October 27th 2018
Indoors we photographed ... Screech Owl, Red-tailed Hawk, Eurasian Eagle Owl, Peregrine Falcon and outdoors we photographed Bald Eagle, Harris Hawk, Great-horned Owl, Great-gray Owl and Snowy Owl.
I think all of us ended up a tad damp by the end of the session, but it was, as always, very enjoyable.
All images are clickable to go full size, and hovering over will display species or description
October 25th - 26th 2018
With the weather being a tad on the crappy side and with a few things to do at home I setup a camera on the inside of our Dining Room patio door, so was shooting through the glass, but as you can see there didn't seem to be too much that distracted from the normal quality of my camera/lens. I put a little seed and and a few peanuts out along the edge of my deck and waited to see what showed up. By far the most abundant were the Dark-eyed Juncos, which was my main focus as a new "winter" arrival. The arrival of the Juncos is a sure sign that winter isn't too far away, so it was a bitter-sweet moment when I saw my first one of the season a few days ago. Other visitors were both Nuthatches (White-breasted & Red-breasted Nuthatches), House Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, Downy Woodpeckers and an occasional Pine Siskin. Other common visitors over the last few days were Gray Squirrels, Red Squirrels and Eastern Chipmunks. Chipmunks were OK, but the Squirrels were quite destructive as they aggressively attacked the feeders etc. |
October 24th 2018
Whilst there we heard that there were a few Fox Sparrows down below Cherry Hill Gate, so this was opportunity I could not resist - Fox Sparrows are definitely one of my favorite Sparrows, and they are always hard to find, so it was a "no-brainer". Unfortunately there was only one, and it was not showing very well, but you take what you can get sometimes.My experience has been that these birds tend to hang around for a while once they find a spot, so I will keep an eye on this location, and hope for something better going forward.
October 23rd 2018
Not too much, or at least not too exciting, showed up over the next couple of hours, but I can't say it wasn't enjoyable sitting looking out with a cuppa tea and just relaxing. The most common visitors were, as you might have guessed, were Black-capped Chickadees, then Blue Jays, followed by Red-breasted Nuthatches and White-breasted Nuthatches. At the tail it was Cardinals. On the non-birding side there was no shortage of Red & Grey Squirrels and of course Chipmunks.
October 20th 2018
Last couple of days some business prevented me from getting out, so I was determined to cover some ground today, and hopefully see and photograph some decent birds. First stop was at Robertson Tract and I had lots of confidence as I trecked in, but other than a brief sighting of a Winter Wren so after an unproductive 1.5 hours I decided to move. My original plan was to also hit Currie Tract a few miles away but logic suggested that it won't be any better, so headed to an old favorite spot - Sedgewick Forest in Oakville. Not as many lingering summer birds as usual at this time of year, but I did see a Yellow-rumped Warbler and a Palm Warbler. What was in abundance though was both variety of Kinglets, especially the Golden-crowned, so it turned into a decent spot for a few images. At around noon I headed to my last spot of the day - Valley Inn/Woodlands Cemetery. Down in the lake part, at first look, it didn't look as if there was anything too interesting. I spotted a few shorebirds out on the mud (Lake level was low) of which, at first glance, I assumed they were Yellowlegs, but after a look through the bins I realized that these were in fact Hudsonian Godwits. Now after doing this for the last 10 years I don't get too many life birds, but today I had 5 Godwits. If only it hadn't been raining the shots might have been a bit better, but not complaining ... a good day was had :) |
October 17th 2018
I had a friend with me today and thought it might be fun to go back, yet again, to Thornapple to see if we can find some Hermit Thrushes, and maybe who knows, what else. As it happened we did find lots of Hermit Thrushes, but sadly not too much else. I lie .... we had a small group of Ruby-crowned Kinglets float by and for once I was able to get a reasonably close and sharp shot ...
October 16th 2018
Whilst in the area I also dropped by Valley Inn to see if there was anything new, but sad to say for the most part it was the same old stuff - Egrets, Blue Herons, Green Herons, Cormorants, Gulls, Osprey, but I did see a lone female Bufflehead - now is that a sign of the upcoming winter or what (sadly no image LOL.
October 14th 2018
From here we headed to Valley Inn for about 45mins where we arrived to find several Kinglets foraging along the road next to the parking lot. Amongst them I saw (even before getting out of the vehicle) a Magnolia Warbler ... a quite late migrant, which would have been one of the last I would have expected this late, but a nice surprise nevertheless.. At one point I found the Magnolia in the open at close range with a caterpillar that it was hitting against the branch it perched on and slowly devouring it. My reaction was delight as I shot off some 20 shots, but turned to disappointment when I realized that my exposure setting had been accidentally changed (a hazard shooting manual) resulting in grossly underexposed images. A lesson learned ... check frequently!!! However after adjusting I did get another shot, but caterpillar was history.
All images are clickable to go full size, and hovering over will display species or description
October 9th & 10th 2018
Something a bit different for me over the last couple of days. A friend and myself headed north for a couple of days to an area about an hour north and east of Ottawa. The plan was to head to Parc Omega in Quebec on Day 1 and then see what we can up with on day 2 when we got there. Parc Omega is a Wildlife Park that is quite unique in that it's a large drive through park with hundred of free roaming animals of mainly Canadian natural species. There are a few non-native species, but our targets for the most part were our native animals. The weather when we entered the park was really hot so a lot of the animals were hunkered down in the shade, as well as the harsh lighting was a real challenge. All of the animals were very tolerant of the close human presence so it was a bit of a duck shoot, but still an enormous amount of fun photographing them. Highlights for me were the Arctic Foxes, |
Day two we headed to Parc national de Plaisance, which is a National Park that juts out into the Ottawa River for a few miles with great bird habitat, so we were quite hopeful of some good sightings. Yes we saw lots of birds but the species we did see weren't too exciting. The prominent species, and there were likely hundreds there, were White Crowned Sparrows. Another common one was the American Robin, of which there were many, many. Other sightings were Dark-eyed Juncos, Black-crowned Night Heron, Great Blue Heron, Gadwall, White-throated Sparrows, Kinglets, Mallards, Swamp Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow and a few more. All in all the 7 hour drive each way was worth it (I think).
October 7th 2018
October 3rd 2018
All images are clickable to go full size, and hovering over will display species or description
October 1st 2018
BTW ... you might notice that my history section on the right hand side of the page is missing September - I'm not sure what happened but September is there, it's just combined with August.