Last March Peter spread detailed road maps of the mid-Hudson Valley across his dining room table. He spent hours with a compass, analyzing roads and the Hudson River, bays, marshes, cities. Finally one day he plunked down that compass on the town of Glasco, right on the banks of the Hudson River and drew a circle with a fifteen mile diameter. It covered both sides of the river, Ulster and Dutchess counties, with a smidgen of Columbia county in there as well. There were rich sections in this circle like the north and south Tivoli Bay and the Esopus Bend Preserve in Saugerties. But above all, the count circle included the Hudson River. And thus, a new Christmas Bird Count circle was born. Mark DeDea was the inspiration for the circle; Peter was the map man. Forty eight of us headed into the field on December 28 to count.

I joined Peter in sector D, an area in Dutchess County that includes the vast Grieg farm where several special birds were found this fall: a Red Phalarope, a LeConte’s Sparrow and a Lincoln’s Sparrow. We rose at 4:30 to find owls. The first two locations we called left us with the deep silence of night. A final try brought two Screech Owls singing their crazy song from one side of the road, with a chorus of a Great Horned Owl hooting in from the other side.