Early birds of the decade

Eastern Screech-Owl Megascops asio
(January 23)

Northern Saw-whet Owl Aegolius acadicus
(January 29)

Pileated Woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus
(January 29)

White-winged Crossbill Loxia leucoptera
(February 10)

White-winged Crossbill singing

(sorry for the video quality)

(February 10)

Downy Woodpecker Picoides pubescens
(March 5)

male Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis
(March 5)

female Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis
(March 5)

American Robin Turdus migratorius
(March 5)

White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis
(March 5)

Pine Warbler Setophaga pinus
(March 5)

Saint-Côme
(February 10)

Saint-Côme
(February 10)

Swaggins Trail
(February 10)

  Or is it ‘birds of the early decade?’ Haven’t been getting out into the scrub much lately, with only some light birding every now and again to start the year. The majority of the trips have been failed twitches. Dips even. It’s gonna be one of those years. Mostly I have been writing, rotting, editing, mainlining Korean instant coffee, and washing my hands.

Some random high(low)lights:

January 23, Parc des Rapides/Parc Angrignon in Lasalle: Dipped on a Barrow’s Goldeneye. No scope = no distant duck. No passerines. Screech was snoozing in Angrignon, looked like a cat.

January 29, Yamachiche: Dipped on the Boreal Owl. Interesting area though.

February 10, up near Tremblant in Saint-Côme/Swaggins Trail: Dipped on an American Three-toed Woodpecker – but may have heard it (even worse). It was cold as hell. The White-winged Crossbills were a’singing in the sun.

March 5, Parc Jean-Drapeau on Ile Notre-Dame: Felt quite birdy for the time of year, with 20 species logged in two hours. Spotted the celeb Pine Warbler, and also White-throated Sparrows, Red-winged Blackbirds, and a decent supporting cast.

The Trailcam

  Here's a little story I wrote:

 https://montrealwrites.com/2020/01/31/the-trailcam-by-matt-poll/

(To read my other published birding tales, click on this handy clickety-click and scroll down:
http://snowyowllost.blogspot.ca/search/label/Writing%20stuff-published%20stories)

Sparrows of the Southwest

Harris’s Sparrow Zonotrichia querula

Harris’s Sparrow Zonotrichia querula

Harris’s Sparrow Zonotrichia querula

Harris’s Sparrow Zonotrichia querula
(with an American Tree Sparrow looking tiny by comparison in the foreground)

Vesper Sparrow Pooecetes gramineus

Vesper Sparrow Pooecetes gramineus

That photographer actually got much closer to the Vesper Sparrow...
(...how was he able to focus his 600mm lens?!)

The scene at the stream when the Harris's Sparrow showed up
(visible at the top of the ditch, under the sumac)

Lovely farm country, where icy winds stalk the land

  Headed down to the St-Anicet area a couple of days ago for a double sparrow-twitch (Harris’s and Vesper). Bleak and lovely farm country out there. I get a weird vibe on these twitches, mostly due to the fantastic spectrum of questionable behaviour by photographers inevitably on display, and it was no different this time. A traffic jam of lenses, but almost no binoculars. Folks were clotted up in chattery gaggles at the heaps of cracked corn that had been left at the side of the road. Some photogs were scream-shouting to one another, to the point where I could hear every word of their conversation from 100 feet down the road, while others walked right up to the celebrity birds when they showed up. How can you even focus on a bird from five feet away when you have a 600mm lens, m’man? Don't step on it! Boggles the mind. The confused local farmers whipping past in pickup trucks on the narrow road jammed with parked cars completed the wacky scene.
  Ah well, I couldn’t resist, as who knows when the next Harris’s Sparrow will show up. It’s apparently the largest sparrow in North America, and most are in Northern Texas this time of year, while the Vesper ought to be in Florida. I guess it could be this screwy warm winter we’re having, confusing these birds. Both reminded me of Old World Buntings, and were relatively quite confiding. Lovely, striking birds, both.
  There’s a mighty blizzard churning through the province right now, I wonder if these roadside rock-stars will still be around when the powder settles.

