Stagecoach Road to St. Lawrence with JC Birding

 March 10, 2021

Birding report by Jane

Bill & Barb were waiting for me at the meet up spot with the scope pointed at the owl's nest and cameras in hand. While the owl was far from the road and branches obscured them, we could plainly see that the owl on the nest was a Great Horned Owl.  The second owl flew up not far from the nest and in came the American Crows cawing loudly and harassing the owls.  The owl that was not on the nest flew down and eventually the crows flew away.  Ken joined us telling us he had seen a Red-tail Hawk near a water area but sadly there was construction work starting  so who knows if the water area will be there much longer.

We decided we would slowly make our way now to highway #2 via Stagecoach Road (the road is aptly named because the road was the route the stage coach took back in the day).  A flock of small birds flew by (Ken saw them) and then a Merlin flew by chasing them (all saw the Merlin), guess it was looking for something to eat.

We took a diversion down a side road, the most interesting aspect was a local who chatted with Ken and Bill, telling them all about the lawn ornaments he makes, and I will leave it at that, with no judgements....

While driving down Stagecoach we saw a Common Raven on the nest,  Ken was the lead car and he had stopped at a pond where we saw lots of Canada Geese, Black Duck, Mallards, Hooded Mergansers and a Wood Duck.  A construction worker indicated there had been a swan, but it left a couple days ago.

Since we were driving through Hallville, we went back to the Mountain Provincial Wildlife Area, where we saw basically what we saw the week before with the addition of a Brown Creeper, in my excitement I called Brown Thrasher to the others.  They came looking for a large bird and yeah then I gave myself a shake and said no I meant a Brown Creeper.  We walked down the path a bit, but decided once the three off road vehicles came by there was no point, with all the noise, no birds would stick around.  We had our lunch and decided to go down Development Road where we saw a small flock of Snow buntings and four Horned Larks.

Along the river lots and lots of Canada Geese, along with Common Mergansers sprinkled with a few Ring-billed Gulls.  We saw three birds flying low over the water in single file, Double-crested Cormorants.  Those cormorants turned out to be Canada Geese in stealth mode, making us think they were cormorants - photos don't lie.

I got disoriented driving along the river, I thought we should be driving west but we were driving east, I called Ken and he said no we were going in the correct direction.  I am so used to going west of highway 31 not east.

Back to see the Great Horned Owl, hoping the light would be better, yeah still not great photos.  When building a nest,owls don't consider photographers.

Another good day

Species Noted

1. Great Horned Owl
2. Black-capped Chickadee
3. House Sparrow
4. American Crow
5. Rock Pigeon
6. European Starling
7. Mourning Dove
8. Merlin
9. Northern Cardinal
10. Blue Jay
11. Common Raven
12. Downy Woodpecker
13. Hooded Merganser
14. Mallard
15. Black Duck
16. Wood Duck
17. Canada Goose
18. Hairy Woodpecker
19. American Tree Sparrow
20. Common Redpoll
21. Evening Grosbeak
22. Hoary Redpoll
23. Brown Creeper
24. White-breasted Nuthatch
25. Snow Bunting
26. Horned Lark
27. American Robin
28. Common Merganser
29. Ring-billed Gull
30. Wild Turkey
31. Bald Eagle