February 19, 2017
A Great Gray was reported several times on March
Valley Road .
An earlier try was unsuccessful, but this time, a few cars were parked
on the side of the road and birders were in the adjacent field. We joined them and looked where the were
pointing their cameras, but saw nothing.
It was well camouflaged perched in plain sight. Soon we saw it - what a beauty. There was no baiting or disrespectful
behaviour, thank goodness.
We decided to head for the far east end to look for Snowy
Owls. We patrolled all the back roads
without success, although we did see many Horned Larks and Snow Buntings. We also spotted a couple of Rough-legged
Hawks and a Common Raven with a dead bird it had either captured or scavenged.
A fresh report of a Snowy Owl in the west end sent us out
again. We tried Roger
Stevens Drive and Moodie
Drive without success. Finally we spotted one on Barnsdale
Rd. We
cruised the back roads and had good views of more Horned Larks and Snow Buntings,
as well as a surprising number of American Robins.
We decided to try for the Eastern Bluebird reported on Malakoff
Rd , but had no luck. Taking back roads home, we again passed Barnsdale
Rd , and our Snowy Owl was closer this time on a
significant hump. A pickup truck with
three young locals stopped and were thrilled to see the owl through our
binoculars.
