Is this what I’ve been reduced to? Watching birds through binoculars for lack of herping? Freezing weather can drive you to do strange things.

In all seriousness and fairness, though, I had a lovely time last week walking around the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center with Tony Croasdale, a birder friend who works at the Center and who put up a bird feeder right outside his office window so he’d have something to look at besides a computer screen.

We observed some of the common local feeder birds – a nuthatch, a downy woodpecker, titmice, juncos, mourning doves, and chickadees. Tony even helped me distinguish between the black-capped and the Carolina chickadees (black caps show more white on the wings).

I couldn’t walk around the park with Tony without flipping logs, though. Partly it’s habit, since I know there are no garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) with a high in the 40s, but I did manage to turn up a redback salamander (Plethodon cinereus), the lead-back phase. This time of year I was happy to see it.