January 30, 2025
Birding Report by Jane Burgess
We
(Bill, Barbara, Ian, Ken, Carole, Alan, Eleanor and me) met at Bruce
Pit at 8:00..The temperature was -21 with a wind chill of -29. Before
setting out Barbara and Bill gave me a little finger puppet to entertain
my 3 week old grandson. Thank you, that was very thoughtful. We met
Jon Ruddy as we set out, he told us the owl was there and told us where
he saw it. We split up hoping that whoever saw it would let the others
know. There was no doubt it was cold getting to the bird. We followed
the trail down the hill and just a bit further, Alan was ahead of it
and called to say he had the bird. It was perched on a broken off tree
and it just looked at us. Lots of photos were taken of the Great Gray
Owl. Apparently this bird has a severe parasitic infection and people
have been asked to stay away. The bird has not been seen all day today
(January 31), what that means I don't know.
I
left the group to go back to my car, because I did not want to get
majorly cold and start the whole being sick all over again. So off I
went, I thought I would take a short cut and it was shorter alright,
BUT, I had to climb over the fence to get to the main path. Thank
goodness for the nice man who helped me over the fence.
After
warming up, I noticed the group was back at the cars. Bill indicated
the next stop was Rushmore. Lucky us, when we got to Rushmore a car was
parked and a man was standing in the ditch taking photos. The Snowy
Owl was on the south side of Rushmore (that was the first time for me
seeing an owl on that side of Rushmore. A female or juvenile sitting in
the field just chilling out with its eyes closed paying absolutely no
attention to us.
We checked out Atkins, where we saw Snow Buntings at the feeders, but no more Snowy Owls.
I
left the group since I needed to be a babysitting grandma. But before
going home I checked out the Trail Road Dump. A Common Raven flew over
and my goodness there were soooo many American Crows. I stopped to look
at this bird being the crows were harassing and turned out to be a
Red-tailed Hawk. It was interesting watching the crows flying directly
at the hawk and caw at the same time and all the hawk did was ignore the
crows.
Part 2 by Bill
After Jane left to see her new grandson, the group decided to go south to Lockhead Road West, after a stop for a washroom break and hot chocolate at Tim Horton’s in Richmond. We checked the east side of Lockhead and saw several birds at a feeder. On the west side, we saw a murmuration of starlings, some distant Horned Larks and Ken saw an accipiter. Then Carol and Alan spotted another one – a Cooper’s Hawk this time. We turned around and saw some Horned Larks very close to the road. A flock of Snow Buntings landed on a nearby hydro wire.
We decided to go to Jack Pine Trail on the way home. Some of us went via Trail Road landfill, where Alan spotted a Red-tailed Hawk. At Jack Pine, we got a couple of new species, then Bill and Alan independently heard the Red-bellied Woodpecker call. Carol spotted it!
The group decided to call it a day, but Alan and Carol went to look for the Northern Shoveler in Nepean Creek. Armed with Eleanor’s directions, they got it!
What a successful day with 22 species including two owls!
Species Noted
- Great Gray Owl
- Black-capped Chickadee
- American Crow
- Snowy Owl
- Snow Buntings
- Mourning Dove
- Downy Woodpecker
- Blue Jay
- Common Raven
- European Starling
- Rock Pigeon
- Dark-eyed Junco
- Northern Cardinal
- Cooper's Hawk
- American Tree Sparrow
- Horned Lark
- Red-tailed Hawk
- Wild Turkey
- White-breasted Nuthatch
- Hairy Woodpecker
- Red-bellied Woodpecker
- Northern Shoveler
