How I spent my Day Off...

I have this entire week off for vacation, so today, I decided to spend the day outside, birding.  With both Dwayne and Karen finding White-winged Crossbills at Holiday Beach Memorial Forest, I thought I would check there since I missed them on Saturday.  While I was there, I thought I would try looking for an owl on my own too.  Well, I didn't see any Crossbills and the closest glimpse I got of an owl (possibly) was flying away from me.  Oh well. 


The Pines
 

From there, I headed to Holiday Beach, hoping some raptors were flying today.  Again, no such luck.
I did manage to get a really good look at a Belted Kingfisher.  I watched it for quite some time hoping I would get to see it fish...wasn't meant to be. I did see a couple flocks of Common Redpolls (life bird!) fly over...thanks to the hawk counter (Jason, I beleive) for pointing them out.  The Wilson's Snipe were still around, so on my way back to my car, I tried to sneak up on them to get a picture, but all I managed to do was flush them.

From there, I drove County Rd. 20, stopping a couple of times (Memorial Forest, Big Creek Site and Pettite Cote) but didn't see anything noteworthy.  I decided I would stop in at Ojibway and at least check the feeders since I didn't have a lot of time left before needing to be home.  I am so glad I did!  I didn't see anything new, but I got some great pictures...


Northern Cardinal, female



Black-capped Chickadee...not in my hand, although I did have a few eating from my hand today :D



American Tree Sparrow



White-breasted Nuthatch...I could have a whole post just from this one bird...so many great shots of this one!



Same bird..with some corn.

I managed to see a lot of birds today...this is what I remember:

Mallard Duck (lot of them!)
Great Blue Heron
Bald Eagle
Northern Shoveler
American Coot
Belted Kingfisher
Carolina Wren
Wilson's Snipe
Mute Swan
Common Redpoll (2 flocks!)
Red-tailed Hawk
Fox Sparrow
Black-capped Chickadee
American Tree Sparrow
White-breasted Nuthatch
Red-breased Nuthatch
Northern Cardinal
Tufted Titmouse
Downy Woodpecker
Mourning Dove
Blue Jay
House Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco (slate coloured)
Cooper's Hawk

Not a bad day off if you ask me :)

Campground Birds

Back in the middle of July, my husband and I went camping.  We stayed at Taylor`s Beach Campground in Howell, Michigan.  We saw several birds at the campground....many at our site, and a few throughout the rest of the campground.  Here are a few of the favourite pictures I managed to capture :)

Chickadee

Robin

Eastern Kingbird pair

A Blue Jay with a wary eye to the sky...it eventually flew off.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Cedar Waxwing...Juvenile, I believe as it was missing the red waxy tips on its wings.

White-breasted Nuthatch

Tufted Titmouse

Robin eating a grub...I have a whole sequence of this "capture".

Juvenile Robin

Not only was there a good variety of birds (saw others not included above, such as House Finch, Goldfinch, Cardinals....), there was a good variety of dragon flies!  Here are a few pics of them...

I am very proud of this picture :)

There was also an absolutely adorable Eastern Fox Squirrel that hung out near our site...

It was itchy ;)

I have a couple more posts to put up from this trip, highlighting a couple life birds...those were so special (to me at least), they deserve their own post!  I saw three life birds in total...one of which, Eastern Bluebird, I was unable to capture on "film"...when will I learn not to go outside without my camera??

Labour Day Weekend 2011 (Ottawa)

My brother has lived in Ottawa for about 5 years, and in all our visits, we had never been to Gatineau Park.  We headed to Pink Lake with my brother and his family (he, his wife, his almost 8 year old son and just 3 year old daughter).  I suspect there were many more birds and critters around than we saw, but we made too much noise :)

Caterpillar on the boardwalk...had fun explaining the "fake head" to my nephew.

View of Pink Lake

My daughter, husband and myself (my son couldn't come.)

 This bird (below) is the only new bird I saw at Gatineau Park. I was initially thinking it might be a Hermit Thrush.  Not sure though....I can't make out the details well enough to count it as a life bird...

 This is the first time I had ever seen a milipede in the wild :)  Yup, they're gross!

On Sunday, it rained, so we did "indoor" things.  On Monday, we went to Brewer Pond to catch frogs...my brother and the kids tried numerous times while at Pink Lake to catch the slippery suckers, with no luck.  They had better luck at Brewer Pond.  While there, we saw....

Lots of dragon flies.

A Garder Snake...

This Song Sparrow...which is actually a lifer...have seen them, but never identified them before...

And this Great Blue Heron!  My brother was basically standing next to it then spooked it trying to get my attention.

While sitting on my brother's deck, this Black Capped Chickadee came for visit :)

And these White-breasted Nuthatches (below) were busy on this stump most of the afternoon on Monday.  They were fun to watch!  Apparently, before cutting the tree down, it was frequented by Pileated Woodpeckers.  I was hoping to see one this weekend, but didn't.  The feeders at the window in the background were busy all day with Goldfinches, Chickadees, Nuthatches and an unidentified Woodpecker.

So, although not a birding trip, I was happy to get a couple lifers!

Ojibway

Decided to head out to Ojibway Park today and try our luck.  Instead, we got eaten alive!!  We (my daughter and I) managed to photograph a few new to us species..2 at the feeders, 1 on the trail.  Better luck next time....

Possibly a White Breasted Nuthatch??  Correct me if I'm wrong...Yup, White breated Nuthatch :)




A woodpecker of some variety...



Possibly a Gray Catbird?? Correct me if I'm wrong.

We did get some nice forest shots....