Owls and winter birds part 4

Here is the last post from the owls and winter birds trips in early February in eastern Ontario. These are some of the highlights from around the city of Ottawa.

 

These Bohemian Waxwings were part of a group of about 125 which were gorging themselves on berries right beside the road allowing incredible close views. Always a bit tricky even in good winters, both groups got great views of them.

 

 

A close up of one of the Bohemians on the tree.

 

A funny male Mallard shot with my point and shoot up close for fun!

 

 

The Hilda Road feeders near Shirley's Bay provided incredible opportunities for viewing and studying Common and Hoary Redpolls. We had maximum counts of 300 Commons (including several Greenlands) and up to 5 Hoarys at one time. 

Owls and winter birds Part 3

One of the groups headed up to Algonquin Provincial Park for a night and we had some nice birds and mammals. Although it was cold and the roads were snow covered, everyone had a great time.

This Boreal Chickadee was hanging around the trailhead for the Spruce Bog boardwalk trail right near the visitor center turn off. This species is much  more difficult to capture than Black-caps which readily pose and come to sunflowers.

The Visitor Centre feeders were great for getting close views of a good variety of birds. This male White-winged Crossbill was a regular visitor.

 At least fifteen Pine Grosbeaks were visiting the feeders and this handsome male was one of at least five in the group.

 On our way out of the park in late afternoon, we came across this very tame Red Fox right beside the road. We got some fantastic close images before it sauntered off.

One of the big targets for the visit was Pine Marten. We didnt see it until our last morning when we managed to come across no fewer than THREE together in the Mew Lake Campground. Everyone was thrilled and we got great prolonged views of the group.

Owls and winter birds Part 2

So here are a few of the owl highlights starting with the Great Grays which were everyone's favs of course.

 

I know this is just a portrait shot but I really love this image. It just captures the magic of a Great Gray to me and the subtlety of the white and dark around the face just pops!

 

 

So here is the classic image of a Great Gray on the hunt. This bird has just left a perch and has tone on a meal!

 

In Algonquin Park we came across this fresh set of plunge marks in the snow from what we concluded was very likely a successful hunt by a Great Gray (which had been seen exactly here just a few hours before). Note the mouse tracks coming from the bottom left which turn abruptly in the middle top and then end suddenly!!! 

This was a pretty good year for Barred Owls which meant it wasn't a good year for small owls. The Barreds will often predate the smaller Saw-whets and even Boreals that are roosting in the same wood lot. This one was near Montreal.

It took a lot of searching but one of the groups eventually had superb views of two Northern Saw-whet Owls. Unfortunately birders had been withholding information on these sightings. As someone who straddles both communities I find that practice incredibly short sighted. Indeed in the end it cost all of the participants a Boreal owl in Ottawa. My view on this is simple - withholding information on birds is not part of the hobby and is shameful and short sighted.

 

After a lot of effort, on the very last morning of the second group, we finally found this Northern Hawk Owl. It was in a spot within a kilometer of where the owl had been seen two or three times over a two month period. This site was clearly a more reliable location as this post had a lot of pellets right underneath it! 

Ottawa winter owls and specialties Jan Feb

For the first time since 2005, I offered two short owl and winter specialty tours to eastern Ontario. A small movement of Great Gray Owls was the trigger for this choice. Each group spent four nights in eastern Ontario targetting owls and winter birds. There were a lot of photos taken so I am doing several posts. This first one is from the day trip to Amherst Island which is normally the best owl spot on an eastern Ontario tour. This winter it did hold both Barred and Snowy Owls but otherwise the owl woods was fairly quiet (except for those pesky chickadees!).

 

For me the biggest highlight of the Amherst trip was actually an event that happened on the return ferry crossing. Only Big Tom (McDavitt) and I were silly enough to brave the cold but we were rewarded with a once in a lifetime encounter. As we scanned the ducks in the channel ahead of the ferry I drew Toms attention to a Great Black-backed Gull which appeared to be attacking one of the ducks. It was about 800 meters away when we first spotted it, but the ferry really chugs along and soon we could see that the gull had a female Common Merganser in the water which was still alive an struggling! The gull would not give up its prize and as we got closer and closer I just kept firing away fully expecting that the gull would take flight. The ferry was on a collision path with the gull and duck but it wouldnt let go!! Incredibly the ferry drove RIGHT OVER THE GULL AND MERGANSER with the gull holding on to its prey and then popping up in the stern wake of the ferry. It was an amazing event to witness. The photo below was taken just a few seconds before both were submerged!

Fort Myers Hilites

Kathi and I made a quick five night trip to Fort Myers Beach for her winter mini-break. The weather was not that warm, but we had excellent photo opps and really had a great time. Below are a few hilites. As you can see, we saw a lot of predation taking place!!

This cormorant was mighty ambitious, and certainly never downed this huge mullet. 

We watched this Great Egret stalking and catching six Cuban Brown Anoles in less than twenty minutes! Lets hope this single handed attempt to remove an invasive exotic is successful!

I find Ding Darling is often an over-rated photo experience, but not on one of our visits. The cold temps seemed to have caused a lot of fish to be in stress and there were pelicans, vultures, eagles, ospreys and a host of herons and egrets feasting at close range.

Estero lagoon is still one of my favourite sites to photograph in south Florida and it didnt disappoint as we had incredible close encounters with four or five large herons and egrets including this adult Little Blue Heron.

Prairie Warblers were already singing and on territory in the coastal mangroves and we had superb views of several males including this one.

The Yellow-throated Warbler was a constant fixture in the palms just outside our hotel room. Nice backyard bird!

Hybrid Common Goldeneye x Hooded Merganser

On Feb 21st morning I spotted a puzzling male duck mixed in with Common and Red-breasted Mergansers and Common Goldeneyes just north of Port Huron, MI. The bird had very striking pied plumage with characters reminiscent of both Common Goldeneye (without the eye spot) and Hooded Merganser (without the salmon tones). Bill and head shape were intermediate between these two species. I checked on line for images of hybrids of these two species and the bird was a dead ringer for on line images of what are presumed to be hybrids of COGO and HOME. The bird was swimming just south of the main viewpoint and parking area at Fort Gratiot County Park a few miles north of Port Huron, MI. It was still present when I left at 10:30 am. I managed to secure a few images that show the overall appearance of the bird.

NEWFOUNDLAND - ELLISTON PUFFINS

On our last full day of birding we visited the ATLANTIC PUFFIN colony at Elliston, a small town just below Cape Bonavista. The weather was incredible and had amazing views of nesting PUFFINS flying to and from their nesting burrows. Below are some of my favourite pics from the visit.

BLACK GUILLEMOT singng

PUFFIN taking off from burrow

PUFFINS trying to avoid a  marauding Herring Gull

wide shot of the PUFFIN colony at Elliston

visitors enjoying the PUFFINS

ATLANTIC PUFFIN

ATLANTIC PUFFINS