Big day southwest, April 9, 2017

Scoping for Golden Eagles at Montée Smellie

Lac Saint-François

Lac Saint-François

Turkey Vulture Cathartes aura

Sandhill Crane Grus canadensis

Several dark morphs in a skein of Snow Geese Chen caerulescens

Northern Shrike Lanius excubitor

Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia

Golden-crowned Kinglet Regulus satrapa

Tree Swallow Tachycineta bicolor

Canada Goose Branta canadensis (love is in the air...)

Northern Harrier Circus cyaneus

Spot the Osprey Pandion haliaetus

American Mink Neovison vison

Tallying up over officially the best poutine ever

Bird food

  Running on three hours of sleep (zero hours for Dan), an epic day of birding in Quebec's southwest was a perfect, if exhausting, way to kick off spring. We linked up with the McGill Students' Birding Club at Hungry Bay at 7:15, and froze our fingers off for an hour, picking through waterfowl. In a typically Canadian day, the weather clunked gears through three seasons during the course of several hours, and we ended the day all sunburns and rolled-up sleeves. The layers were coming off like the characters on a Russian doll.

  At Montée Smellie, we didn't find any Golden Eagles, the day's target species, but did encounter my bird of the day, a singing Eastern Meadowlark.

  On the road, I spotted a Northern Shrike in a roadside field, and when we pulled over, we noticed an Osprey dwarfed by a massive telecommunication tower.
  At Lac Saint-François we saw some great habitat, but the Tree Swallow nests right along the trail seemed poorly placed. We'll be back in the summer to try our luck with local specials like Yellow Rail (*update: it's been decades without a Yellow Rail sighting there...) and Sedge Wren. Three Sandhill Cranes (Dan's fave) paced a field, and it was fun to see the 'Greater', to compare it with the 'Lesser' I found in Suncheon (http://snowyowllost.blogspot.ca/2015/12/suncheon-november-22-december-13.html). We ended up with a respectable 54 species on the day.

Hungry Bay, (Montée Smellie), {Lac Saint-François}, [on the road]
Double-crested Cormorant -5 

Great Blue Heron -3 {1}
Great Egret -{1}
Snow Goose -130+ (2,300+)
Canada Goose -70+ (2000+) {200+} [5240]
Wood Duck -(2)
Mallard -{4}
American Black Duck -6
Northern Pintail -[12]
Green-winged Teal -[8]
Redhead -1
Lesser Scaup -75+
Common Goldeneye -4
Bufflehead -1
Hooded Merganser -2 {2}
Red-breasted Merganser -2
Common Merganser -8
Turkey Vulture -(4) [4]
Osprey -[1]
Northern Harrier -(2) {1}
Red-tailed Hawk - (2)
American Kestrel -(1)
Sandhill Crane -{3}
Killdeer -(20+)
Wilson’s Snipe -{1}
Ring-billed Gull -6 [62]
Herring Gull -1
Rock Dove -[5]
Mourning Dove -1 (4) {1} [2]
Downy Woodpecker -{1}
Northern Flicker-1 (1) {3}
Eastern Phoebe -1 (1) {2} [1]
Northern Shrike -[1]
Blue Jay -2 (1)
American Crow -3 (3) [23]
Common Raven -(2)
Tree Swallow -{15+} [1]
Black-capped Chickadee -3 (3)
Tufted Titmouse -{1}
Golden-crowned Kinglet -{1}
American Robin -9 (3) [3]
European Starling -5 (4) [55]
Northern Cardinal -1 {2}
American Tree Sparrow -{5}
Song Sparrow -6 (1) {4} [7]
White-throated Sparrow -(1 heard)
Dark-eyed Junco -5
Eastern Meadowlark -(1)
Red-winged Blackbird -24 (10+) {12+} [24]
Common Grackle -9 (6) {10+} [66]
Brown-headed Cowbird -2
House Sparrow -(2) [2]
American Goldfinch -{2}
House Finch -1
+ an American Mink at Hungry Bay, an American Red Squirrel and two Mourning Cloaks at Lac Saint-François

The Origin of Bird Species

  As illustrated by Charles Comino, globe-trotting artist and friend of the family, in the early 1960s.

NDG Cooper's

Cooper's Hawk Accipiter cooperii

Cooper's Hawk Accipiter cooperii

Cooper's Hawk Accipiter cooperii

  I did get out of bed, and went for a quick recon of a nearby NDG location. A fat-looking female Cooper's Hawk was a nice surprise, in pretty much the same spot where I spotted a noisy juvenile last August.

Finchin' in Knowlton / White Whale

Brome Lake

Suspected Black-backed Woodpecker habitat 

Suspected Black-backed Woodpecker damage

Acorn tracking

Common Redpoll Carduelis flammea

Knowlton, March 23, 2017
  Lucky to be on another jaunt out east, I set out with the intention of finding Evening Grosbeaks, which are spotted regularly at feeders around the lake. I didn't see one these spectacular finches (which I haven't seen since the age of eight), but did manage to spot some American Goldfinches with a Common Redpoll tagalong percolating through the treetops.
  Looks like I've found a new white whale: Black-backed Woodpecker. Every birder has a white whale – that bird that persistently eludes you, and keeps pulling you back into the field with the siren-like allure of its maddening absence. Sometimes this bird can be a relatively common one, yet it consistently manages to keep one step ahead of you. It often feels as though the harder you search for this bird, the less likely you are to find it. Everyone needs a white whale of some kind. Something to get you out of bed when you need more sleep, something to daydream about when you’re in the midst of a long, miserable day at work.
  We thought we heard a Black-backed Woodpecker from the tower at the Thunder Cape Bird Observatory in September, but no looks. Dan and I dipped on one by hours in Laval back in December. I could feel them watching me up in Foret Montmorency last month, and saw their characteristic flaked-off bark damage.
  I saw more of this bark flaking in a quiet patch of mixed woods around Lake Brome on Thursday (Sibley notes "mature mixed deciduous forests" as suitable habitat), and there have been sightings of the rare species all around the area. As I was studying these flaked-up trees, I heard a woodpecker drum that sounded...off. Different from a Hairy Woodpecker, a touch less urgent. Of course, a two-hour stakeout produced nothing but frozen finger marrow, and a realization that I may never see this species. But it will get me out of bed.

