Wow this is unprecedented... two blog posts in one day. What has gotten into me?
Birding in Bruce has certainly felt wintery recently and finding birds is getting increasingly hard. My yard has been very birdless this month.. I've only recorded 13 species so far. The highlight was a Northern Cardinal, which is actually decent for my yard😅 (3rd one this year). You know birding is quiet when you're getting excited about cardinals.
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| - Northern Cardinal |
The Lion's Head area has been productive recently. There are multiple trees with fruit scattered around the harbour, which is always good for attracting birds in cold weather. Last week on one of my walks around the area I saw over 20 American Robins gorging themselves at one of the trees. Maybe a Varied Thrush or a Townsend's Solitare will show up next??
The harbour is a good spot to look for gulls and waterfowl, in the past it's attracted some rarities including; Common Eider, Barrow's Goldeneye and Brant. I stopped for a scan at the harbour while out birding with Michael Bulter a few days ago, and was rewarded with a beautiful 1st cycle Iceland Gull (no pics). Later in the day I went back for with hopes of getting some pictures of the gull and found a Glaucous Gull sitting in the same spot. Two white-winged gull species is pretty good for north Bruce and I was happy to get good views of both.
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| - One of these birds is not like the others... Glaucous Gull |
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| - Glaucous Gull |
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| - Herring Gull |
While I was out birding around Southampton on the weekend I spotted a distant raptor sitting on the top of a tree. It flew just as I took a photo of it, revealing an all black body and black & white wings.. a dark morph Rough-legged Hawk.
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| - distsnt Rough-legged Hawk |
I don't see dark morphs very often, so this was a nice treat. I watched in hunting for a few minutes before it eventually disappeared behind a treeline. Unfortunately, it was distant so my pictures aren't great..
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| - Rough-legged Hawk |
I saw a Snowy Owl on my way home and obviously I couldn't drive by one sitting on a pole without snapping a picture.
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| - Snowy Owl |
Chistmas Bird Count season is fast approaching, so that's exciting. CBCs really get you birding more in a time when you might otherwise go out less. I'll be participating in 4 (maybe 5) counts this year, with the first 2 happening next weekend. Hopefully the weather cooperates and we don't get any count day snowstorms☺.
Also I'm going to start doing more short posts on the blog during the winter (like one per outing/topic), as this will allow me to post more frequently and will make the task of writing posts less daunting..
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