My goal with this last trip was to quickly scout as many sites as possible, not to survey for species presence. Still it’s amazing how much you can see even when you’re not trying, sometimes.

Mountain Chickadee

Stellars Jay. Common and noisy, but still handsome.

Male White-headed Woodpecker. I was so excited when he landed near me that I took the photo crooked.

The sites were all beautiful, although some of them had drawbacks.

But most importantly…

Junco with snow

Blurry junco! And not just one!

Another one!

Two more!

Female (top) and male junco: a pair!

In all, I saw seven juncos. They are coming back, and they are in my field sites! It would have been absurd if they hadn’t been, since records show they’ve been in the area for a hundred years or more; but this is field work, where you can’t take anything for granted. So this is good news.