A Brit abroad

Canadian owls and the magic 500 - day 2

A brief check of Saturday's bird news online revealed that a Boreal Owl had been seen on the Leslie Street spit close to downtown Toronto. Having dipped a second bird in the Kingston area and a long-gone Hawk Owl in Welcome, we decided to try our luck with this bird. On walking out along the spit, I stopped to scope a flock of several hundred 'gulls', only to find that they were all Long-tailed Ducks!

We were fortunate enough to bump into a group of birders who had seen the Boreal Owl that morning. Such was my desperation to see this bird, I walked past 2 Great Gray Owls without stopping, and only briefly looked at my life American Tree Sparrow (ABA area bird no. 499)! A very long walk and several wrong turns later, I noticed a suspicious-looking trail of footprints away from the main path. I followed them up to a small conifer and found myself eyeball to eyeball with a gorgeous Boreal Owl! As with yesterday's Great Gray, I fired off a couple of full body shots before retreating to a respectable distance to digiscope. Here are the results.

I swear this bird is winking at me!

With the pressure well and truly off, we took a moment to enjoy the view of Toronto's skyline.

On the way back, we stopped to scan a small area of open water which was crammed full of ducks, including this smart drake Redhead,...

... a pair of Black Duck,...

... and this female White-winged Scoter chowing down a crab.

We couldn't resist finishing off the day with another Great Gray. This bird was presumably intent on a rodent rustling under the ice - the huge head is particularly apparent in this shot.

Here's the same bird digibinned...

... and digiscoped.

It's not often that birds leave me speechless, but Great Gray is a bird I'd dreamed seeing of all my life, and to get such outstanding views of a Boreal for my 500th ABA bird is more than I could possibly have expected. Not quite sure how I'm going to top this one...

Posted by rjhall at March 8, 2005 2:28 AM