Ottawa Area Birding: East End with JC Birding

March 21, 2024

No J or C today, but the group carries on.

Birding Report by Barb Chouinard

Jane is away birding in Thailand and most likely getting lots of lifers. Barb Chouinard is reporting in Jane’s absence.

The day was sunny but blustery and freezing cold. The wind did not let up as the day went on. Bill and Barbara, Ken and Barb (GOSH & YIKES! Shades of the Barbie Movie! Ken did not get to sing along to “I’m just Ken”.... YET).

We met up at Ken’s and headed east for a day of birding. We had ideas where to go and Bill tracked our zigzag route for the map for the day. Thank you Bill.

Another odd item for the day was that the e-bird servers were down the last couple of days so recent sightings were not easily available. Ken did a good job navigating. He was also on discord during the day to see where the birds had been last seen.

We hoped to find Snow Geese, Sandhill Cranes and some raptors in the farm fields east of Ottawa. First stop was Petrie Island. The marsh was frozen. We checked the open water on the opposite side of the road and found Canada Geese and Mallards. A fellow drove by, stopped and rolled down his window and asked “what are you seeing”. Not much, we told him Canada Geese and some Mallards. He told us he saw a duck with white on its head at the bridge. We stopped at the bridge and saw a Hooded Merganser along with Common Mergansers.

We continued onto Petrie Island. As we drove around we could see the wind sweeping up the water on the river into a spray. There were whitecaps on the Ottawa River. On the beach the wind was sweeping up the sand into mini sand storms. Nature’s fury at its best! We saw several Ring billed Gulls around.

We drove through Orleans to Milton and Frank Kenney roads checking for Snow Geese and cranes. There was very little moving water. The cold night froze up the puddles and spring ponds. We stopped at bridges and found lots of Canada Geese and the odd Mallard pair. No cranes or Snow Geese. At a Milton Road stop, Barbara spotted a great bird, an adult Bald Eagle sitting on a distant branch. Photos were quickly taken and then we were back into the car.

We continued on to McFadden where Gray Partridge had been seen over the last couple of months. We were hoping, but no Gray Partridge for us today. The partridge must have been hunkered down somewhere cozy. We continued on McFadden and a soaring male Northern Harrier was spotted. Action photos were taken. We were smiling.

We then went back to Russell Road and took some of the side roads looking for birds. At the intersection of Russell and Rochdale we saw Black capped Chickadees. Little birds were hard to find in the stiff wind. Ken as navigator took us to Golf Course Road in Bearbrook. Here we found several active feeders with American Goldfinches, a Downy Woodpecker and Dark eyed Juncos. Then we decided to try for Evening Grosbeaks at the Indian Creek feeders. NOPE not today. The feeders were quiet and pretty empty.

Today, we were not staying outside a minute longer than necessary. While the temperature was -6 at midday, the stiff wind made it feel really bone-chilling cold. We continued on Indian Creek Road and then turned onto a road that goes through Larose Forest. After a bit, the road becomes a dirt road. After a little more driving, we saw a sign that said that there was no winter maintenance on the road. This winter has been very mild so the road was in pretty good condition. We have been on this road in other winters and have had to turn around or risk being stuck until spring.

We drive on and come to a “Do Not Enter” sign. We continued onward, the road was still OK. We noticed that there were huge stacked piles of cut logs beside the road. Just maybe these were ready for pick-up by the logging truck? We did not see another vehicle oncoming and no one was behind us. We drove on. Then in the distance a big truck or something big was oncoming. We decided to reverse and lucky for us there was a good pull-in spot nearby. We tucked in here and decided that now was a good time to have lunch here and wait for the big vehicle go by. Well a truck with lights flashing went by but no huge vehicle. While we lunched, another two oncoming vehicles went by us. We finished our lunch and there was nothing oncoming. The big machine or truck disappeared into the bush ahead. We never saw it again. So we continued on our way to Cobb’s Creek. We stopped and looked around. There were lots of Canada Geese and several Mallards and nothing else. We thought of St Isidore and drove there and took a look at the lagoon: nothing new. We then went on to the 138 and Lafleche Road. No luck. A stop at the Moose Creek and Embrun Lagoons/Water Reclamation facilities yielded nothing new. Wait, up in the sky, a Turkey Vulture was flying. It was the first of the season for some of us.

It was after 3 pm and time to head back. We drove on to the 417 homeward and arrived at Ken’s around 3:45 pm. While not a lot of birds were seen today, we were just happy to have been out birding.

The birds of the day were the Bald Eagle and the Northern Harrier.