Ice and Snow

A fair bit of snow overnight so the roads were terrible this morning.  I went out anyway!  I first went along a concession road where I had observed Snow Buntings and Horned Larks several times during the week.

 They seem to like this spot and were there again this morning.  Most of what I observed were Horned Larks with a few Snow Buntings.  Earlier in the week I had seen dozens of Snow Buntings, but they still could be around.

Out on the St. Clair River, ice is very heavy at Port Lambton, and Coast Guard cutters are assisting ships through the St. Clair Flats.  Four CG vessels were assisting the Cason J. Callaway downbound. It was quite cold all week, so ice has built up.

Any small open pool of water attracted ducks, as seen in the one photo.
At the Sombra ferry dock, the usual open spot on the downstream side of the causeway attracted lots of waterfowl.  One Long-tailed Duck stood out. 

Nothing unusual here though.  I remember one winter a Harlequin Duck hung around here.

Off ICI across from Detroit Edison things opened up a bit and hundreds of Canada Geese and other duck were here.  Some Black Ducks and a couple of Common Mergansers were here--scarce this winter.
Earlier I had seen one adult Bald Eagle.  They have not been too plentiful this winter.
I headed inland hoping to come across something of interest, like redpolls.  No such luck.  Redpolls are just not in our area to any degree (yet).
I wanted to check out Moore WMA as this is always a good spot for a winter walk.  Several species of birds greeted me from the start including Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Golden-crowned Kinglet, White-breasted Nuthatch, Downy Woodpecker.

titmouse in the weeds

Down along the river were more titmice, but I did not detect any Yellow-rumped Warblers.  The Yellow-rumped Warblers are always in this valley every winter.  Lots of poison ivy berries here.  I will have to check again later.  I have had them here since I started checking this spot almost twenty years ago!

Ice from high water last week

A Northern Flicker was working its way through the trees here as well.

Not much else to report.  I went for a bit of a walk at Reid CA and checked Wood Duck boxes.  No Screech this time!

No Southern (NorthernOak) Hairstreaks Today!