All owls, all the time

Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus

Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus

Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus

Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus

Wild Turkey Meleagris gallopavo

Red-bellied Woodpecker Melanerpes carolinus

Honeybee sp.

Dreaded tokebis!

PN du Cap-St-Jacques, November 10, 2022

  The Cap was devoid of humans yesterday (Yay!). That, coupled with the unseasonably warm weather and flat light conditions gave the whole excursion a dream-haze feeling to it.

  A respectable variety of sparrows was lurking in the thorny areas of field edges, where the tokebi seeds (Korean for ‘goblin’) stick to your socks in scratchy clumps. In five hours, 29 species were logged.

  A dainty mystery bird perched in a row of windbreak trees between fields proved confounding. Most striking in the field was its colouration, seemingly plain tan/yellowish (egg nog) overall (with some grey mixed in), with subdued markings and the hint of an eye-ring. I looked at it for perhaps 15 seconds through the bins trying to ID it, but when I saw it hopping closer to the field side of the tree it was in, I fumbled for a record shot. Predictably, the bird absconded (mili)seconds before I could get the camera to focus on the bird through the branches in front of it.

  After much profanity and leafing through of the Sibley’s, many possible suspects arose, some of them quite outlandish. I feel that a yellow variant House Finch (…which I’ve never seen before…and…do they ever show up around here?) would be the closest reasonable match. A motley cast of sparrow suspects was also put forward, as was the possibility of a colour aberration in a ‘normal’ sparrow, and/or weird lighting being a factor. But I guess we’ll never know. Shakes fist at sky.

  Bird of the day was a mime-faced Short-eared Owl, spotted 15 minutes after the mystery bird fail, in a nearby field. The SEO came in low right over our heads, and did a lazy figure-S circuit over the field and path before disappearing into the woods. Badass!

  Oh, be careful, not only were bees and crickets still out, but so were the ticks. Check those ankles.