PHOTO DAY - The Jack Pine Trail - Ottawa West with Tony Beck

Thursday Feb 23, 8:00am

Today there were only Gary & Sue ,Tony & Nina and me.

We saw Hairy Woodpeckers at the parking lot and heard a buch of American Robins singing as we started down the trail.  We also heard American Crows and a Common Raven.  At the feeder, we saw both Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers and Mourning Doves.  Surprisingly, we heard a Canada Goose, and Sue spotted it flying over.  I saw a White-breasted Nuthatch very low on the trunk.  As we headed back towards the cars, Tony could hear a number of American Tree Sparrows, but we could not locate them.

We decided to go for the Gray Partridges, but stopped first at Burnside.  There were a number of gulls on the ice - Great Black-backed, Herring and a few Ring-billed.  A pale gull made us work before we decided it was a young Herring Gull.  We could see a distant Red-tailed Hawk at the dump, and a tree full of European Starlings.  We saw a few vanishing Horned Larks along Barnsdale Road.

We checked the brush pile on Barnsdale, but found nothing.  So we turned around and went out Moodie to Brophy.  There we did get our American Tree Sparrows in a ditch and on the fence line.  We had a flock of Snow Buntings along Rushmore and coming in Eagleson, we saw American Black Ducks and Mallards in a storm water pond.

We went to Terry Fox and the road behind Canadian Tire.  We walked up and down and into the fields, but saw no sigh of the Gray Partidges.

We decided to go out o Carleton Place to look for the Trumpeter Swans on the river.  Just before coming into town, we saw 8 Wild Turkeys.  Unfortunately, there was no sign of any activity at the Mississippi River, besides some Canada Geese.

We came back towards town, turning down Dwyer Hill Road, where we saw some more Wild Turkeys and an extremely pale Red-tailed Hawk.  We checked the brush pile on Barnsdale again with no success.  A last stop at Burnside got us a couple of more Red-tailed Hawks and the few gulls that remained took to the air as we watched.