More Cold, More Snow!

More snow and dicey roads meant that the Sunday bird drive was fairly close to home. We lurked around the back roads between Mitchell and St. Mary’s. We saw a few hawks and geese and wild turkeys but no owls or smaller birds today. The Thames River was open in places outside of St. Marys even though the waterfall was pretty iced up.

Common Mergansers

I don’t think we had ever seen any of the Common Mergansers out of the water so it was interesting to get a good look at the plumage on these birds that were hanging out on the ice at the water’s edge. I was surprised to see the grey colour on the females!

Futher along the river there were a couple of odd ducks swimming and diving among the Mallards.

Common Goldeneye

Female Long-tailed Duck

The Eagles don’t seem too bothered by the weather either and we noticed a variety of hawks that seemed to be hunting in the fields as well.

  

Snowly Owl at Dusk

Thursday morning was sunny but cold and clearly so we headed off to London for a quick visit and of course, kept watch for birds along the way. There weren’t very many to be seen. Surprisingly no Snow Buntings or Owls, just a couple of Hawks and some Wild Turkeys.

And the ride home around dusk was not too eventful either although the sun looked pretty cool with a sundog in the sky!

Outside of St. Marys, just before nightfall, we turned onto the side road and caught sight of a Snowy Owl landing in the treetops across a farmer’s field. It didn’t sit for long, five minutes at most before taking off again. Snowy Owl number 8! I could tell by the way it was bobbing and stretching its neck that it was getting ready to fly and was able to take a short video of the bird in flight.

Snowy Roads

We decided to venture out for a drive even though the roads were snowy and icy. We took a look in a different direction from our recent excursions. We were curious to find out if we could locate more Snowy Owls. We took a look at the airport just outside of town but it seemed deserted. As we headed up the backroads parallel to the highway towards Mitchell and Seaforth we saw one Kestrel and this fellow caught our eyes as it flew across a field and landed in a tree top near a gas station. The snow started to come down more heavily and accumulate on the road so we decided to head into Seaforth and take the main road home. Just past Winthrop on Huron County Road 12 we spotted the first Snowy Owl of the day!

A little closer…

We turned off the main road at Mitchell towards the wetlands and came across five of these small birds on the road. At first I thought they were Snow Buntings because they were about the same size and they were on the road but on closer inspection they weren’t. The road was sheer ice so we kept on going.

It’s always good to benefit from the expertise of experienced birders and their blogs are a wealth of information. After browsing a few other blogs this morning I have come to the conclusion that the birds on the road might be Horned Larks.

We headed back to the main road and spotted our second Snowy Owl for the day! And seventh for the year so far!

Well satisfied, we headed home and spotted this hawk in a tree just outside of town.
A very enjoyable birding day!

A Walk in the Park

It was  pretty mild today even though it was cloudy so I thought I’d check out the action down at the Avon River. I had spotted a black and white duck earlier in the week on a walk with some friends and wondered if it was still there. I ha1dn’t been able to get close enough to identify it so I was curious to take another look. Because there was more open water there were the usual Mallards and Canada Geese as well as a pair of Hooded Merganzers.

Hooded Merganzers

And finally I saw the duck I had seen a few days ago. It was a Common Goldeneye fishing alone at the far end of the river. It had a really uncanny way of staying just out of camera range. In my effort to get a closer shot I managed to get temporarily stuck in a snowbank about hip deep. I actually had to put my camera away so I could use both hands to pull myself up. I tried to look as nonchalant as possible. This birding thing may be getting out of hand

Sarnia Bound

With the break in the weather and feeling a little cabin-feverish after a couple of weeks of lousy colds, we decided to head to Sarnia. We were hoping to see some Snowy Owls. We decided to take #402 after Ailsa Craig and saw many hawks, some dark morph Rough Legged and some Red-tailed. And we noticed a number in pairs sitting in trees as well.
We walked along the waterfront at Sarnia by the bridge and were delighted to get the chance to see the huge numbers of  Long-tailed Ducks wintering there. There were definitely thousands of them!

You can get an idea of the numbers if you glance beyond the ice!

It was hilarious to watch them landing in the water. They looked very clumsy, almost as though they were doing belly flops.

There were also a few Red Breasted Merganzers swimming and fishing nearby.

We decided to drive home along the Blackwell SideRoad and made note of the extensive walking trail there for another trip. We didn’t see any other birds until we hit the roundabout on the Lakeshore Road. (which, of course, we ended up going around about four times to get a nice shot. Naturally, the first one was the best!)

We were disappointed not to have spotted any Snowy Owls and headed back from the lake near Exeter. It was a lovely sunny afternoon with cloudy periods. And just before dusk our constant field and telephone pole and fence post scanning rewarded us with the sight of not one, but three Snowy Owls.

The first was sitting on Mount Carmel Road on a telephone pole beside the road and then flew off to a pole across the field.

We drove along for about another ten minutes when we saw a second, smaller Snowy Owl again on a telephone pole beside the Thames Road. However as we stopped to take a look it flew across the highway to perch on top of an old windmill.

It sat there for about 5 minutes and then turned and flew low along the field behind the Windmill. As we watched it from the nearby sideroad another bird flew towards us! At first we thought it was a huge gull, but no, it was a third Snowy Owl! It seemed to be flying right at the car, but finally it swooped up and into the tree directly above us!

It was the first time we had seen one of the Snowies in a tree and it seemed to be having some difficulty staying on its perch as the wind was picking up. However it was still there when we left.

This brings our total count of Snowy Owls to five for this year! (The one that I saw from the highway coming home from Toronto is iffy so we won’t count that one.) So the Snowy Owl irruption is really making for a lot of sightings in Southern Ontario!