Ottawa Area Birding: Richmond to Cedar Grove with JC Birding

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Richmond to Cedar Grove with JC Birding

November 8, 2022

Birding Report by Jane Burgess

We met at my place at 7:30 and drove to the back side of Moodlie Pond, there we saw amongst the Canada Geese Hooded Mergansers and a Bufflehead and high on the sandbanks Great Black-back Gulls. We drove to Moodie Drive to look at the pond from there -- a mega amount of Canada Geese and Ring-billed Gulls. Bill says I see a Common Merganser and with the aid of scopes we saw Gadwall, Mallard, Green-winged Teal, Black Duck, Lesser Scaup and one Long-tail Duck (that is a good bird). We drove down Cambrian Road and really we thought there was nothing, well to be fair we did see a few Black-capped Chickadees, but then something flew by quickly -- Northern Harrier.

We took a slightly different route to Richmond Lagoons, hoping we would see more birds, we saw no birds except American Crows. We saw a small flock of Green-winged Teal close up at the first lagoon and then a slightly larger flock in the second lagoon of Richmond Lagoons. Far in the distance two Black Ducks.

We drove to Dobson Road and the only birds we saw on the north side were Wild Turkeys and on the south side Red-tailed Hawk, Blue Jay and a Common Raven. We drove to Goodstown Road with the hope the two homes with a good number of bird feeders would have birds. First feeder, had Blue Jays, House Sparrows, a hungry Downy Woodpecker and a single American Goldfinch. Driving down Goodstown, we also saw American Tree Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco and lots of Rock Pigeon. At the end of the road there were two wagons full of freshly harvested corn. Barb and I had a discussion about can Tree Sparrow and Juncos eat corn, we know Blue Jay can. Yes cracked corn but not the freshly harvested corn. Who knew?

We drove to Roger Stevens and walked one of the trails in Marlborough Forest. Only birds we saw were Dark-eyed Junco. We walked as far as Rogers's Pond and we found no water fowls. On the way back, we heard gunshots -- hunting season. As Barb, Eleanor and Jane had other commitments for the afternoon, we left Barbara and Bill to do more birding.

I received an email from Bill saying the only bird they saw was another Red-tailed Hawk. I said we saw one at the intersection of 416 and 73. He wrote back to say it must have been the same bird, because while we turned toward Ottawa, they went south with the hope they would see the Golden Eagle that had been reported at 9:00. It was a long shot because they were looking for a bird that was seen maybe 5 hours ago. Needless to say they did not get the Golden Eagle.

Home early and the day was cold, but we were all dressed for it. The farmers thought it was cold because the horses had blankets on them. Not a lot of species were seen, the best bird by far was the Long-tailed Duck.