Bohemians! Finally... Feb 24 2012

After a couple of failed attempts and a couple of flocks of Cedar Waxwings, I finally found some Bohemians. After driving through a likely area north of Lakefield and coming up short, I went straight through town where I spotted a nicely fruit-laden crabapple directly across from the Foodland entrance. I pulled over and a quick scan with the binos through the blizzard produced three Bohemian Waxwings.



Bohemian Waxwing



Mmmmmm! Crabapples!

First attempt



Still needs more work



A bit more mashing...

...and it's gone

I love these guys. At Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, I would be late for my 8:30am Chemistry labs because there would be Bohemian Waxwings in the crabapples right outside the windows in the Chemistry hall -- sometimes right on the window sills. Hard to resist stopping to look at them from 6" away!

And for comparison's sake, here is a shot of some Cedar Waxwings on Feb 16 2012.

Cedar Waxwings

On Feb 16, I also saw my first Peterborough area Sharp-shinned Hawk of the year (thanks, eBird.) It was a large female hunting American Goldfinches and others at the bird feeder. I saw a small male back on Dec 08 2011 that actually sat still for a minute. I really like this photo.

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Presqu'ile Provincial Park - Jan 11 2012

I hadn't been to Presqu'ile this year yet so I decided to head down for the day. The trip started off well with a Northern Shrike before I was five minutes into the drive.



Northern Shrike

 It seems like I'm seeing Northern Shrikes more this winter than ever before. A group of deer crossed the road a couple of minutes later. I managed to get a shot before they disappeared into the woods.

White-tailed Deer

Red-tailed Hawks were everywhere during the drive. At one point I saw four in about five minutes near Warkworth.

Red-tailed Hawk #3

I decided to check out Bayshore Drive as my first stop. On the way there from the park gate, an immature Bald Eagle flew over, my first of the year. There was a big raft of Redheads in the bay with some Greater Scaup and Canvasbacks mixed in. The Long-tailed Ducks, Bufflehead and Common Goldeneye were also present.

Redhead and Greater Scaup

Canvasback trying to blend in

A stop at the Government Pier had more of the same including a couple of muskrats hanging out on the ice.

Muskrat

A quick stop to check out the numerous bird feeders at 83 Bayshore Drive yielded some House Finches, Northern Cardinals, American Goldfinches and a flock of about 40 Cedar Waxwings.

The lighthouse was almost devoid of ducks due to the fairly strong wind coming off of the lake. I did have a couple of Brown Creepers in the parking lot though. The Barrow's Goldeneye will have to wait until next time.

Calf Pasture had the expected ducks including a couple of Red-breasted and a single Common Merganser. I could see a gathering of gulls on the ice at the other side of Presqu'ile Bay so I decided to have a look through them after I left the park. There was also yet another Northern Shrike!

Another Northern Shrike

I had a quick walk to the first lookout on the Owen Point trail, having opted to forego the waders experience this time around. There were two Snowy Owls to the right on the beach and one at a distance to the left, right at the base of the point. One on the beach was an almost entirely white male, a bird that wasn't one of the five I saw during my last trip!

Male Snowy

As I left the park to find a better vantage point for the gulls, my first Sharpie of the year flew directly overhead.
The closest spot to the gulls was Gosport. It was horribly backlit and not really that close. On top of that, all the gulls lifted off for no apparent reason and settled really far out about five minutes after I arrived. I did see about a dozen Great Black-backed, 2 Glaucous and an Iceland before they left though.

Just before I got home, I saw one more new bird for the year.