It was the morning of Thanksgiving Day and I was up early. Guests were still asleep and I was done with the morning chores. A pot of fresh coffee had been brewed, a fire was crackling happily in the wood stove (front doors open so the fire was visible), and a light breakfast of pastries had been put out.

I was sitting at my desk by the kitchen window and marveling at the snow that was falling outside. The air was relatively warm so the snowflakes were sticking to each other as they fell. Then they stuck to whatever they landed on. The world was a winter wonderland.

I started a fresh page in my red journal and prepared for a good birding session. I was still desperately upset with myself for an incident that occurred the previous weekend and I was positive that the photo gods were a little disappointed as well. It was the result of simple carelessness, but the pain was complex on many levels. I guess I should start at the beginning.

It had been just another Sunday and I was sitting at the kitchen window and counting the birds. All of the “regulars” were in attendance and I was one species short of tying the all-time record for species observed at my house in November. The “easy birds” had already been logged and I knew that setting a new record was going to require an “X-factor” species; a bird that just shows up out of nowhere in an improbable place, or at an improbable time.

The sun was shining and I was writing little notes in my journal when I heard the unmistakable call of a common raven. This bird didn’t really qualify as an X-factor species because ravens are so common in my area. I generally hear or see a raven every month, so they are an essential species for a record-braking list, but not unusual. So I marked the raven box in my checklist and added a notation in the journal. Record tied!

Then, just a few minutes later, the gods sent me the X-factor. I looked up from my writing and noticed a rather odd-looking bird sitting in the lilac bush on the other side of the railing of my deck.

This bird caught my eye because of its unusual color; sort of a rusty cinnamon orange. There were two adult male red-winged blackbirds on the deck, so a first-year male with some brown feathers wasn’t totally out of the question, but this bird looked … wrong.

Up came the binoculars and BAM! I was looking at a bird called a rusty blackbird (Euphaguscarolinus) and I was cursing myself. Why, you ask? Because I was looking at the bird through binoculars and not through the telephoto lens on my camera! Why, you ask again? Because I am an idiot and I left my camera up in my office. I soaked in the colors of this bird’s plumage, marveled at its white eyes and then got up as slowly as possible to get my camera. When I returned to the window the bird was gone. It was only the second time in my life that I have seen one of these birds and I didn’t have my camera. I’m going to need a moment.

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So, I’ve been logging in the hours at the kitchen window ever since. Could the record-breaking X-factor species actually show up again? Would Nikonus, who saw that I was unprepared and decided to punish me with the rare bird, possibly be swayed into giving me a second chance by Iso’s calm and soothing demeanor? So far, the answer is no, but there was one additional treat in store.

This brings us back to Thanksgiving Day and the snowstorm. The white flakes were falling at the rate of an inch per hour and I was kept very busy by the storm. About every 30 minutes I had to re-shovel the path on the deck, scrape the railings and put out fresh birdseed. Not too much, because it would just get buried, but enough to keep all of the hungry birds fed. Again and again I went out and the chickadees were particularly impatient with me. At one point I placed a container of seed on the railing and before I could fill the feeders the chickadees were landing on the container and taking the seeds without any hesitation.

Two hours had gone by and I was getting a little antsy, but I stuck with it and Iso decided to have mercy on me. There was a large flock of American goldfinches on the railing and scanning the members in search of interesting feather patterns I noticed one finch that wasn’t a goldfinch. It was a pine siskin (Spinus pinus)! This time I was looking at the birds through my camera (I won’t make that mistake again for a long time) and the shutter started firing in high-speed mode so there would be many frames to choose from. Large snowflakes have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and often they can obscure vital parts of birds in photographs.

In the end, I had yet another X-factor species and, most importantly, I had a photo. Only one picture had the siskin without any snowflakes in front of it and the bird was standing in profile and the details were crisp and clear. I probably won’t see another rusty blackbird, but at least I have a brand new record for bird sightings and I have a photo of the record-setting species. Whew.

Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 27 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more in formation visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.