Valentine's Birding

I did venture out today despite this ridiculous weather.  We got twice as much snow as predicted, overnight, and the winds really whipped up.  Every weekend there is something!
The only feasible thing to do was check out the St. Clair River.  I was inland a bit along Baseline Road up to Sombra and came across this Snowy Owl.

Even spots along the St. Clair Parkway were iffy as the winds whipped up the snow over the Arctic-like river.
The usual ducks were at the Ansell feeding station at Sombra.  The amount of open water is now extremely small!  These ducks were huddled up in the blustery conditions. (a blinding squall came in while I was at Sombra).

I thought of getting out at Cathcart Park, but one could not even breathe against the wind and snow!
The sun was out today (highly unusual for a weekend), but it was deceiving.

Lots of ducks were off Courtright but there was either no place to pull off or conditions were unbearable.

I got out at Talfourd Creek were there was a bit of shelter.

At the south end of Sarnia, something got the Long-tailed Ducks up and there was a cloud of two to three thousand in the air.  Several more thousand were at Sarnia/Port Huron, so it is another banner year for Long-tailed Ducks!

Wind-whipped tail!

The King Eider (female) is still around, but I could not find it.  The last couple of days it has been right off downtown Port Huron.  Most of the ducks were on the US side, but heat haze and wind made it impossible to scope.

This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count for those who are interested.  Count birds where-ever you like!  Submit sightings to this website, which is linked to eBird.
Great Backyard Bird Count

I watched my feeders this afternoon as there was no place to go. It would have been suicide to venture out in the country this afternoon.
Near the end of the afternoon, two Common Redpolls showed up.  First for the year here!

Resident Cardinal

Also had a low-flying gashawk probably heading to Detroit.