Yet a few more bird photos from the snowstorm on January 25, 2026, in New England.
A few more bird photos from the January 25, 2026, snowstorm in New England.
You didn’t think I’d let a snowy weekend go by without posting a few snowy bird photos, did you?
The calendar may not show it yet, but in the New England bird world, we’ve officially entered what could be called winter birding season. The vast majority of southbound migrants have left, and the birds we get to enjoy for the next couple of months are either trusty year-round residents or northern visitors who have traveled as far south as they intend to go.
Winter is, of course, the prime time when juncos and white-throated sparrows are found in high numbers. My personal favorite part of winter birdwatching is tracking down different species of ducks. That is, if you can find some open water.
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The fall hawkwatching season is winding down. Raptor sightings at the various dedicated locations are slowing down, with only a handful of birds counted each day as November progresses.
It’s a good time, therefore, to check in to see how the various hawkwatching sites fared this year. New England has several popular sites, but Pack Monadnock at Miller State Park in Peterborough is New Hampshire’s most active and popular site. The hawk count is a project of the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock.
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Here are a few more photos of my experience with juncos in the goldenrod field recently. See the last “For the Birds” column for the whole story. On a side note, now you know what goldenrod looks like after the yellow flowers die off.
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I finally got a ruby-crowned kinglet to sit still for half a second. Today’s walk was filled with white-throated sparrows and ruby-crowned kinglets.
My favorite part of winter birdwatching has always been looking for waterfowl on whatever open water remains. Searching for bald eagles in those same areas has become another favorite of mine as the population of our national bird soars, and we see them more frequently.
Winter is also arguably the best time to watch feeders in the yard, although one can easily make a case for spring being the best time when the grosbeaks, buntings and other surprises arrive. Watching the feeders in winter, particularly before a storm, is a constant treat of chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, woodpeckers, cardinals, blue jays, juncos and white-throated sparrows.
In my opinion, an underrated part of winter birding is the finch irruption, or lack thereof, depending on the year. Birds such as siskins, redpolls, purple finches, crossbills, pine grosbeaks and evening grosbeaks sometimes irrupt into our region as food supply dictates. Other birds such as red-breasted nuthatches are also lumped into the category of unpredictable winter bird visitors.
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It seems like just yesterday we were welcoming back the warblers and other songbirds during spring migration and here we are at fall migration already.
Many of the birds we saw in the spring heading north will look the same on their southward journey. Many others, however, will look different.
Some, like male scarlet tanagers, will bear little resemblance to what they looked like in the spring. When we saw them in May and June, they were the most brightly colored birds in the woods. A sighting always yielded a gasp of excitement as we wondered how a bird in New England could be so brilliant. After the breeding season, however, they molted and are now dull yellow with less shiny black wings. They are still awesome-looking birds but not the striking birds they were in the spring.
In addition to many adult birds molting, the fall migration includes first-year birds that haven’t attained familiar adult plumage yet. They often resemble females or a mix of male and female plumage.
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I’ve written about a lot of different types of birds over the last 30 years. There are some birds I’ve likely written about hundreds of times, and some only a handful of times.
If I searched my “For the Birds” folder for chickadee, robin or woodpecker, I’d get hundreds of hits. If I searched for vireo or flycatcher, I’d get far fewer hits, but still a decent amount.
There’s one bird family found in New England I’m not sure I’ve ever written about or even mentioned within a column. It’s the rail family. Rails are small to medium-sized chicken-like birds of the marshes. The reasons I haven’t written about them before are fairly obvious: rails are not very common, live in a habitat that is difficult for humans to traverse and are extremely secretive.
New England has a few members of the rail family. Virginia rail is the most common and the one most likely to be seen in New Hampshire. Sora is the other most likely candidate in New Hampshire. Clapper rails may be found along the coastal regions of New England.
There are also yellow rails, black rails and king rails found in New England, but they are rarely seen. Virginia rail is the best bet, but even that is a chore.
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Birds of New England.com 