Ottawa Area Birding: Carillon Generating Station and Voyageur Provincial Park with JC Birding

November 24, 2021

Birding Report by Barb Chouinard & Jane Burgess

The birding outing today was to an area that none of us had ever birded before. Last week we were thinking of where to go next. Ken suggested this place and contacted the local expert birder, Jacques Bouvier, in Hawkesbury for more information. Jacques not only provided info but offered to meet up with us. We were thrilled to have Jacques join us today.

Jane was the driver today so Ken compiled the birding list and Barb C wrote up this report. Bill and Barbara Bowman, Barbc, Jane all met up at Ken’s home in the east end at 8 am. There was not a cloud in the sky but there had been a heavy frost overnight and with the wind chill it was -14. By the time we got to the meet-up spot at Carillon Generating Station, it was still cold but lucky for us, there was no wind.

On the drive of approximately 1 ½ hours, we discussed several topics in Jane’s car. Jane had attended a webinar on Organ and tissue donation on Tuesday and had interesting details to share. We sometimes also attempt to save the problems of the world when we are together so the topics varied from nursing homes, covid and GPS. Sometimes the discourse gets really interesting. In short, the driving time went quickly. Bird-wise on the drive, it was pretty quiet: American Crows, European Starling, and Canada Geese.

We met Jacques at the dam. He is very keen to promote the area for birding and hopes that more birders will visit the area. We scanned both sides of the dam: upriver and downriver. There was a Great Blue Heron across on the Quebec side. The town on the Quebec side there is St Andrews East. There were many gulls, including Herring, Black Backed and Ring billed on the water. Upriver in the distance we saw lots of Canada Geese, Common Goldeneye and a Double crested Cormorant. We would have a close-up look at this distant area at our last stop of the day in Voyageur Provincial Park.

From here we drove a very short distance to a park gate and birded this area. There is a feeder nearby and we saw Black-capped Chickadees, White-breasted Nuthatch and Downy Woodpecker. The woods and area along the river were pretty quiet.

At the Welcome to Ontario Information Centre off the 417 we stopped and accessed the park through a gate. This led to the park’s Coureur des Bois Trail. The habitat varies here from marsh, to high pine trees and bush. We commented that this would be a great place to visit during spring migration. Jacques told us he did a Big Year of Birding in 2019 in the park and got around 200 species. That is a remarkable number. This spring he had a Great Grey Owl in the park and his photo of the bird headlines the park newsletter.

Jacques explained that currently Voyageur Provincial Park is closed. It closed after Thanksgiving and the park will reopen for the cross-country skiing season with groomed trails. However, the park gate is open and one can park by the park office and hike the park. In addition, there is a heated washroom that is available. We drove on to the main gate but before we could turn into the park, there was a Red-tailed Hawk in a tree. Time flies when one is birding and it was noon already. We had lunch here at the main gate area. There were picnic tables where some of us ate lunch and two of us ate in the car. There is a feeder here and it was populated by many Chickadees and Blue Jays. We had a fly-by of a Pileated Woodpecker, which was nice to see.

After lunch, from the parking lot, we walked another trail that led us to a marsh and open water. The marsh area was frozen but in the open water of the river we could see ducks. Through our scopes we could see Common Mergansers, Mallards, Lesser Scaup. We also had a surprise -- American Coot in with the ducks in the distance.

We left the park and drove down Front Street and turned onto a road parallel to the water. Jacques kept the best spot for the last and it was lovely. It was literally upriver and we could see the Carrillon Generating Station in the distance. Here there were many many Canada Geese. Each of scanned with our scopes and could not locate anything else in with the Canada Geese. Neither did we find anything else like Brant or Cackling in this lot. Many of the Canada Geese were snoozing so it was hard to find anything really different, like no real chin strap or a smaller goose. Jacques was sure there were goose specialties in the group but many pairs of eyes could not find them. We estimated that there were around 2000 Canada Geese.

From here, Jacques then led us on foot to a point which overlooked the river and bays. Two Bald Eagles were found. Two of us heard a loon. Later we saw the Common Loon. A group of probably 80 Common Mergansers gave us two beautiful fly-byes in the lovely November afternoon sunlight. Jacques spotted a White winged Scoter. We started to walk back to our cars. A bird was seen at the top of a large bare tree (and thereby very easy to spot). It was a Northern Shrike that was hunting. We viewed the bird for several minutes and off it went. Nearby there were two American Robins.

We thanked Jacques for leading us today. He is an excellent promoter of the park. We ended up with 30 bird species in the park. At the parked cars spot, some of us saw a Red winged Blackbird.

We discussed what to do next with an estimated hour and 15 minutes of good light left in the day. We decided that we would take country roads to St Isidore to drive Routes 19, 20 and 21 and Ste Rose to look for Snowy Owl. We drove down Front Street and through Chute-A-Blondeau village where we saw Rock Pigeons and turned onto Golf Road to head in the right direction. On CR 30 we had about 100 Snow Buntings flying around and landing out of sight into a gully in the field. They did this several times. The fly-bys were beautiful in the sunshine. We continued down many farm roads: CR12, Stardale Road, Pleasant Corner Road, Pearl Road (no pearls seen here). We viewed a beautiful bright sunset with rose blush skies. At St Isidore we went up and down the target roads with no luck. In the waning light, we thought of the dump just off the nearby highway 138 at the 417. We drove up to the gates of the dump and there was nothing flying around: Zippo. It was dark now and we turned around and got onto the 417 west and headed homeward. We arrived at Ken’s place with happy smiles. It was a wonderful day.

Thank you Jane for driving. Thanks Ken for making the day happen and keeping the birding list. Thank you to Jacques for a lovely day in a new birding spot for us. Thank you Barb C for writing the report. We were so lucky with the weather at this late date in November.

I received these additional words from Bill and Barbara Bowman.

We would like to commend the excellent tour of birding spots in Eastern Ontario /Quebec border by Jacques Bouvier this week. Meeting at the Carillon Dam was a perfect start. We appreciated Jacques' intimate knowledge of the parks and trails along the Ottawa River. It was a beautiful sunny day in late November. We got good sightings of several raptors, ducks and other birds. Many thanks to our knowledgeable guide and to Ken for making the arrangements.