Ja(y)ckson 12-15

We met up with Puck, Chip, Paradox, Vegematic, Early Bird, KMac, and a few others at the Crawford House for Breakfast, and a quick run down for the Christmas Bird count. Armed with pencils, pens, paper, cameras, binocs, and all the usual winter gear, we set out about 8:00 AM. Laurie and I headed for Jackson, while others went their merry ways. Our first mistake was taking the Saco Lake trail. After a few minutes, the map showed us the error of our ways, and we found the real trail head just down the road. We put our snow shoes on right from the start and away we went. We soon met New Hampshire and his sister, donning their snow shoes. We continued to leap frog them and others all the way up the mountain. Along the way, SJ and Adamiata caught up to us, as did J&J. It was a regular VFTT party!

We went slowly, looking for birds as we went. It was a pretty slow bird day, but we did mange to see Black-capped Chickadees, Boreal Chickadees, Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, and the highlight for Laurie, her first Gray Jays! They were less than 2 feet away from us on the trail, even though we did not feed them until the summit. They followed us from 2800' all the way to 4052', when we broke out on the top. The views were great.

We thought about doing Webster, but no one else was going and it wasn't broken out, so we returned the way we came, except for a few short side trips to the Webster Trail, Bugle Cliff, and Elephant head, none of which were broken yet. A few more birds were seen this way.

We got back to the House around 2:00 and warmed up near the fire. Eventually all the other groups came back and we compared notes. I'll let Puck give a better report of the birds.

Nice to meet old friends and new!

Knowing that a big storm was coming, we hit the road and drove back home so I could finish this trip report before midnight!

Pics:

http://viewsandbrews.com/nh/b1.jpg - Gray Jay
http://viewsandbrews.com/nh/b2.jpg - Woodpecker
http://viewsandbrews.com/nh/b3.jpg - The big guy

I'm glad you made it home safely. We decided to head back tonight as well. Good times. It was nice meeting you and Laurie. I like the grey jay pic.

It was a great pleasure to meet you and Laurie. Your reputations proceeded you and indeed I found you to be just the fun and interesting people you have been ade out to be . It was good to see John and June again. Another couple of great people who made for one heck of a trip! My second time on Jackson, but the first time with views!

Brian

What a great day to see people. On our drive up the license plate "MTN-HKR" with VFTT and ROT stickers passed us and waved to us as they went by. Not sure who they were though. Then at the trailhead Sherpa John and Adamiata drove up. We met Tom and Laurie on the trail (nice meeting you two and great venison jerky Laurie) and then we caught up to NewHampshire and Jen on the trail. At the end of the day crossing the road back to the car we met Boo and Madhatter. It was a regular VFTT/ROT reunion!

Bit of a cool day but fun. Some of our pictures here

My Trip report on ROT can be found here[url]

Brian

J&J said:

Some of our pictures here

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Wow, great pics, especially of the birds!

Nice to see you guys (again?) !

Great to see you and meet Kmac and Vegematic this weekend. Fun trip with perfect weather. Glad you made it home before the storm. Chip and I attempted Ike, we had to break trail the whole way from the trailhead. Accordingly, we had to turn around about .3 miles from the ridge. My camera is in the shop and Chip has all the pictures. We saw 10 Pine Grossbeaks, two Chickadees and two crows.

Great report. sounds like a reunion.

What surprised me about the CBC this year is that nobody took me up on my offer. I would buy anyone a beer who saw a balckbacked woodpecker. NO takers. Don't you guys like beer?

Tom, do you still have that one photo of the front view of the gray jay?

J & J-- I second Tom's WOW on those pictures.

Puck said:

Great report. sounds like a reunion.

Tom, do you still have that one photo of the front view of the gray jay?

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Thanks!

I will post pics tonight.

http://viewsandbrews.com/temp/abc1.jpg
http://viewsandbrews.com/temp/abc2.jpg
http://viewsandbrews.com/temp/abc3.jpg
http://viewsandbrews.com/temp/abc4.jpg
http://viewsandbrews.com/temp/abc5.jpg
http://viewsandbrews.com/temp/abc6.jpg

Great Photos. Tom, you pick the most photogenic subjects.

Here are some reports on the NH Rare Bird Alerts about the event. You guys are famous.

http://www.virtualbirder.com/bmail/nhbirds/200712/16/index.html#1
http://www.virtualbirder.com/bmail/nhbirds/200712/17/index.html#12

Puck said:

Great Photos. Tom, you pick the most photogenic subjects.

Here are some reports on the NH Rare Bird Alerts about the event. You guys are famous.

http://www.virtualbirder.com/bmail/nhbirds/200712/16/index.html#1
http://www.virtualbirder.com/bmail/nhbirds/200712/17/index.html#12

Click to expand...

mmm...sub-nivean creatures...

Hey ! Dec 20 may be difficult if that's the date next year. How about the 13th ?

Chip said:

Hey ! Dec 20 may be difficult if that's the date next year. How about the 13th ?

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The counts must be done between Dec 15 (or 14) and Jan 5. We will always have ours on the first Sat in that period.