A Taste of Winter Birding

I went to my beach house in Massachusetts this weekend, which allow me to freeze my fingers off looking for cold-weather birds that would be tricky to find closer to home. Typing on a blackberry, as I am doing now, precludes a full report, but some of the highlights included Great Cormerant, Long-tailed Duck, eiders, Surf Scoters, Bonaparte's Gulls, and great looks at gannets. From a non-birding perspective, 4 seals were fun to see. It's not winter yet, and birding from the same spot at Christmas will be more productive, but an early start and a pair of year birds (GRCO and LTDU) were both good.