Ottawa Area Birding: Ridge Road Search for a Canada Jay with JC Birding

Monday, February 24, 2025

Ridge Road Search for a Canada Jay with JC Birding

February 24, 2025

Birding Report by Jane Burgess

Bill and Barbara picked me up at 8:30. Bill wondered what the best route would be to go to Ridge road, so he decided on the Queensway. It took us an hour to get to Ridge Road. Once on 417, we saw something a bit strange, a Wild Turkey walking alongside the road on the snow. Can't say I have seen that before.

There were a few cars parked at various places on Ridge Road, nothing of note, except the Common Raven. When we got to the parking lot of Mer Bleue, we saw Marc P and asked him if he saw the bird, No, has anyone? No, not today. He indicated he had walked around the parking lot area and down to the boardwalk. We walked to the picnic tables and really the only birds, other than Black-capped Chickadees, were the very vocal Blue Jays. We had heard that the Canada Jay was good at imitating a Blue Jay call so we checked all the Blue Jays calling and no Canada Jay.

We walked back to where the feeders used to be, seed was scattered about, there we saw the very hungry Black-capped Chickadees, both Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers and White-breasted Nuthatch. We walked up to the road and down the road a bit and Ann G. stopped to ask about our luck at finding the Canada Jay, nope. She said she heard there was a Barred Owls in the woods, she said she would check it out. When we returned to the parking lot, a small flock of American Tree Sparrows had come in to enjoy the feast of seeds.

We decided to go to Dewberry Trail, as we left the parking lot, a Porcupine was spotted in a tree, lousy for photos. Too many trees between us and the porcupine. I said to Bill you know we used to see lots of porcupines, why don't we see them now, his answer was fishers eat them, so they must turn them over, yes was his response. I did a little research on porcupines, they take a long time to mature, they have a long gestation period and they birth only one porcupettes at a time. So it takes a long time for numbers to increase and hungry fishers don't help..

At Dewberry Trail the only other additional species was Mourning Dove. While we did not see the Canada Jay, it was simply a glorious day to be out, sun shining and very mild temperatures. Since I had not been walking outside much, I quite enjoyed the outing.