  On a tangent, I was struck by how the latest Sibley's book doesn't include an illustration of a first-winter Harris's Sparrow, but instead replaces it with one of a juvenile (for those people birding in high Nunavut in the summer). Why would they exclude the first-winter? I love, and will defend to the death the honour of the Sibley's guide (The sacred texts!), but I do have a few issues with moves like that, and some of the other sparrow illustrations. I guess I'm a nerd.

The Komun Dodo

  Here's my latest published short: 
https://www.dimeshowreview.com/the-komun-dodo-by-matt-poll/

  It's one of the first 'flash fiction' tales I attempted, written a couple of years ago. There was a whole birding aspect to the story that I trimmed out to ensure that it stayed under 1,000 words. Not sure how it would come out if I wrote it today.
  Geomun Island, formerly known as Komun Island, was also briefly known as Port Hamilton, when the British Navy set up a cheeky base there from 1885-1887 ("preventive occupation"), which seemed like a wacky place and time to set a story. Geomun is a charming isle, and I tried to get a job there a few years back, but was unsuccessful.

(To read my other published birding tales, click on this handy clickety-click and scroll down:
http://snowyowllost.blogspot.ca/search/label/Writing%20stuff-published%20stories)

Season's Tweetings...

...from the creepy Victorian Christmas bike-owls.

The '19 Christmas Bird Count

American Goldfinch Spinus tristis

American Crow Corvus brachyrhynchos

  I was issued the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery for the Christmas Bird Count yesterday. The neighbouring Mount-Royal Cemetery gets all the birding glamour, but I think NDN has its decent spots too, and I do like a scruffy underdog. Wasn’t too birdy overall (nine species), but the mood of it all made up for any avian shortcomings.
  A thick, creepy-ass fog settled heavy over the cemetery all morning. Haven’t seen a fog that persistent in Montreal – it was more of a Seogwipo harbour morning fog, minus the ocean musk. There were a few moments where I was walking through wide, silent fields, surrounded completely by wet greyness. Felt like walking through limbo, or into 2020 or whatever.
  Gangs of noisy American Crows had me loping through the mist a few times, visions of owls dancing in my head, but I think they were just being bored jerks, having cawing contests. Cawntests.
  Also, I love a good mystery/conspiracy, so I’m convinced I’ve been seeing fresh Black-backed Woodpecker bark damage near where George found them a few months ago – I suspect they’re still somewhere on the mountain, happy and anonymous in some quiet corner. Or I'd like to imagine they are.

  The BPQ count-up hang-out in Mo-West after was a good time, well done, BPQ.

  Speaking of Christmas Bird Counts, my wacky book is now available in paperback format, see the post below.

Buy my book! The Christmas Bird Diary

February 2024 note: Currently unavailable, but it will be back, better than ever, before long...

  Howdy, fellow bird-loving internet lurkers. A short book I wrote was just published, hooray! The Christmas Bird Diary is a cozy “Christmas birding” mystery set in Montreal in 1960. It’s a quick read (10,000 words/50ish pages), and cheap (less than $3 for ebook, less than $8 for paperback), so buy yours today! If you enjoy it (or if you don’t), please review it on Amazon, as it helps boost the 'algorithm' thingies. Cheers, et merci!

☞ Canadians can get it in Kindle or paperback format here:
https://www.amazon.ca/Christmas-Bird-Diary-Matt-Poll/dp/1674923287/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=%22The+christmas+bird+diary%22&qid=1576880454&sr=8-1

☞ Americans (and others) can also get it in Kindle or paperback format here:
https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Bird-Diary-Matt-Poll/dp/1674923287/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1576871403&sr=8-1

☞ Eight other ebook stores and formats are here:

https://books2read.com/u/3Lp1A0

Here’s the blurb:

  It’s Christmas, 1960, and Montreal is snowed under. Twenty-year-old Mairin Lang plans on furthering her new hobby of birdwatching while home for a break from university. This plan for a relaxing holiday with her mother takes a sharp turn when she discovers her late grandfather Murray’s Christmas birding diary, written 50 years earlier. Within its pages are the seeds to three mysteries, all connected to a bird sighting Murray made in 1906 — an all-white ‘Snowbird’ that appears to be a species unknown to modern science. In Mairin’s quest to puzzle through these enigmas, she will be challenged with secrets from her family’s past, skeptical academics, and the deadly elements of an abnormally cold December.

