Aves Specta

Nemo on Knox

A small person in a pink and teal snow suit and wearing a face mask sits deep in a steep, peaked snowbank.

Inside for the morning, we watched a kind neighbor snowthrow the mountain at the end of the driveway. That still left plenty for me. Nemo dropped an unprecedented single-storm snowfall, I'd say, at least for our 13 years here. Blowing and drifting make an estimate unwise, but I can't resist stating 25 inches.* I've seen taller piles once or twice, but this time we went from near-bare ground to waist-deep drifts overnight. It's hard to get shovel leverage with snow that high. 2+ days digging and there's still no route to the compost pile, or out the back door, for that matter.

The weather station recorded only one gust above 30 mph, so no blizzard here, but it was nonetheless breezy. Sustained winds in the teens.

The weather station reported -3.1 temperature and -35 wind chill for 2pm on the 9th. Seems that has to be a glitch, but it was definitely cold and windy out there.

Kept birds fed and Friday through Sunday detected 23 species. The Field Sparrow continues, but has been present only briefly in the morning. Our second redpoll of the winter appeared for a few minutes Saturday morning. A Red-bellied Woodpecker, just the 4th for our yard, was at the suet this afternoon (earlier encounters were May 2007 and September-October 2012, with another just down the street in May 2010). Carolina Wren. Robins and starlings. A single white-throat, down from the usual few.

* The National Weather Service spotter network reported Berwick atop the list for York County.

Notes

  1. About the image: Slumped into a snowdrift with sled and shov, February 9, 2013. Image added during 11ty move. © Scott Richardson
  2. Originally posted to Blogger.
  3. Last modified January 30, 2026.

Aves Specta · Est. 1999