Early Spring On the Bruce

 Since my last post spring migration has progressed noticeably in Bruce County, with many species Heading North.

 On March 24th I had a productive trip in South Bruce, seeing many new migrants. The best stop by far was the Kincardine Sewage Lagoons, where highlights were Gadwall, Green-winged Teal, Northern Shoveler, American Wigeon and 5 species of geese (Ross's, Snow, Canada, Cackling and Greater White-fronted). Ross's Geese are pretty uncommon in Bruce county (and all of Southern Ontario), with only 5 records on eBird. I took a digiscoped photo of the Snow and Ross's Geese, unfortunately they were distant and the picture didn't turn out very good. 

- American Wigeon and Nortern Shovelers

- Green-winged Teal

- Ross's Goose (right) and Snow Goose (left)

While at the Kincardine lagoons I also saw Eastern Meadowlarks, Turkey Vultures and a Red-shouldered Hawk.  

- Red-shouldered Hawk

   Some other recent Migrants in my area include Sandhill Cranes, Killdeer, Double-crested Cormorant, American Woodcock, Belted Kingfisher, Brown-headed Cowbird and Fox Sparrow.     

- (left to right) Common Grackle, Brown-headed Cowbird, Red-winged Blackbird

- Fox Sparrow

- Sandhill Cranes

- Sandhill Cranes

- Double-crested Cormorant

   Large groups of Ring-necked Ducks, scaup, Mallards, Green-winged Teal and Tundra Swans are currently passing over my area as waterfowl migration nears it's peak.

 - Ring-necked Ducks (left) Hooded Mergansers (right)

- Ring-necked Ducks

- Tundra Swans

  Some winter birds are still in the area, including Snow Buntings, Common Redpolls and Bohemian Waxwings. I have had a flock of 30 Common Redpolls in my yard for the last week, giving me some chances to photograph them.

- Common Redpoll

- Common Redpoll

- Common redpoll

- Bohemian Waxwings

  I have done a few hawkwatches in my yard over the last 2 weeks and have had a number of pretty exciting observations. 
I've combined my raptor observations from the last 2 weeks below.

 - 36 Turkey Vultures

 - 46 Bald Eagles 

 - 1 Golden Eagle

 - 3 Rough-legged Hawks 

 - 16 Red-tailed Hawks

 - 2 Red-shouldered Hawks 

 - 3 Northern Harriers 

 - 1 Northern Goshawk (not in my yard, but on my road)

 - 3 American Kestrals

 - 1 Merlin

 - 1 *Gyrfalcon* 

 The Gyrfalcon was the highlight raptor, it is a very rare for the area and was completley unexpected. It had been raining for most of the day on April 2nd and the only bird that I noticed fly over was a Turkey Vulture, so I was surprised when I saw a large falcon above my house. I was standing on my porch and as soon as I saw the bird fly over I ran inside to get my camera, but was in such a hurry on the way out that I didn't put my boots on. This resulted in me almost faceplanting in mud, then having to stand in a snowbank in my socks to get a photo of the falcon😅. My pictures are overexposed because I didn't have time to change my settings, but I am just happy that I got photos. 

- Gyrfalcon

- Gyrfalcon

- Gyrfalcon

  Photos of some of the other raptors.... 

- Bald Eagles

- Bald Eagles

- Bald eagles

- Red-tailed Hawk

- Merlin

   The weather forecast looks promising for the next week, with tempatures over 10°C. Some migrants I'm expecting back this week are Tree Swallow, Yellow-rumped Warbler and Eastern Pheobe. Exciting time of year for sure!

Late winter birding

I haven't updated my blog for a while, but now that spring is coming and I'll be out birding more I'll try to update every week or two. 

 Here are some of the highlights since my last post.    


 I have seen a few flocks of Bohemian Waxwings in my area this winter, but they have either been flyovers or very distant so this is the best picture I have.     

- Bohemian Waxwings

  In Bruce the best hotspot for waterfowl in the winter is Baie Du Dore, which is located in the southern part of the county on Lake Huron. I have made numerous trips there this year, with some of the highlights being 30 Bald Eagles, Redheads, Long-tailed Ducks, Red-necked Grebes and Great Black-backed Gulls. 