(To read my other published birding tales, click on this handy clickety-click and scroll down:
http://snowyowllost.blogspot.ca/search/label/Writing%20stuff-published%20stories)

Technolark

Lark Sparrow Chondestes grammacus

Northern Saw-whet Owl Aegolius acadicus

  Went west with Dan and finally caught up with the errant Lark Sparrow that’s been hanging out at the Technoparc. Yay! It struck me as quite an Emberiza-like bird, white outer-tail and all. This species is not often seen east of the Mississippi, and it should probably be in Texas right about now...let's hope it gets turned back around. Thanks goes to Marc Boisvert, who we teamed up with to cover more ground. Thanks also goes to the platoon of Black-capped Chickadees, who alerted us to a Northern Saw-whet Owl with their outraged tsipping.

Crossbilled Traffic

Red Crossbill Loxia curvirostra

Getting after the slushy salt/grit pile

Pine Siskin Carduelis pinus

Northern Shrike Lanius excubitor

Rivière Noire

They were that close...

  George had a wacky scheme to wake up pre-dawn and drive two hours north to try to find some hard-to-find Red Crossbills that some fellow has been seeing in his yard. I’m in! After the drive up to the boreal splendour of Saint-Donat-de-Montcalm (near Tremblant), we met the fellow in question, the affable bird-man of the north, Pierre Martin. We first got onto a large flock of Pine Siskins, and after ten minutes or so, three Red Crossbills were spotted moving in a wide circuit around us. High-five! Little did we know, within an hour we would have an absurdly confiding flock of 16 Red Crossbills on the snow in front of us, as close as ten feet away. It was a breathtaking, surreal encounter.
  The birds were focused on getting after the salt/dirt clumps on the road, and would flush en masse every few minutes in response to alarm calls from jittery sentries. The colour range on the birds was remarkable, with all the shades of a traffic light, and every gradient in between.
  We stopped by Boisé Ste-Dorothée in Laval on the way back. The tactical owl SWAT team was out in force, beating the bushes for a Saw-whet Owl that was apparently seen there a few days ago. I overheard one lens bro’s aside to another: “There were 30 people here today looking for the owl, but no one saw it.” Can’t help but think that the two halves of that sentence may have a cause-effect relationship. Pretty quiet overall there, although a Northern Shrike was a welcome sight (with another probable from the road near Prévost). I’ll swear on a Sibley’s that I heard some crossbills there too. Gip-gip gip-gip!

George’s list from Saint-Donat (includes a sound recording for the crossbill-typing nerds out there):
https://ebird.org/checklist/S61627172

George’s list from Boisé Ste-Dorothée:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S61631515

Home Sparrows

White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis

Chipping Sparrow Spizella passerina

Chipping Sparrow Spizella passerina
(showing the characteristic grey rump)

  A White-throated Sparrow has joined the local 'out-front' House Sparrow gang, we’ll see if it sticks around all winter. A Chipping Sparrow also passed through today - they breed in the pines up the street. Less likely to overwinter, I guess. What else? I used to see Fox Sparrows next door, until they whacked down the micro-habitat provided by a handful of sumacs a few years back.

Rockstar geese

Greater White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons with Cackling Goose Branta hutchinsii (bottom right), and Canada Goose Branta canadensis

American Red Squirrel Tamiasciurus hudsonicus

  On a day with gunmetal skies and face-numbing gusts, George, Maya and I zipped out west to the Mac Campus to check out the Greater White-fronted Goose and Cackling Goose, found on the 6th by Émile Brisson-Curadeau. We got onto the rockstar geese fairly quickly, and then beat the bushes in the surrounding areas for a bit. My wips are still fwozen.