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| Dan looking worried about the future of the Technoparc site, with Shrijeet and Anita |
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Long-eared Owl Asio otus
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Yesterday Dan and I met up with McGill Students’ Birding Club
members Anita and Shrijeet for an early morning session at the Technoparc. It was refreshing
to bird with these passionate young birders. We had unseasonably balmy above-freezing temperatures, although our
morning’s birding was set amidst the fairly depressing backdrop of ongoing noisy
construction at (destruction of) the Technoparc site. The site boasts one of the highest species
counts for the island of Montreal, including an impressive array of breeding
water birds last summer, including Green Heron, Virginia Rail and Sora.
Unfortunately, the
degradation of the prime wetland habitat is well underway, in preparation for
the construction of the ‘Hubert Reeves Eco-campus ’, ironically named after a
well-known ‘popularizer of science’. This monkey business is frustrating as hell, but it’s a familiar song
after having lived in Korea for close to a decade. Same shit, different continent. Lucre, disinformation, greenwash. It’s ok to wipe out this ridiculously
productive wetland because...because...we’re calling it an ‘Eco-campus’! Yep. Fake news!
Our target species
was Long-eared Owl – I’ve only seen this species on one previous occasion (a
quick encounter with an individual unfortunately being hunted by a Goshawk last
year in Suncheon: http://snowyowllost.blogspot.ca/2015/11/suncheon-october-26-november-15.html. I’d forgotten how relatively small they are,
in spite of echoing the morphology of the much larger Great Horned Owl. We also had a brief encounter with one of
those impressive birds a bit earlier on.
We found the
Long-eared Owl, still in the tree where Shrijeet first discovered it several
weeks ago. Four photogs were huddled directly
beneath the tree, snapping away at the owl, which had its tufts up in an alert
posture. I always get a queasy feeling
when it comes to witnessing photogs interacting with owls. I know, I know - I have a camera and I took a picture of the owl. I’d like to think the fact that we didn’t get
as close, and were in and out in 20 seconds (as opposed to camping out and
getting all up in the bird’s face) meant something - that there was a line in
the snow that we didn’t cross. I dunno. I guess the stern words of Dr. Nial Moores
still echo in my ears when it comes to birding ethics, especially where owls, a much sought after group of birds, are concerned. Over the years I’ve avoided photographing
owls, posting images of owls, and even mentioning certain owl sightings,
when I thought that the bird’s welfare was in question. Anyhow, that’s my rant, now give me my
‘Saint of Birding’ halo. Toss it up to me on my high horse.
There were reports
of Snow Buntings and a Snowy Owl being sighted near the runways of the Trudeau
Airport recently, but no dice yesterday. Shrijeet’s
little bridge camera was badass, by the way. It made me re-evaluate my antiquated boat anchor. My New Year’s resolution? Get on eBird. I’ll do it soon.
Red-shouldered Hawk -1 probable, seen at a considerable
distance near the runways
Red-tailed Hawk – 2
Rock Dove – 3
Long-eared Owl – 1
Great Horned Owl – 1
Downy Woodpecker – 8
Hairy Woodpecker – 1
Northern Flicker - 2
American Crow – 6+
Black-capped Chickadee – 8+
Brown Creeper – 1 heard
European Starling – 20+
Northern Cardinal – 6+
Dark-eyed Junco – 1
House Sparrow – 5+
American Goldfinch – 9
Pine Siskin – 1 mixed sneakily in with the Goldfinch group
