Birds in the Field

American Tree Sparrow

Its the weekend, so out I went birding!  I decided to do some more local birding today.  I usually do that this time of year due to weather and road conditions.  We finally got some snow yesterday and evening, so birds became more visible it seems.  Photos not all that great as the sun did not appear.  As usual, the weather forecast was wrong....all week they predicted sun for Saturday!!

I checked out the St. Clair River to Courtright and found very little.  Usually it is peak time for ducks and other things, but this has been a strange year all around.  A few hundred ducks were off Courtright, mostly Redhead. Only saw one Long-tailed Duck.  A few Common and Red-breasted Mergansers were around.

Common Mergs

I drove through the countryside, stopping at a few spots to walk.  There was a notable presence of Snow Buntings today, as well as Horned Larks and a few Lapland Longspurs.  The spurs were in most of the sizable flocks.  Near the end of the afternoon, I encountered a huge cloud of Snow Buntings.  They were high and flying away, but I estimated about 1500 birds.



A spur and lark....

Snow Buntings, Horned Lark, Lapland Longspur

A Northern Shrike across from Bickford Oak Woods was making fun of a Rough-legged Hawk.  Not able to get a photo though.

At Moore WMA, not a bird to be found!  I could not go far as the river was still running high.  Down the road at McKellar I found a large flock of Tree Sparrow/Juncos, but just as I was getting on them, a Sharp-shinned Hawk did its thing.  Other than that, the Red-breasted Nuthatches were easily found.






A Song and a Swamp Sparrow were at one of the ponds.

Swamp Sparrow

At McKeough, more Tree Sparrows and a couple of Field Sparrows.

No owls today!

Some Wild Turkeys