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Saturday, January 21, 2012
It was a bright sunny winter day. A turkey day. It seemed everywhere you could see wild turkeys strolling through fields. All you needed to do was look. There they were — dark shapes in the sun where cornfields met forest. Near Sheffield.
Near St. George, a hen peaked through the cornstalks.
I loved their amazing variety of feathers, a shimmering quilt of colour. A pair of toms held a display competition, marching in time, mimicking the other strut for strut.
Red wattles hanging. Hot stuff for turkeys.
Caught the attention of more than one hen.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
The business of home buying, paperwork, lawyers, insurance, banking and packing packing and more bloody packing was taking a toll on more crucial life activities — birdwatching. Argh! The thing to keep in mind: where I was headed would hopefully make it all worth it. An hour to the cottage. Less than hour to Point Pelee. Half an hour to Rondeau. Half an hour to Long Point. Ten minutes to Hawk Cliff, Kettle Creek Conservation Area and Dalewood Conservation Area. Gosh I wished it was all done and over with already. Sigh. In the meantime, I sorted through all my belongings, assessing and purging. So much of the stuff was entirely disposal. Just stuff. But time consuming stuff. For now my best birding was limited to the windows, I was afraid. Mild days were over and frigid temperatures had arrived with a vengeance. It was -21 °C. Just the kind of day when masses of starlings liked to show up. There was a commotion at the line up of peanut butter smears on the backyard ledge.
The most adventurous checked out the heated birdbath for future reference.
The continuous cackling, whistles and chirps were a great boost to the spirit. There were still more than two more months until spring. But it would surely arrive. A pair of House Finches waited patiently for the ruckus to clear before heading to the seed tray.
The little lady caught me spying.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
The new year did not have an auspicious start weather wise. It was teeming rain and icy cold when I left for Metz, still on a mission to find snowy owls. It was an irruptive year for the big beautiful birds. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to find one or two. The good news about the weather: most snow had melted in Guelph, giving Canada Geese an unusual mid-winter feed of juicy green grass.
The bad news: side roads were slushy, slippery and just plain rotten.
Beside the highway at Belwood Lake, a huge bird of prey flapped to the ground, then took off into trees when it saw me gawking from my parked car.
A completely soaked juvenile Bald Eagle. Within minutes a pair of crows came by to make its life even more miserable.
That's the way crows were. For more than two hours I drove a cross-cross pattern around Metz, giving every lumpy white object a good long look. Nothing. Except a camera shy American Kestrel. He wouldn't let me get close.
A sad one-room school house on 2nd Line was the picture of abandonment.
At one time that old oak tree must have provided a lovely shady place to learn. The conditions were awful not just for photography. I felt terrible at the thought of stressing out birds, making them fly away and waste their energy. I decided to return home empty-handed. I took a short cut and sure enough just when I was past caring, there it was, a big white fluff-ball perched on top of a hydro pole. A juvenile from the look of its heavily streaked breast. It studiously ignored me.
I loved the hairy feet. I quietly got out of the car, kept bent over low to the ground and slowly edged forward with my camera, not looking up, trying to not disturb him.
Well he got sick of that. After a few minutes I looked up and he had disappeared. Didn't blame him. It was with mixed feelings that I left Metz. Happy but guilty. Wildlife photographers could be the bain of birds, especially owls. Last year there had been several reports of inconsiderate birders and photographers stressing out birds. One had chopped out a well-known owl perch at Fifty Point Conservation Area in Grimsby, just to get a better angle on a shot. Dozens of birders were currently making life miserable for a Great Grey Owl near Kingsville. Darn those gonzo birders. It all made me think twice about posting my sightings to Ontbirds. Maybe all birders should think twice about posting sightings for public information. It doesn't seem to benefit the actual bird. Just before I hit the county road, one of those white blobs decorating a farmer's field turned out to be another Snowy Owl.
Undoubtedly they were spectacular birds.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
It was an altogether dismal day to end the year. Fog, rain, heavy grey clouds. When the sky lifted around noon, I headed to Stoney Creek to investigate reports of Snowy Owls. But first, a stop at Confederation Park on the edge of Lake Ontario.
The roar of traffic filled the air from the nearby QEW. It was too dark and damp to locate any over-wintering passerines. Hundreds of gulls rested on the beach then lifted off and headed for water. The odd one stayed put on shore and kept an eye out for food scraps.
No French fries today. Hutch's restaurant was closed. But you could still smell the remains of boiling fat.
Put some hungry gulls in a very bad mood indeed.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
What better way to spend Christmas Day than trying out the fancy new digiscope? I set off for Bayfront Park in Hamilton under leaden skies. Tried to squeeze in as much birding as possible before night time and the forecast of slippery sleet. An easy shot kicked things off at the protected little Grindstone Creek outlet in Cootes Paradise. Just what I was hoping for.
Water droplets and feather barbs. With another shot I caught the Mallard's third eyelid, the rapidly closing nictitating membrane.
The waterfront park was pretty much deserted on Christmas Day except for the odd dog-walker.
A big Red Tailed Hawk flapped overhead and a Kestrel awkwardly hauled away a still squirming mouse. Small peeps and buzzes came from the bushes. Could have been some left-behind warblers which had been causing a stir in the Hamilton birding world. Frigid winds blew off Lake Ontario and I bundled up. A young gull told me exactly how exciting things were along the waterfront.
Beside the Macassa Bay Yacht Club perched some renovated Victorian homes that must have had great views over the water.
It had taken several days of tinkering to figure out the optimum settings for the digiscope. And more days on top of that determining real world procedure. It was very different from shooting a camera on the move. A fixed standing position, a lot more button management and much poring over of indicators. The hinged rotating touch screen display was amazing.
Most of the time I didn't even need the remote shutter release. I could simply lightly touch the screen for that. The results were impressive.
Like this sleepy young Ring Billed Gull. I pulled out the Nikon for comparison. The water was full of diving ducks. Redheads …
and Scaup …
and a lots of American Coots …
Quite a difference between the Nikon and the Kowa. Every bird deserves a good camera. And more opportunities for showing off the digiscope.
Saturday, December 24 , 2011
Christmas had brought a few unexpected surprises this year. Sold my house. Bought another one. Started packing. All within two weeks.
A stressful flurry of travel, problem solving and decision making. Never mind the usual pre-Christmas madness of newspaper publishing. How did I ever do it? It was all too much to think about. In the meantime, Santa had left a pretty spiffy gift this year to make up for the horrible month. A Kowa TSN 883 spotting scope paired with a Panasonic Lumix GH2 camera.
The ultimate in digiscoping heaven. The rest of the kit: a 20-80 mm zoom eyepiece, a carbon fibre 055CX Manfrotto tripod, a Manfrotto 128 RC fluid head, a Kowa adapter ring, and a Kowa all weather case. The whole thing weighed in under 10 pounds. I hung a glove off the tripod lever to show just how small and compact the setup was. I could carry it with one hand. Entirely manageable for those long arduous treks around lakes and shorelines. Perfect for a back-problem plagued arthritic. The first test shot in the hallway:
Ahh. Leaf hairs.
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