Year bird #50

As the title says, I got my 50th year bird today in the form of a Horned Grebe on the river. What's a grebe doing in Sault Ste. Marie in February you ask? We're in one of our midwinter thaws, yesterday we tied a record of 6ºC (43ºF) set back in 1966, and it was at least that warm again today. Unfortunately, that means all of our precipitation comes as rain, and the roads have been getting worse by the day. Two Greater Scaup were also brought in with the warm front, along with robins and many Herring Gulls (they disappeared for a few weeks back in January). Searchmont is also having some bad conditions, with the raining and freezing and melting and whatnot. I was up there on the weekend, had my first-ever park sesh - hit the 40 foot jump by the end and landed it no problem. Also managed to find a flock of around 10 Evening Grosbeaks along with the usual siskins, redpolls, etc.

If you're thinking that 6º is cold, think again! It's actually almost uncomfortably warm here - I am quite comfortable in just a t-shirt and jeans. I can't wait for this thaw to be over so the skiing conditions will get better! Also so the roads will improve, they're bumpy as all hell right now and covered in massive puddles.

On another note, all this melting combined with a broken sump-pump caused my basement to flood this morning. I was rudely awoken at 8 a.m. with the news and got to work before I was even awake (I had spare first which is why I was still asleep at 8 a.m.). We got it mostly cleaned up and the plumber came and installed a new pump, so hopefully there will be no more of that nonsense.