Scoters to Siskins

Unfortunately it was a bust.  An excellent wind was blowing up at Point Edward, but birds failed to come in. A fair number of bonies coming and going, but nothing with them.  A few of us stood vigil for a few hours in the stiff NNE wind.  The next few days have even stiffer North winds, but I have little patience and time!
Lots of Common Loons were flying about, not sure where to go it seemed.  Only saw one Horned Grebe.  I saw one White-winged Scoter, one Surf Scoter and one Black Scoter.  There were other scoters very far out with other ducks obviously too distant to ID.
Many birds were flying very high. Lighting was horrible today so many birds were silhouettes. Gulls were initially quite high, and many ducks were very high flying south.
A few Long-tailed Ducks were riding the current too.
A Peregrine Falcon put on a show for a while, as did a couple of Bald Eagles.

Afterwards I left and headed over to Perch Creek WMA.  Not many landbirds, but I did find a good group of sparrows as well as chickadees too.

I decided to check some pine trees just for fun and was delighted to find a Northern Saw-whet Owl.  Nearby was a Long-eared Owl as well.  Too much crap in the way to get a good photo of each, but you get the picture.

Farther south I stopped at Moore WMA.  No landbirds there either!  I did flush an American Woodcock though.






A McKeough CA I came across a group of Fox Sparrows.

I encountered a couple of Northern Shrikes on the back roads as I drove home.  First for the fall.







Here at home, like many places now, Pine Siskins have come en masse. There were close to 80 at one point.  As usual they were quite approachable.

Junco with colour at McKeough.....