Tornado Weekend

September 17-24, 2018

We left home for the cottage an hour before the tornado struck on Friday.  We were dropping off the kids at home in Chelsea.  The traffic was terrible, so we drove through Hull pretty much as the storm hit Mont Bleu, not knowing about the tornadoes.

At Venosta, the clouds were ominous,  but we saw the Sandhill Cranes right near town on he east side of the highway.

We carried on to the lake, had supper and were getting ready for bed when we got a call from Cathy and Bruce in BC - they had seen the tornado coverage on TV, and knew it had struck close to our house.  Grant was at home, but we could not contact him because the power was out, and remained out for 4 days.  However, the next day we could call our next door neighbour who told us that our house was unscathed.

We called Kirk, who had power and made arrangements for Karine to pick up Grant and all our frozen food and take them to their house.

Meanwhile, having taken our boat out, there was not much else to do but go birding.

We hiked over to Dale's so see the progress on his garage project, and there we got a Lesser Yellowlegs, Yellow-rumped Warbler and the uncommon Swamp Sparrow.

Shirley's Bay Dyke

September 19, 2018

We ran out of time on the last JC Birding outing to visit the dyke, so decided to venture there on or own.  We called Range Control for permission.

The water was high, so there no shorebird habitat, although we did see a single Spotted Sandpiper.

We had excellent views of a Northern Harrier and of three first year eagles!

There were no warblers along the trail until we were way out on the dyke.  At that point we encountered many small flocks of Yellow-rumped Warblers.

Jack Pine Trail

September 18, 2018

We went for an evening hike to Jack Pine, where we had not been all year.  There were chickadees and nuthatches and very little else.  Nevertheless, we had good fun.

Fall Birds, Fish & Frogs

Sept 17, 2018

Many more Pine Siskins showing up and a few warblers passing through.  A sunny day brings the frogs and bass out.

Mud Lake with JC Birding

Sept 13, 2018

Text by Jane

Bill & Barb, Connie, Sami, Barb C. and I met at Mud Lake at 7:00.  On the lake were lots of Canada Geese, Wood Duck, Mallards and a nice Great Blue Heron.  

We decided to bird east of the ridge first, goodness lots of warblers -- of course Yellow-rumps, many Cape Mays, Northern Parula, Black-throated Green, a couple of Bay-breasted, Tennessee  and Chestnut-sided.  We only saw one Black and White.  Then from the photographs, we discovered we also saw Pine and a Blackpoll.  The beauty of photography  and the help of Merlin.  We spent at least 3 hours in that area.

While we were looking at a particular Black-throated Green, Mike T. thought it might be a Townsend's Warbler which would have been out of range.  He texted Bruce D. with the photograph, sadly no not so, Black-throated Green.  Really some of those warblers are most definitely confusing fall warblers.  How can one Cape May be so easily identified and the next look so different.  How can a chestnut sided be so olive green in the fall.  Wonders of mother nature....

The two Barbs fed the very hungry Downy Woodpeckers and a few Black-capped Chickadees.  They just kept flying in and hiding the nuts, guess they know winter is on the way.  We did notice many of the trees are now changing colours, guess that has to go along with the fall migration, key word fall.  

We went back to the car for snacks.  Bill and Barb had done some home baking and they shared - lemon squares and butterscotch squares - delicious.  While we were eating, Colleen, Peggy and Barb R. arrived.  We catch up with them and then they went off to the east side of the ridge, I hope they had as good luck as we did.

Up on the ridge or seen from the ridge, the only new species were Grey Catbird,  Common Merganser, White-throated Sparrow and we heard a Warbling Vireo. 

We saw  4 species of Vireos - Red-eyed, Yellow-throated, Warbling and Philadelphia.  Not bad.

Off to the bridge, well  first lets check out the area where we often see American Redstart, none to be seen.  So where the path from the west meets the main path, we stopped and chit chatted.  Barb says look, a hawk - Cooper's Hawk.  A very cooperative Cooper's Hawk.  Connie and Barb and I went walking ahead (they had decided not to bring their cameras).  I think Bill, Barb and Sami photographed that bird well I would like to say 100s of times, but well lets just say they took lots of photographs.  I don't think it ever flew away.  Guess he just enjoyed all the attention.

Barb & Bill started off ahead of Sami and met the rest of us at a lookout, where we were watching a turtle who was having major difficulty getting up onto a log out in the water. It seemed to be stuck with all four legs waving about.  Worried Sami would get lost, I called him and then joined him as we walked toward the bridge.  Bill, Barb and Barb C. left leaving Connie to find her way to the bridge.  There really was nothing new, except a Pied-billed Grebe.