Birding Ojibway Park in Late October

 

The photo above was taken with my cell phone in the tallgrass prairie section of the park. (See this link to read more about Ontario's Tallgrass habitat).

 This past Saturday Oct 20th, was a pretty good day to bird Ojibway Park. My wife, two kids and I went for a 1 hour walk at Ojibway. We walked the main path through the main forested area, and of course, I brought my camera. It was pretty quiet until I was blasted with "tea kettle tea kettle tea kettle" from a nearby Carolina Wren. I pished for a few moments (to the chagrin of my wife and son) and was able to coax a great photo of this awesome Carolinian species. Amazingly, I hear this bird alot when I'm out birding but only see this bird 5-10 times in a year.

Just moments later, I turned a corner, and was on a path that another family was traversing (with portrait photographer in tow) and five or so birds were flushed, I didn't know where to look but incredibly, a blue headed vireo was directly above me about 10-15ft over my head. I managed a crappy shot, this was actually after I adjust the exposure on my camera to +1.5 stops.

Some other birds seen during this walk included: Hermit Thrush, Eastern Phoebe, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker as well as three White-breasted Nuthatches.

A late Wilson's Warbler

 I stopped by the feeders with my wife and son, but not a single bird around... Except for a black-capped yellow warbler...Wilson's Warbler. Crappy photo but still a cool bird for late October.

I just realized that I've never tagged a photo of an American Crow, so I figure I will have my first Crow shot on my blog as this nice shot I took in the Tallgrass Prairie of Ojibway. Thousands of Crows are moving through Essex County this week.

An Eastern Towhee, or possibly several were singing their "Cheweet" song and called my attention to them. For a brief moment, I thought this may be a Spotted Towhee, but no... Its an Eastern.

This birding walk had some great birds, especially considering I was pushing a stroller for most of this walk! The Blue headed Vireo was really nice, its actually my first self-found fall BHV. The Wilson's Warbler was a nice surprise as well. Hairy Woodpecker and Carolina Wren are residents at Ojibway but not often seen.

 This week after work, I had a Black Capped Chickadee eat some sunflower seeds out of my hand. I have video of it, but will post some other time... I can't find it on my youtube account!


Good birding!
Dwaynejava