Staying Fit
While the onset of winter means dwindling daylight and cooler temperatures, the change of seasons also brings unique birding rewards.
Winter offers sightings of different avian species from other seasons; it’s a particularly good time to spot waterfowl and wetland birds, for example.
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Many species stay put in winter while flocks of migratory birds appear along North America’s many flyways. Some species, such as ducks, are in their finest breeding plumage in winter.
Birders have another cold-weather advantage: fewer leaves to block the view. Birds can be easier to spot in a snowy destination, and birds conserve energy in the cold so they’re less likely to fly away.
Here are five trails — from the Pacific Northwest to the Florida swamps — to spot America’s great diversity of wintertime birds.
Sandpipers are known to hang out in the mudflats along the Oregon coast.
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1. Oregon Coast Birding Trail
The scenic seascapes of Oregon’s Pacific coast offer prime birding opportunities in 173 hotspots along the Oregon Coast Birding Trail, a driving route where more than 450 types of birds can be spotted. Even though winters in coastal Oregon can be cool and rainy, temperatures are typically mild and birds are abundant.
Winter migrating waterfowl and shorebirds can be found around coastal estuaries and lakes, such as Tillamook Bay. Keep an eye out for ducks, including mallards, northern pintails, American wigeons, bufflehead and the eye-catching surf scoters with their unique white, orange, yellow red and black bills.
Oregon’s winter raptors — osprey, bald eagles and merlin — also frequent the estuaries. Meanwhile, wintering “rockpipers,” such as black turnstones, black oystercatchers and surfbirds scatter on coastal boulders. At low tide, look to the mudflats for dunlins, dowitchers and sandpipers.
In the fields and meadows farther inland, expect to find red-tailed and rough-legged hawks. In leafy groves of redwoods and Douglas fir, train your spotting scopes on chestnut-backed chickadees and Steller’s jays in the treetops and varied thrushes and Pacific wrens in the underbrush.
Don’t miss: The common murre is Oregon’s most abundant seabird, comprising about 60 percent of all seabirds that nest in the state. You can spot these black and white birds in large colonies on rocky islands and cliffs on the northern and southern coasts.
