Saturday, February 26, 2011

Uneventful Day


Not much to report today.  I checked out the St. Clair River and Sarnia and some back roads.  Nothing new!  Still TOO much snow and you are limited to where you can stop, park, or walk.  We are just not used to a real winter here in the banana belt.
First thing this morning, dozens of American Goldfinch were at the feeders.  Two Common Redpolls were amongst them.  I think there are only two redpolls here right now.  They stayed till 6 p.m. tonight along with the White-throated Sparrow (it left at 6:15) which showed up after almost a two week absence.
Redpolls are neat birds.  The winter of 2009 was good around here.  Besides Common Redpolls, I believe I had a Greater Common Redpoll at one point.  Then in mid April, I got a surprise one day when a female Hoary showed up at the feeder!  Rather late for it.  Now, it would be nice get one of those Horny ones.


The St. Clair River is more choked with ice than it ever has been this winter.  Lake Huron is ice as far as you can see.  There is a bit of open water at Sombra, then from ICI up to LGS. The only notable was an American Coot off ICI.  It could have been the one wintering on the upper part of the river.
Long-tailed Ducks were in the hundreds off the Aamjiwnaang Territory.


Driving back roads, one could not avoid the thousands of Horned Larks.  Every road has some!  Difficult to approach closely.  I did see a few Snow Buntings as well.



I stopped briefly at Moore WMA but didn't get any birds.  The river was running high.  There is quite a fluctuation in water levels here and they can change quickly.  Note ice attached to trees at head level!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Blake, It's Kim out here in Port Lambton. Thanks for alerting me to the fact that there were Redpolls around. Saw my first ever today. Had a pair of them at my feeder and they let me get close enough for some great photos. I think they were posing for me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kim,
    Nice to know some more are around!

    ReplyDelete