Girls Gone Wild!

Ann and I terrorized the shores of eastern Lake Ontario for a few amazing days together, as we began our road trip to Amherst Island at 5:00 a.m. on Sunday, January 16. We successfully dodged two different winter storm systems without incident, thanks to Ann's excellent driving skills, but also suffered through winter temperatures that one morning started off at a balmy -28º celsius, then awoke the next morning to temperatures of +3º celsius, yikes! I saw a total of fifty-three species over the three days, including five different owls as we had hoped, whoohoot!!

Amherst Island is a birding hotspot, particularly for owls in the winter, and we were not disappointed, even though there had been few reports of them to date for the season. We wisely planned our trip around the Kingston Field Naturalists outing and met them all at the ferry terminal at sunrise:

Our friend Murray arrived at the terminal too, so we were pleased to spend time with him although I'm not so sure it was reciprocated once he saw Ann and I in action... 

As we waited for the ferry to arrive, we scanned the horizon for any critters and birds and saw three coyotes running along the ice on the far shore of the the island (we later found out that coyotes are hunted on the island and are frequently chased out onto the ice...).

A Northern Pintail swam with several Mallards, along with a lone White-winged Scoter right next to the ferry terminal, so our species tally had already begun. 

As we arrived at the island, an adult Bald Eagle was perched in a tree, and we saw it again as we left the next day, Ann spotted it flying high up and it eventually landed in the same area as the day we arrived. Certainly the island was excellent for numerous raptors, including Red-tailed Hawks, a Peregrine Falcon, a Northern Harrier, and by far the most plentiful, Rough-legged Hawks, both light morphs...

...and lots of dark morphs, which I haven't seen too many of until now. These are mostly "record shots" (=codeword for garbage shots that are really only for my personal records until I can do better!):

My target bird for the trip was the gorgeous Snowy Owl, but unfortunately we only had fairly distant views of it through my scope, our first view was while we were still with the Kingston gang on their property, it's sitting at the top of this tree:

After visiting Owl Woods, though, Ann, Murray and I split off from the Kingston group and returned  to the KFN property to see if the Snowy Owl had moved any closer, which it really hadn't but as KFN members, we decided to access the KFN property. Ann and Murray forged ahead while I decided to do something a bit different.

A dramatic hunting technique of certain owls, especially Great Grays, is snow-plunging, where they will find its prey by sound and then dive into the deep snow to grab it. I seized the opportunity to try this myself, so here goes, all documented by Murray I hate you, at the instigation of  my frenemy Ann I hate you more:

...I just know there's something deep down in that snow besides my binos and camera

...deciding that my owl hunting technique sucked, I tried in vain to rolled myself over, managing to only sink myself in deeper- how do these owls do it??!!

...maybe the fact that I'm carrying a tripod, a huge pair of binos, and a camera with a massive lens is working against me, do ya think?? 

BTW: this is the photo that Robert can never, ever see, the lens hood is totally filled with snow, arghhhhh

I'm done...

Total loser...

Cannot move...

Tears of laughter  are flowing now...

I've become the prey...

Total submission...

But I somehow made a not-so-quick recovery (I think this is what scared Murray off in the end, between you and I), cleaning myself and my equipment off that had already frozen up on me, waaaah. Ann pretends to be my friend once again yeah right, payback's a- well, you know. . . 

...as does Murray, as he holds me up from my snow-plunging disaster:

And after all of that, the Snowy Owl was still way off in the distance, so I admit to major cropping of these next photos, but hope that I'll be given a break after my failed experiment:

It flew from the pole to the ground underneath this tree, where it stayed for quite a while before we left:

As for the Owl Woods, this treasure of a spot is home to roosting owls, but only if you're able to actually find them, as they blend in so well:

In the end we found three different Northern Saw-whet Owls, here's the first one...

...and the second, with its clenched right foot!

These tiny owls measure seven to eight and a half inches in size, and their bill is black:

The third Saw-whet Owl was tucked in so deep it was amazing it was even found:

Our next special owl was the Boreal Owl, it's larger in size than the Saw-whet, measuring nine to ten inches, and its bill is pale in colour. Bud Rowe, our KFN outing leader remembers it this way: "Bone coloured bill= B for Boreal" :

This is a view of the sides and back of the owl, such beautiful markings on the feathers!

We even returned the next day to see it again, what a pretty little thing:

Notice the spotted forehead, whereas the Saw-whet's is streaked:

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around the island with Murray looking at more Red-tailed and Rough-legged Hawks, but for the most part it was quiet, so Murray headed off for the ferry terminal.

Ann and I enjoyed the interesting landscapes on the island, too, especially these Irish stone walls:

Another Irish stone wall, they're made without any mortar whatsoever:

At the Golden Hour, an American Kestrel tried to stay warm:

We arrived at the Lodge for our first night, where Ann relaxes in a chair with a spritzer as she enjoys a back massage:

It was the next morning that we woke up to -28º celsius temps, it was brutal! So we drove around the island with our hot coffee to see what was happening, finding it quiet on the bird front, with no sign of deer or coyotes either, it was too cold even for them. The mist coming off the lake gave us spectacular views of the sunrise:

The ice had formed overnight on the south side of the island, yet looked like shards of broken glass:

We decided to leave the island as we felt we had maxed it out, and even the Snowy Owl was nowhere to be found in the morning.

At Owl Woods, the Black-capped Chickadees balanced on Ann's hand, as well as her camera lens!

So off we went to Presqu'ile Provincial Park, making last-minute arrangements to stay in Brighton for the night, but not before seeing two deer in town (!) as we drove to the park at dusk to see both Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, and Red- and White-breasted Nuthatches.

We hunkered down at our Bed and Breakfast in town before heading out to the park the next morning after a delicious breakfast. We ran into Fred and found the reported Boreal Chickadee in some spruce trees, here are my garbage record shots of it, a very tough guy to photograph, but the brown cap can be seen with a bit of effort, as well as the all-grey nape:

In the bay we found Long-tailed Ducks, American Black Ducks, Common Mergansers, Mute Swans, Redheads, and Scaup, but the best was being invited back to Fred's back yard for the resident Barrow's Goldeneye, a Lifer for Ann, and my second in a week! At a feeder on Bayshore Road, we saw a Wild Turkey, American Tree Sparrows and Goldfinches, House Finches (singing! Is spring around the corner??!!)Dark-eyed Juncos, Common Redpoll, Blue Jays, and European Starlings.

Two different Pileated Woodpeckers were heard as we drove around the park, as well as two Barred Owls that Ann spotted while driving, no less!

The second one was considerably smaller, possibly a male, here's another  garbage record shot:

So ended our Girls Gone Wild week-end, with thanks to Murray for his infinite patience with us goof girls, as well as the use of his humiliating photos I had to post them before Ann did , and I suppose Ann for more giggles and outright hysterics than I've experienced in a long time!

My Winter List now stands at 84 species, and my Year List is 71.