way, does anyone else think it's weird that speculum can be the feathers on a duck or the "medical tool used for inspecting body orifices"?
After checking this hybrid monster's speculum thoroughly with my speculum, I slowly walked home and lucked into a nice flock a stone's throw from my back yard in the land that is being cleared for a new house.
Dark-eyed Junco is actually a pretty decent bird here.
Brown Creepers are not easy to find in New Hanover county either.
Blue-headed Vireo
Black-and-white Warbler!
What a week to start the year and all within 5 miles of Casa Adams. Half of this was achieved without any driving.
Happy New Year!
Wha...what sorcery is this..? Warblers piles upon each other at a feeder in January!?
ReplyDeleteThe coast has its own rules; what a sweet set up for 5MR-ing.
It’s mighty comforting to pull those tricky birds early on too.
I’m still to unfamiliar with what is expected or unexpected here, seasonally, from the overall bubble of ‘possible’
Rock on Jamie.
Good to have someone in NC putting up numbers to compete with the west coast swagger!
Jamie does east coast swagger pretty well.
ReplyDeleteWow a great start to the 5MR Challenge!
ReplyDeleteAnd good luck with your other resolutions too :)
Hi Jamie,
ReplyDeleteAnother wonderful post. I meant to write earlier and say (1) for the less-meat challenge, you can accept any meat that is a GIFT. That's how I handle that, so I can be gracious to my host. So those client dinners are a go-ahead. And (2) LOVE this blog entry! Wonderful feeder photos. and (3) Glad to hear you are trying the Checklist-a-Day Challenge on Ebird. It should be noted, however, that ebird is only asking for 365 checklists per year - one list per day ON AVERAGE -- so it does NOT have to be on each day. Having said that, you are maintaining the "Days of Checklist Streak" (see at https://ebird.org/home ) when you DO submit one complete checklist a day. My streak is a tad over 750 days now. It started with a New Year's Resolution on 1/1/17. Looking forward to your CBC wrapup blog entry! - Lynn Erla Beegle
Good ideas Erla! Question though, if a waiter at a restaurant says "you should try the steak it's excellent" does that count as an invitation?
DeleteIf the waiter is Manuel, ask for the quinoa.
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