Ottawa Area Birding: Ottawa West to Carp with JC birding

July 11, 2024

Birding Report by Jane Burgess

One wonders about the thought processes of birders. When I left to go to Bill & Barbara's place it was pouring rain. Bill said to me this is supposed to drizzle - well it wasn't. We drove to Sheila McKee park and it is still raining hard. Bill pulls into the parking lot and turns the vehicle around to be pointed towards the tree the Yellow-throated Vireo has been seen. Yeah it rains and rains. Time to maybe do Berry Side Road and if the rain gets lighter we will go back. We saw House Wren and heard the Eastern Meadowlarks singing. The Osprey was hunkered down in its nest and boy did it look wet.

On the way to Constance Creek and what looked like an Osprey was spotted really far off in the distance. When it flew it was just too small for an Osprey, we could see it was carrying food and the food was not a fish. Barbara took a photo that Bill later identified as a Red-shouldered Hawk.

Next was Constance Creek - a good stop. Way far we saw Wood Ducks and a Great Blue Heron. Overhead we saw a single Common Tern and when it returned it brought two of its friends. We had a Black-crowned Night Heron fly over and then turned and flew over us again going the other direction. Looking north from the bridge a duck flew up and away. I said to Bill, my sense is that it was a Blue-winged Teal, Bill said he was thinking exactly the same. The Swamp Sparrows were singing, but it took each of us a time to spot them.

We drove to Constance Lake and saw nothing, but the lake.

Next we drove to Bill Mason Centre. Lots of mosquitos welcomed us as we entered the boardwalk. We called Virginia Rail, no response. We walked to the woods where we heard Northern Waterthrush. We played it but no one came out to see us. We returned on the boardwalk and we saw the best sighting of the day - 5 good sized mink. I said otters, no, Bill said mink. He said otters and mink are in the same family. The mink walked toward us and then disappeared into the swamp. Bill and I both said we had never seen 5 mink in the wild, maybe one or two, that is it. We were glad to leave Bill Mason just to leave the mosquitoes behind.

Let's try for the Red-headed Woodpecker at Constance Bay. First we drove down Monty and we got nothing. So off we went to find the Woodpecker. We drove some of the roads and then parked where we had found it last year. Still raining, Barbara suggested an early lunch, maybe the rain will slow down. It sort of did, Bill took an umbrella and walked into the forest, I followed 10 minutes later. Nope did not find it. We were looking for a hole in a tree, there were absolutely no birds flying around. We then went to Bruce D. cottage to check out the feeders - a Downy Woodpecker and then at one of his neighbours, four Grackles.

We then drove to Torbolton Ridge Road, where we thought it was a long shot, but let's play Sedge Wren. We tried hard but nothing. We did see a Wilson's Snipe, good spotting on Bill's behalf, then we saw a Swamp Sparrow chasing a Grey Catbird. Finally the rain had lightened up quite a bit, because we saw our first Turkey Vulture. Barbara spotted a Wild Turkey in the distance.

We drove to Hidden Lake, with great expectations and well we were met by so many mosquitoes, all we did was look at the lake and leave quickly. The mosquitoes were big and hungry and did not care that we had bug repellant on.

Bill, a Semipalmated Plover was spotted on the Carp River. Yeah but where? Driving to Carp we stopped to look at two Great Egrets and three Mallards. There were two young women working in the ditch. I asked what they were doing, measuring the water flow and doing flood plain mapping. Interesting. We parked just before the bridge and checked out the water on both sides. Three or four Rock Pigeons on one side and an Eastern Kingbird hawking for insects on the other side. Bill, maybe the plover was found way over there, pointing to water in the field. Barbara and I walked over while Bill retrieved the vehicle. When Bill drove up, I pointed to a huge bird on the wire saying hawk, no, maybe Mourning Dove or a Rock Pigeon. Turned out to be two Mourning Doves and they were being very friendly with each other -- courtship behaviour and what follows. Bill brought out his scope and found some Least Sandpiper and another shore bird that we could not identify. We thought if we got closer, maybe we would see it better. Well we could not find the 'other' shorebird. Some shorebirds flew in and again with no identification because they kept flying around.

Driving Bill stopped to turn around, he had spotted a raptor on the wire. He drove up almost opposite it, the bird did not fly. Lots of photos and then we turned into a parking lot and took lots of face photos. The bird did not fly, it was just plain wet and was drying off. Turned out to be a Broad-winged Hawk.

We returned to Sheila McKee park and stayed there for about 15 minutes, but nope did not see a single bird around the place. We turned around and took Cameron Harvey Road to March Valley Road. On Cameron Harvey Road we took note that both Osprey nests were occupied, in fact all five Osprey nests we passed during the day were occupied. We drove into one of the new Water Catchment Ponds and heard then saw an Indigo Bunting. We drove to the end of March Valley Road past the Rifle Range and opposite the golf club. There the only birds we saw were two young or female Baltimore Orioles. Driving back on March Valley we saw Canada Geese, bringing our total to 50 species. We ended up with 51 species, because I saw two House Sparrows at home.

We drove into the BeetBox properties hoping we would see or hear Bobolink, but we did not. We then decided to check out the market there, We bought fresh vegetables - beets.

50 species for such a pitsy day I think was good. It stopped raining for a bit, just to make us think we should take off our rain coats then the rain would start again.