Snow Ball and more

For the past couple weeks Great Bear Trio has been out of hibernation and roaming the snowy countryside of New England...Checking out some Heavy Metal Boss distortion mandolinMom and David jammingBecky made us some darn good cookiesMom trying out concertinas at The Button BoxRachel and Jonathan had us over for dinner one night...
They seem to be doing well...Me and JennaMy WINNING bananagram...I also got to do a little (frigid) birding out on Cape Ann. Highlights were a stunning drake KING EIDER, a few Iceland Gulls, great looks at a Peregrine Falcon, Black Guillemots, Great Cormorants, Harlequin Ducks and more. My year list is currently at 80. This is a view of Thatcher IslandThe Snow Ball in Peterborough, NHThanks to all our wonderful hosts: Peggy and Alec, Will, David, Becky, Ted and Krista, Chris plus Heather, Jenna, Nils, Amy and August!

Club Passim on Concert Window!

Some friends of ours, Dan Gurney and Forrest O'Connor, recently started this great new website called Concert Window. They have a deal worked out with the legendary Club Passim in Cambridge, MA where they stream shows live for FREE! So check this out...

TUESDAY, JANUARY 25 8:00pm EST

Andrew & Noah VanNorstrand
with Matt Glaser, John McGann,
and special guest Chris Miller

Watch the show LIVE, for FREE, anywhere in the world...

Tell your friends!

January news

Wow, it's January 23rd already and I still haven't posted my first blog of 2011! Sorry about that everyone. Things have been very good here. A little on the busy side but that's okay. At the moment mom, Noah, Sarah and I are traveling in New England for a couple days. That'll probably be a separate blog post though. Last week we had a nice string of shows with the Andrew & Noah Band. Rachel couldn't make it unfortunately but Dana, Chris, Kevin and Kailyn were all sounding terrific. It's so awesome to play with these folks. Our sound is starting to gel a bit now and I'm really excited about how things are coming together. Chris actually organized an Americana showcase at this awesome venue in NYC called The Living Room. The lineup was us, The Sweetback Sisters, The Jenkins Sisters, Margaret Glaspy, Stephanie Coleman and Cleek Schrey. It was a wide range of folk / roots influenced, somewhat acoustic music. We're all coming from similar places musically but everyone has branched way out in different directions. It was a great mix. And while we were down in the city we went to the CD release concert for Abigail Washburn's terrific new album City of Refuge. You really should check it out. I've been a fan of her's for years now and I think this is easily some of her best stuff...

In other exciting news, I have a brand new pair of binoculars! EL 8x42 Swarovision by Swarovski So far I've only had a chance to use them a little bit at the bird feeders back home but they are absolutely amazing. I tallied up an after-the-fact year list for 2010 that came out to 418, give or take a few. It was a great year overall; I had 29 life birds in 2010, bringing my ABA North American life list up to 550, as well as 29 new birds for New York State. Some of my favorite birds from last year were Black Rosy Finch in Utah, Violet-crowned Hummingbird in Arizona, various parrots in California, Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks and lots of other cool stuff in New York (Barn Owl, Manx Shearwater, Wilson's Phalarope, Worm-eating Warbler and more). Recurring nemesis birds were Northern Goshawk and Least Bittern; haven't gotten a satisfying look at either in many years. My 2011 year list is off to a slightly slow start with 50 some species and a handful of nice finds. Still missing most gulls, finches, owls, shrike, typical northeast winter stuff. I have had the chance to see some Evening Grosbeaks though...

Never get tired of those. Well, I guess that's all for now. I'll leave you with a track from one of my recent iTunes discoveries, Boubacar Traore...