Monday, January 10, 2011

Dewberry Trail, Mer Bleue & Ottawa East with Tony Beck

Jan 6, 8:00am

Today we met at Dolman Ridge Road. There were Bob, Peter, Al, Chris and a new lady, Bev, as well as Tony and Nina.

At the feeders there were lots of Hairy Woodpeckers, some American Goldfinches, a Pileated Woodpecker and the odd Blue Jay.

As we drove away, Tony spotted 4 adult Black-backed Gulls and 1 Herring Gull flying over. Where did they come from, and where were they going?

We drove straight to Larose Forest, and checked the feeders along the road. All we could scrape up were a Red-breasted Nuthatch, a Hairy Woodpecker and some more American Goldfinches. A few Common Ravens could be heard in the forest.  No sign of any Evening Grosbeaks.

We approached Casselman from the north, and spotted a light-morph Rough-legged Hawk, which Tony scoped for us.

After a break at Timmy’s, we drove out to Concession 20, where we saw a good-sized flock of Snow Buntings with a few Lapland Longspurs mixed in. We drove south to Concession 21, where we scoped another Roughie. We turned north on Ch. Des Forges, and Tony spotted a very-well hidden Red-tailed Hawk at the corner of Conc. 20.

We retraced to St Rose, then went west on Conc. 19. At the corner, we had a very good scope view of an American Kestrel, and further along we saw three more Rough-legged Hawks, the last one, a dark-morph.

We returned to Conc 20 and saw another Red-tailed Hawk, then a large flock of Snow Buntings with several Lapland Longspurs in amongst them. The flock alternated between the road and the wires. Then we had flocks both in front and behind us. We go good enough looks at the longspurs to be able to count them for our lists.

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