Late Fall Day Trip

First off, a couple sightings of interest since my last post.  I had my first sighting of Short-Eared Owl back in mid October when it flew up in front of me out of the cow pasture.  I didn't have my camera but my nephew got back to see it and managed some photos.

A few days ago I had a Common Raven fly over our farm.  There seem to be more and more sightings of them in our area.  Possibly a sign that they are returning to territory that they may once have occupied.


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I haven't taken time to do a lot of birding lately, but today managed to take a day off for just that.  The question was, where to go?  I had been wanting to get down to Long Point for a long while, Wildwood Lake by St. Marys had some good sightings of recent, potential Fish Crows had shown up in Stratford and as many of you know a Mountain Bluebird was being reliably seen in Waterloo. 


It was a lot for one day, but I decided to try for as many of the above as I could.  Decided to start the day at Long Point and by 10:00 was at the Bird Studies Canada property in Port Rowan.  The wind was incredibly strong, but there was a good deal of activity out on the lake.  American Coots were by far the most numerous close to shore.

 Wigeon, Redhead, Scaup, Mallard and Gadwall were also in close range but a large raft of birds farther out remained unidentified. 


A small flock of Tundra Swans flew over. 

I decided to scope out the lake again from Lions Park in Port Rowan.  Less activity here, but I managed to pick out a Great-black Backed Gull amongst the Herring and Ring-billed. 


This young Pied-billed Grebe was quite tame.

Aside from the occasional duck, there didn't seem to be much activity along the causeway or at the Old Cut field Station.  A stop at the beach showed how windy it was today.

The last stop in Norfolk was at the Lee Brown WMA.  This place has often been good for waterfowl whenever I've been here before.  Today there was not much other than a few geese, but across the road a large flock of Tundra Swans was picking through a harvested corn field. 

I kept an eye out for Snowy Owls in the fields along the way and had several close calls that turned out to be plastic bags.  The only owl of the day was an unfortunate casualty of a roadkilled Screech Owl near Ingersoll. 


By early afternoon I was at Wildwood and scanning the lake.  All three species of merganser were present and after a while I found the continuing Common Loon.  I was hoping for the previously reported Red-necked Grebe and it was reported again after I left, but I didn't see it while I was there.




It was early enough in the afternoon to take a chance and head into Waterloo to try for the Mountain Bluebird.  There were a couple of birders from Guelph searching for the bird when I arrived and I joined them.  Unfortunately wherever it was, it didn't show itself for us.  That's birding for you.  Have to get used to the misses as well as the hits. 




I photographed this bush right around where the bluebird should have been.  You can visualise the missing bird in the branches :)