St. Patrick's Day Birding

March 17, 2012

Barbara and I had been in all day working, so decided to go on a brief outing to look for spring migrants.  We decided to check the flooded fields beside the Jock River near Richmond.

On the way there, we saw a male Hooded Merganser swimming along the river itself, as we drove along  Steeple Hill Cr.  We drove to the dead end on Twin Elm Rd. and saw lots of Canada Geese, but nothing unusual.

We backtracked on Twin Elm to Barnsdale.  Along the former, we saw two Killdeer bathing in a ditch.  As we moved closer, they retreated to the ploughed field, and became almost invisible.  We finally spotted three of them in the field, and could hear more calling.

We took Barnsdale to Moodie and checked Burnside pond.  But it was still frozen and devoid of birds.  We took a loop around Trail Rd. and back to Barnsdale.  We saw the resident Red-tailed Hawk across from the landfill site.