- Bald Eagles

- Red-necked Grebe

- Great Black-backed Gulls 

  There has been an interesting bird hanging around my area in the last few months, a Ring-necked Pheasant. The majority of the pheasants in Ontario have questionable origins as they are often released as a game bird for hunting. I was still happy to get nice views of this pheasant, because regardless of where it came from it's a gorgeous bird.   

- Ring-necked Pheasant

  Last week I led an outing for the Bruce Birding Club around South Bruce, where we visited some of the best hotspots and were rewarded with some great birds. The hike got rather lucky weather wise as forecast called for rain/freezing rain most of the day, but there was only an hour of precipitation in the morning. After meeting in Southampton we drove south visiting Baie Du Dore, Inverhuron Lagoons and the Kincardine Lagoons. It was a damp morning with the temperatures staying around 3°C, but spring was in the air and so were some migrating birds. We encountered some of the first Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles, American Robins, Killdeer and Ring-necked Ducks in Bruce this year.

- Ring-necked Duck

- Killdeer

- American Robins

    When we were finished eating lunch we did what most people love doing after they eat, head to a dump😅! The Armow Dump near Kincardine is probably the best spot for gulls in the county, with flocks up to 5000 being seen. 5 gull species were present when we arrived, including a Lesser Black-backed Gull! (Which is fairly rare in Bruce). We also got excellent looks at a few Glaucous Gulls, which is always a treat. Just when we thought we had maxed out on bird luck a beautiful dark morph Rough-legged Hawk flew by the dump.

- Lesser Black-backed Gull

- Lesser Black-backed Gull

- Glaucous Gull

Rough-legged Hawk

  We started to head back towards Southampton after that, but were soon delayed by a massive flock of Snow Buntings (at least 2000). Atfer looking through them for 15 minutes I picked out a Lapland Longspur, which was a lifer for me😆. Unfortunately it wouldn't sit still, so I wasn't able to get a photo. We ended the hike with a Great-horned Owl sitting on a nest, which was a nice treat. It was too far for my camera, so I digiscoped this through a spotting scope (if you look very close and have a bit of imagination you can see an owl).

- Great Horned Owl 

 The hike participants saw a total of 50 species, not bad for an early March day😀. 


  I recently made a trip down to the Pinery Provincial Park in Lambton county to see what birds were around. As usual there were many Tufted Titmice in the park, so I couldn't resist a few photos. I hardly ever see this bird, as they reach their northern limit around Lambton and rarely venture into Bruce county.  

- Tufted Titmouse

- Tufted Titmouse

 There were also white-breasted and red-breasted nuthatches around posing for me as if they wanted their photo taken. 

- Red-breasted Nuthatch

- White-breasted Nuthatch

 I got my first Eastern Towhee and Merlin of the year while in the park, as well as Common Redpolls and 2 Pied-billed Grebes. In a few weeks the forests of the Pinery will be filled with towhees singing their loud "Drinkk your teaa!!" song.


  I am currently waiting for American Woodcocks to come back to my yard, where they perform ariel display flights every year for a few months in the spring. Woodcocks are early migrants, usually showing up when there is just the smallest patch of ground showing in the forest.

As I'm wrtiting this I'm watching 4 Bald Eagles circling over my yard, which reminds me how close the start of raptor migration is...

Until my next post, Keep calm and bird on...😎

Winter birding in Southern Ontario

   I haven't posted in over a month, so I'll give a quick summary of my recent birding.

   I was in Paris Ontario for a few weeks in Dec/Jan, which gave me an exciting opportunity to do some more "southern" Ontario birding.. There is a nice abandoned golf course in Paris which was very productive bird-wise that I visited almost every day. The course backs onto the Grand River and is surrounded by small clusters of trees and shrubs. 
 This winter has been fairly mild without a lot of snow, so some birds that would have normally moved south are still around. A few of the decent finds over the time that I spent at the golf course there were American Wigeon, Glaucous Gull, Rusty Blackbird, Chipping Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Orange-crowned Warbler & Tufted Titmouse.

