mar. 11

Brrrrr.  Temperature was 10 degrees F, winds 17 gusting to 25 mph when I left at 7:50 am.  Wind chills were below 0.  So I wore the goggles as it was a headwind for the first part of the route.  At least the sun was shining.  And I was on the fast bike so it wasn't any harder than riding in snow.   But the exciting news is:

I saw my first robin of the season!

I gave up flying airplanes last year and decided to replace it with bird watching.  Kind of a big change and I don't know anything about bird watching.  But I've realized the morning bike ride is a great time to do bird listening because it's pretty quiet on the path.  So I listen for a few distinctive calls (that's all I can remember) and then when I get home, I check them out on a website.  I still don't know what yesterday's is, and I heard 2 today.  All three of these are very familiar and common.  The only one I maybe found from listening to the website recordings was a chickadee.  I'll have to take a birder friend on a bike ride and have her tell me what I'm hearing.

On the way home winds were 12 mph gusting to 23 and it was a tailwind.  yea!