(Photo: 11:45 am in Fairbanks. Finally, some light!)

I met my group three hours before dawn—not hard to do in Fairbanks, Alaska, in December since sunrise is at nearly 11:00AM—to look for owls. It was my first Christmas count here. We hoped to hear hooting near the airport where owls had appeared on previous counts. No owls showed, but a stern-faced airport police officer stopped to check our IDs. He explained they’ve had problems with fuel theft from stored float planes. When we turned out to be upstanding citizens, he helpfully told us about a spot where he regularly saw owls.

I was thankful it was a balmy 5 degrees ABOVE zero. For more than a week before Christmas temperatures had plummeted to 40 below. With the warmer temperatures, we set an audacious goal for the day: reach double digits for our species tally.

After breakfast we hit the road again when the sky finally showed signs of dawn. Every surface was fuzzy with a half inch of hoarfrost. Our first sighting of the morning was two redpolls flying overhead. They lead us to a bigger flock feeding in a treetop. It was mostly Common Redpolls, cheery little winter finches with bright red caps and males sporting a blush of pink on their chests. Close examination revealed our second species, two paler Hoary Redpolls, mixed in.

We soon added Black-capped Chickadee to our list, and two obliging Boreal Chickadees zipped into a tree right in front of us.

(Photo: Morning traffic!)

At noon we headed back to the airport to look for our main responsibility of the day—the airport is one of the only places in the count circle to spot Northern Goshawk. We drove along a narrow, barely-plowed road on a levee just wide enough for our vehicle. There were limited places to turn around. After a half hour of nothing, we almost gave up, but decided to go just a little further. Off to the side, a musher with his dog team rushed past. A minute later someone shouted “Look, what’s on top of that spruce?” Sure enough, it was an adult Northern Goshawk, its bold white eyebrow just barely visible at that distance. Mission accomplished!

 (Photo: Northern Goshawk)

After adding Common Ravens, Rock Pigeon, a Gray Jay chasing a raven, and a surprise pair of Pine Grosbeaks, we were stuck at 9 species. We’d been cruising a neighborhood for an hour looking for waxwings without even a peep. At 2:30 PM, the light was rapidly fading. We decided to try one last street before calling it quits.

(Photo: Common Ravens)

Suddenly the same person who spotted the Goshawk shouted “Grouse! There’s a grouse!” She was so excited she could barely sputter out where she was looking. Odd as it seemed, a Ruffed Grouse perched in a chokecherry tree in a yard, probably snacking on berries. Using the car as a blind, we snapped some photos for proof: in the dead of winter in Fairbanks, we managed to nudge our species count into double digits. It proved once again one of my favorite things about the Christmas Bird Count: if you go out and look, there is life in the dead of winter, even within driving distance of the Arctic Circle.

Beth Peluso

(Photo: Ruffed Grouse)