Around Brome Lake
Downy Woodpecker – 1
Hairy Woodpecker – 3
Pileated Woodpecker – 1 heard
American Crow – 20+
Black-capped Chickadee – 20+
Red-breasted Nuthatch – 3 heard
Northern Cardinal – 2 heard
American Goldfinch – 10+
Common Redpoll -1

On the road
Canada Goose – 40ish
Red-tailed Hawk – 1
Bald Eagle – 1 juvenile
Wild Turkey – 5+
European Starling – 10+

Felt like an owl day

Angrignon Park

Eastern Screech-Owl Megascops asio

Eastern Screech-Owl Megascops asio

  Two morphs!

Butterflies of Korea - Part III (Suncheon 2015)

Asian Comma Polygonia c-aureum

Common Beak Libythea lepita

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui

Red Ring Skirt Hestina assimilis

Indian Fritillary Argyreus hyperbius

Indian Fritillary Argyreus hyperbius

  For the flutterers that lurk among us.

Nuthatchin' in Knowlton

Brome Lake

Brome Lake trail

Back of Fairwinds

Purple Martin and Chimney Swift?

Red-breasted Nuthatch Sitta canadensis

  Just got back from a few days in Knowlton with a friend, which is relatively close to the Missisquoi spot in Vermont I visited in November. We ended up staying in a historic house from the 1870s called "Fairwinds". That was a trip. Didn't get a whole lot of birding in, but a couple of Red-breasted Nuthatch were a treat to watch. En route we had a few Red-tailed Hawks, healthy skeins of Canada Geese, and what I'm fairly sure was a cloud of 250+ Horned Larks in a field, put up by a low-flying helicopter.

Whiskey Jack North

Baie-du-Febvre

Fôret Montmorency

See the wind?

The work of a Black-backed Woodpecker?

Horned Lark Eremophila alpestris

Boreal Chickadee Poecile hudsonicus

Canada Jay Perisoreus canadensis

Canada Jay Perisoreus canadensis

Canada Jay Perisoreus canadensis

Canada Jay Perisoreus canadensis

Canada Jay Perisoreus canadensis

Baie-du-Febvre, Fôret Montmorency, February 26, 2017
  Dan showed up at an eye-wateringly early 6:20 a.m. yesterday for a trip up to Fôret Montmorency, with two members of the McGill Students' Birding Club, Zack and Kateyn. Kudos to Dan for handling the driving for the grueling 700km round-trip. Halfway up, we stopped in Baie-du-Febvre (site of our Prothonotary big day last May: http://snowyowllost.blogspot.ca/2016/06/twitch-and-shout.html), for a cheeky scan of the fields along Route Janelle. We came across loose flocks of charming Horned Larks with a few Snow Buntings mixed in, but unfortunately not the lone Lapland Longspur that’s been hanging out there.
  At our final destination up in the hills, the white-out conditions got challenging at times, both for driving and for birding. Fôret Montmorency was awe-inspiring, I’ve never been in a boreal forest quite like this – very Tim Burtony. One of our target species, Boreal Chickadees, were taunting us with fleeting glimpses all the way up a hill, until we were finally rewarded with satisfying long views at the top. They looked quite different to Black-capped Chickadees - relatively large and chunky, giving a dark, purple-ish impression at first glance. Lovely bird.
  Similarly, we blanked when it came to spotting Canada’s bird, the Canada (Gray) Jay, after a full tour around Lac Piché, probably due to the wind situation that seemed to be keeping most birds hunkered. After a quick regroup back at the main building, and some helpful tips from passing hikers, we raced back down a trail in a Hail Mary foray back to the lake, which failed. On our way back, we moped and despaired, until, two minutes from the parking lot, I looked up and saw a phantasm. A Canada Jay was perched inches behind Zack’s head. The next ten minutes were surreal, like being in the presence not of an animal, but an alien race far superior to humans. The pair of Whiskey Jacks perched calmly within a foot of us, seemingly observing us and taking notes of their own, communicating with each other using cryptic, whispered chuckles. The encounter ended when they melted back into the Balsam Firs as a pack of Pine Grosbeaks rippled overhead.

Baie-du-Febvre
American Crow - 11
Horned Lark – in the neighbourhood of 45
European Starling - 3
Snow Bunting - 4

On the road
Herring Gull - 1
Rock Dove – 23
Blue Jay - 6
American Crow - 68
Horned Lark – 25ish total on several roads near Baie-du-Febvre
European Starling -31
House Sparrow - 11
(Red Fox – 1, White-tailed Deer – 1)

Fôret Montmorency
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Gray Jay - 2
Black-capped Chickadee – at least 6
Boreal Chickadee - 10
Red-breasted Nuthatch – at least 5
Pine Grosbeak – a flyover flock of 9, with several others heard from treetops
(American Red Squirrel -1)