I hope that you have recovered from your Christmas and New Years festivities by now. I also hope that a lot of you got involved with a Christmas Bird Count. From the results I have seen so far, the counts across the country were quite successful. I know that many of us ate entirely too much over the holidays, so maybe it would be a good idea to get out into the countryside on our skis. The birding is different than in summer, the pace is slower and the species count is lower. That makes it easier to identify the birds that remain in our areas for the winter. Winter plumage can add a degree of challenge, but that is just another part of the game. Birding in the winter can be exciting, when we see an unexpected bird. Sometimes we can see a bird that should have left in October, but still seems to be able to survive. Possibly these birds are the reason we use the expression "bird brain"! The usage of this term to describe winter birders is incorrect.

Winter photography can give us some amazing pictures, as well as some real challenges. The birds may tend to sit a little tighter than during their breeding season and are a lot easier to see. I will leave the technical stuff to the Bird Photography Tips page. If they don't cover it soon, bug them until they do. I know that Scott Fairbairn and John Reaume would love to hear from you with ideas for their tips page. One thing that applies to both photography and using binoculars in the winter is this-- don't get excited and breath on your cold lenses! It's hard to see through the frost! If you wear glasses, you have an additional challenge there as well. I know that sometimes I have cleaned my glasses twice, and then found that I had breathed on the eye pieces of my binoculars. By the time I had the fog cleaned from all the glass, the bird I wanted to look at had gotten tired of waiting for me to get my act together, and had left.

For any of you readers who are looking for a birding festival to attend, may I suggest a trip to Alberta in April? There is a weekend on Beaverhill Lake, one of the world's best areas to see migrating waterfowl and shorebirds. This is the Tofield Snow Goose Festival, and it is well worth attending. There are commercial exhibits relating to nature, and an art show as well. There are bus trips out through the countryside, and field hikes for the adventurous. I have met people there from all over the world, and had a wonderful time comparing notes with these visitors. I usually work there as an interpreter or tour guide, so if you come out to Tofield this spring, say "Hi" if you run into me! Tofield is a small town south-east of Edmonton, very close to Beaverhill Lake, and the whole town works hard on the festival planning and operation. The festival is a great success, as the visitor numbers over the weekend run from 8,000 to 10,000 birders! You might see flocks of snow geese numbering in the tens, if not the hundreds of thousands! Watch this column for more information in the coming months.