NICE SURPRISE!!

After work today I decided to go look for the Long Earred Owl a gentleman had told us about. Chris and one of his friends  and myself went looking  we were told it had one chick in the nest.
The nest wasn't hard to find and in deed there was a chick in the nest but the identification was not correct is was not a Long Earred Owl at all!!
The mother was there  making it easy to find  the nest as the mother in question was a Great Horned Owl!!
As soon as we stopped she left the nest and went to the other side of the field making it easy to see the chick.




BABY GREAT HORNED OWL

The last few days have been warm and so a few of the spring flowers are starting to show there colours these were open in my garden today.


SCILLAS

 

FINALLY SOME GOOD BIRDING!!!

The day started out nice and sunny so we headed for Rondeau on the way down we saw a great amount of Robins and at times had to dodge so as not to hit them.
Over 20 species just on the drive down a few neat ones were Song Sparrows,Tree Sparrows, Killdeer and in a field outside Rondeau there was a large group of Bonaparte Gulls all wading in a large puddle of water.


BONAPARTE GULL

On entering the park we checked out the bay first where we saw Buffleheads,American Widgeons,Pied Billed Grebe,Gadwall, and Bonaparte Gulls. We also heard Tundra Swans but couldn't locate them to get a count must have been on the farside near Shrewsbury.


PIED BILLED GREBE

The park was full of Yellow Bellied Sapsuckers, other woodpeckers we found were Red Bellied and Downy Woodpecker,
At the Visitors centre there was a large group of Dark Eyed Juncos, Black Capped Chickadees and a solo Red Bellied Woodpecker.


RED BELLIED WOODPECKER




DARK EYED JUNCO

We took a walk along the South Point Trail and hit pay dirt rustling threw the underbrush we found 3 Eastern Towhees, 3 Hermit Thrushes, and 3 Brown Thrashers so we nick named the day Triple Bird Day!!


BROWN THRASHER



EASTERN TOWHEE



HERMIT THRUSH

Since we were this far  and we need Shore Birds we continued onto Hillman Marsh.
We met a nice couple Jeremy and Ann Marie who let Chris use one of there scopes to look at the marsh.
We got 3 off our list today those being a Dunlin, Pectoral Sandpiper and a Black Bellied Plover.There was numerous Yellowlegs and 4 Kingfishers flying around.
We had 2 large groups of Sandpipers flying over the marsh.


SANDPIPERS

Waterfowl we observed Green  & Blue Wing Teal and Northern Shovelers where close to 100 today.They were over in the field near the greenhouses. They have built a new blind which is nice.
The yellow Crowned Kinglets were really  struggling they seemed weak as the weather isn't allowing them much in the way of food. Hopefully the weather will warm up soon.


YELLOW CROWNED KINGLET



One last surprise of the day was our first warbler and again there was three  yellow rumped warblers flying around at Hillman Marsh.


YELLOW RUMPED WARBLER