March 8, 2005
Canadian owls and the magic 500 - day 1
An incredible invasion of northern owls is occurring into southern Canada and the northern US this winter. I had been toying with the idea of heading north for a while, especially after hearing about Marcel's trip to Minnesota for mind-boggling numbers of Great Gray Owls and his first Boreal Owl (his 700th lower 48 bird). I was finally spurred into action by a series of coincidences last Tuesday.
1. Both Great Gray and Boreal Owls were being regularly reported around Kingston, Ontario.
2. Andrew (who visited CA last week) is a postdoc in Kingston - I'd been meaning to visit him there for a while.
3. A quick internet search for flights to Toronto yielded flights leaving Friday afternoon and returning early Monday for a reasonable $350.
4. I got paid!
After a loooong journey on Friday Andrew picked me up in the rental car. Ecologically-minded as we are, we had booked a small, fuel-efficient Hyundai. However, it appears that all the small cars had been taken and we were given a free upgrade to this 8-seater monster! It was a veritable gas-guzzler, but probably saved us from a few hairy moments on snow-covered roads.
Saturday morning came, and Andrew, Laura and I headed out ridiculously early into -20C temperatures in search of Great Grays. One of the first birds we saw was this Ruffed Grouse feeding in the treetops.
Not too much later we came across 3 Great Gray Owls, all actively hunting. This magnificent bird looked stunning in the early morning light.
Note the frost on this bird's whiskers and facial disc!
After a celebratory breakfast courtesy of Laura, we decided totake the ferry to the Owl Woods on Amherst Island. To my surprise, most of Lake Ontario was frozen here (we even saw 2 Coyotes marching out over the ice).. The first birds noted at the Owl Woods were Black-capped Chickadees - these birds are used to being fed by humans and they didn't stop harrassing us for the rest of the day! No digiscoping was needed for this shot...
The bird feeders here were attracting much attention from this Hairy Woodpecker...
... along with single White-breated Nuthatch, Brown Thasher and Downy Woodpecker. We spent the next few hours searching unsuccessfully for Boreal Owl, but found an excellent consolation prize - while walking trails through the Jack Pines I looked up, and not 6 feet above me was this beauty.
I retreated to a respectable distance and got this in-your-face shot through the telescope.
A quick jaunt to the eastern tip of the island yielded my first ABA area Snow Buntings and a couple of Rough-legged Hawks. What a day!
Posted by rjhall at March 8, 2005 1:43 AM