Most of our winter staples have arrived here at the Museum. There are a handful of birds that arrive each fall at about the same time; yellow-rumped warbler, ruby-crowned kinglet, yellow-bellied sapsucker, hermit thrush, white-throated sparrow, and dark-eyed junco. There are other land birds that come in each year but those six are the main characters in our winter troop of feathered players.

I haven’t seen a junco or a hermit thrush yet, but they’ve been observed in the local area outside of the Museum, and may have simply eluded me. If they’re not here as I write, they will be within the next day or two.

One other bird that figures prominently in our winter inventory of species is hooded merganser. They typically arrive in November, but I’ve seen them here in our Wetlands as early as 31 October. Although the bulk of our merganser visitors (we may have as many as two dozen at a time swimming around our Wetland) arrive in mid November, I expect to see an early lone merg any day now.

Let’s not forget the merganser.

Keep a lookout for these and other winter arrivals while you walk the trails here at the Museum.