Kerwin Road & Spruce Forest Birds - Ottawa West with Tony Beck

Tuesday Jan 3, 8:00am

There was a fairly large group out on this frigid winter day: Tony, Nina, a new person, Barbara from Moscow, and standbys Rick, Roger, Bob, Helena, Brenda and me.

We went along March Valley Road where we saw a couple of dark Mallards, or possibly hybrids, in a ditch.  We stopped to scope a Red-tailed Hawk.  As we drove away, Bob saw the hawk and asked us to stop, not realizing that the rest of us had all seen it.  He had thought that Tony was just demoing the scope for Barbara.

We stopped at the Ottawa Duck Club feeders where we got a Common Raven, a White-breasted Nuthatch, some Chickadees, and a pair of Downy Woodpeckers.

We went from there to Kerwin Trail.  We all tromped quickly along to generate some heat, but we did not see anything worthwhile.  So after a while, we simply turned around and returned to the cars.  Then off we went to Timmy's for a short break.

Our next stop was Hilda, but, at the corner of Rifle Road, Rick spotted a Red-tailed Hawk rather low down.  We circled back to take some photos through the car windows, but when we tried to get out it flushed.  They always do!

At Hilda, there were mostly just Black-capped Chickadees.  But we did get another Downy Woodpecker and a few Blue Jays.  American Robins and American Tree Sparrows were heard.  Barbara saw a Hairy Woodpecker too.

We saw an adult Northern Shrike on a wire along Carling Avenue as we were heading to Moodie Dr.

We went out to rural Richmond and prowled the roads for Snowy Owls with no luck,  The best we could manage was a group of about 25 Snow Buntings on Aikens Road.

When I got home, there was a female Northern Cardinal at the feeder.