NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD & SNOWY OWLS

Well the weatherman was right a real wet weekend. After 2 hours of christmas baking I decided to go birding. I was not disappointed the lighthouse had a large group of Long Tails and Red breasted Mergansers near the entrance of the river. Sarnia Bay had the usual flock of gulls most of them being Herring and Ring Billed but there was 3 Greater Black Backed Gulls mixed in with them this year there seems to be alot more in the area. Took a ride along Michigan Line and found the Northern Mockingbird still to be here.It was sitting on the wire just before the bridge between Telfer and Brigden Side Roads. Chris spotted a white hump out in the field on Telfer so we turned around and sure enough a Snowy Owl just sitting in the field.I manage to get this photo. The rain made it really difficult to get any decent shots

We drove along Modeland and found our second Snowy of the day it was sitting on a post in the field next to Nature Way.

This guy was out hunting mice in the long grass at nature way he was really fun to watch his owner says for the size of him he is real quick at hearing and pouncing on them

PORT HURON-CANADA CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT

This is the second time we have helped with the americans bird count as part of their count area is on this side of the river. We started the day of with meeting Sean and his dad at the lighthouse. We got a surprise when we found this snowy owl sitting on the fence just above the parking area.

As we were figuring out where to go we had a merlin fly over us. There was over 2000 Oldsquaws or as we know them Long Tail Ducks and we managed to see all 3 scoters out on the water. We checked the bridge and sure enough we found the peregrine falcon sitting in his favourite spot. Down on the North slip we stopped in the wood lot area and heard a carolina wren In Sarnia Bay we saw an overwhelming number of Greater Black Backed gulls and counted 7 glagcous Gulls.

I was hoping the wood duck i had seen was still at the government docks but had a nice surprise and found this Northern Shoveler.

During our day we managed to find 49 species which considering the weather was not bad at all. Just before lunch we checked out canatara and while scoping a large raft of ducks pretty sure the same snowy owl came and checked out what we were doing.