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| Black-backed Woodpecker Picoides arcticus |
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| Black-backed Woodpecker Picoides arcticus (On a tree with patches of bark flaking, a good sign of BBWO activity) |
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| Black-backed Woodpecker Picoides arcticus |
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| Black-backed Woodpecker Picoides arcticus |
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| Black-backed Woodpecker Picoides arcticus |
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| White-winged Crossbill Loxia leucoptera |
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| Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea |
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| Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea |
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| Pine Grosbeak Pinicola enucleator |
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| Evening Grosbeak Coccothraustes vespertinus |
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| Evening Grosbeak Coccothraustes vespertinus with Pine Grosbeak Pinicola enucleator |
Mont-Tremblant area, February 26, 2022
On Saturday I joined George, Anthony, and Ben for an early morning mission up north for a taste of the boreal. The stars of the trip were two Black-backed Woodpeckers (or the same one seen twice?), seen near the trailhead for Mont-Tremblant’s Sentier de l'Envol. They’re such a calm, unobtrusive woodpecker species. I’m sure they’re often overlooked due to their habit of quietly foraging in one place for a long time, as opposed to a lot of other woodpeckers that are more restless and vocal. I’m still a bit sore from the hill we climbed after that, but the spectacular views at the top made it all worth it.
At a quiet spot near Mont-Tremblant, a large theme park-worthy array of bird feeders around a bird fancier’s house attracted busy swarms of finches. Apparently the guy goes through 10 pounds of seed a day, and from the hundreds of actively feeding birds at the location, I can believe it. It was a treat seeing Evening Grosbeaks there, as it was my first time seeing them in several lifetimes. Watching them, I was reminded how structurally similar they are to their Eurasian Coccothraustes cousin, the Hawfinch.
On a remote road, we stumbled across some White-winged Crossbills gathering grit from road-side snow banks, and got some cracking close views. To George’s dismay, we were unable to cross paths with any Boreal Chickadees, a species that has firmly entrenched itself as his nemesis species. The day ended with a flyby Snowy Owl, seen from the car in the fields of Mirabel.
The air was so sweet and clean up there, I couldn’t get enough of it. I’ve said it before, but after living somewhere where the air quality was often poor to the point of being harmful, I’ll never take fresh air for granted.
Cumulative day list:
Snowy Owl-1 (Mirabel fields, from the car)
Downy Woodpecker-2
Hairy Woodpecker-2
Black-backed Woodpecker- 1 or 2 males
Blue Jay-4
American Crow-1
Common Raven-5
Black-capped Chickadee-18
Red-breasted Nuthatch-2
Evening Grosbeak-7
American Goldfinch-1
Pine Siskin-1
Common Redpoll-100
Pine Grosbeak-6
White-winged Crossbill-5
