We are overdue for another episode of everyone’s favorite made-up, bird-related, Cape Cod-based award show: the Bird Grammys!

By mid-winter, the prize rare birds have all been established and often settle into a routine.

As this throwback winter plods on, with ice fishers on the ponds and ice floes on the bay, one of the most common questions us bird folks get is “how do birds survive these brutal temperatures?”

Suddenly a big bird rocketed into view – a Peregrine Falcon, death missile of the tidal flats, no doubt hunting the shorebirds.

With just a few days left in 2024, the undisputed bird of the year for Cape Cod was found in Chatham.

Amidst the silent majesty of this cold Christmas morn, I can only assume you are all gathered around the radio, in the warm embrace of kith and kin, waiting to hear the latest results of the local bird counts.

This is one of those cases where a bird in the hand was going to be worth at least two in the bush. We needed a licensed hummingbird bander to catch and examine it.

On Nantucket this week, the birders are all having flashbacks to October of 2012, when Hurricane Sandy famously devastated parts of the East Coast.