- Rusty Blackbird

 - Glaucous Gull

 Here are a few photos of some fairly common birds that I took at the golf course.

- Brown Creeper

- Golden-crowned Kinglet 

One thing that surprised me was the number of Common Ravens I was seeing along the Grand River. I noted 4-7 on my daily walks. Ravens are near the southern limit of their range here, but in recent decades they have been slowly expanding south.

- Common Raven

- Common Raven

 On one mild sunny morning, I ventured into Huron county and birded Hullett Marsh for the day with one of my friends. I was rewarded with these cooperative Bohemian Waxwings & a Northern Shrike.

- Bohemian Waxwings

- Bohemian Waxwings

- Bohemian Waxwings

  There were 2 Slaty-backed Gulls at the Brantford dump for several weeks in mid December that were being seen every few days. Slaty-backed Gulls are pretty rare in Ontario, with only 19 all time records. They breed on the north-east coast of Asia and are regular visitors to Alaska. These gulls wander greatly in North America and have records all over the continent.  I tried for the slaty-backs 4 times but missed them every time... I did see thousands of Herring Gulls and a few each of the following;   Great Black-backed, Iceland, Glaucous and Ring-billed gulls...

- massive flock of gulls circling over the dump

- Great Black-backed Gull

  Shortly after I returned to the Bruce, I had an interesting mammal sighting in my yard. I was looking out my window when I spotted this Short-tailed Weasel running across my yard! For over an hour it hunted for mice in a pile of logs, providing me with amazing views of this rarely seen (at least for me) weasel.

- Short-tailed Weasel

- Short-tailed Weasel with Deer Mouse

  As I'm writing this, it's -20°C, snowing and windy outside, so it's not an ideal day for birding😂. A Northern Shrike is chasing chickadees around my yard, but besides that it's pretty quiet.

 Hopefully I can track down some winter finches and Golden Eagles this week, as there are some in the area.

Even though winter is cold and sometimes unpleasant, there are still lots of birds around to see😁

Phalaropes and Redpolls

        On November 5th, I went on the Owen Sound Field Naturalists annual 'Around The Bay' hike lead by Fred Jazvac. Although we didn't see many of our main target birds (diving ducks), it was a great day of birding. We had pretty good looks at some Long-tailed Ducks and Common Goldeneyes. 

-Long-tailed Duck

   One of the big highlights of the day was a flock of 48 Greater White-fronted Geese at Hibou Conservation area by Owen Sound. These geese have showed up at this spot for 5 years in a row, in a flock ranging in size fom 40-80 individuals.

- Greater White-fronted Geese

- Greater White-fronted Geese

   The bird of the day was without a doubt, a Red Phalarope that myself and Alfred Raab found. While everyone else from the group was eating lunch, Alfred and I decided to check a large group of gulls and geese. These birds were along the shoreline behind the park we were eating at. As we were scanning the gulls, a small whitish bird floating around in a boatlaunch caught my eye.... I got my binoculars on it and found myself looking at a Red Phalarope! This bird was very cooperative, swimming right along the shoreline and giving everyone in the group excellent views. Ironically, I saw my first Red Phalarope on this same outing last year!😂

- Red Phalarope

- Red Phalarope

- Red Phalarope

   As I said in my last post, this is a great season for seeing northern finches in southern Ontario. On my recent hikes around a wetland in my neighbourhood, I have found 2 pretty good birds. One of these birds was a lifer for me, a Hoary Redpoll😁. This small finch was mixed in with a large flock of Common Redpolls and stood out because it was bright white in comparsion to the commons. Hoary Redpolls are fairly rare and can be quite complicated to identify.

- Hoary Redpoll

- Hoary Redpoll

   The other exciting find was a flock of 14 Pine Grosbeaks including 2 males that gave me awesome views👌. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me for that, but hopefully I will get another chance to photograph these magnificent finches this year.


   From phalaropes to redpolls, there is always something to see in the world of birding.
Keep your bins handy, as you never know what might be around the next bend😉