Late November Birding - Snowy Owl in Essex!

I've managed to get a little birding in over the last month and figured I would publish some highlights. Two or three weeks ago, I had gone out to Colasanties in Leamington with the family but then tried my luck with a quick visit to the Hillman Marsh Area. A Long-eared owl was an excellent find... but admittingly... predictable. I tried to see if I could find this beautiful bird today but no dice. I did see Blake who mentioned a SNOWY OWL that he found in the Point Pelee Onion fields and amazingly, I ended up catching up with it!

I had read this week that there are several Fox Sparrows at Ojibway Park - near the bird feeders. My visit was successful! As I was photographing the Sparrow, several Black Capped Chickadees, Nuthatches and even a Tufted Titmouse landed at point-blank range --- perhaps expecting a handout?

Earlier this week, I had read that a Varied Thrush was seen near Kingsville, as well as Little Gulls at Kingsville Marina, so I figured I would try my luck with those birds. A few Northern Harriers were seen as well as American Kestels on the way.

Ring billed Gull in a contemplative pose. Perhaps he is considering how he can differentiate himself from the masses?

Black underwings make this an easy bird to identify. Always a pleasure to see this bird.

I caught up with the Snowy Owl Blake had mentioned earlier. A beautiful bird easily found in the Onion Fields near Point Pelee.  Pine Siskins were another exciting first-of-season bird at the Pelee Wings feeders. A female Purple Finch was in the mix as well.

FOS -Snowy Owl - Heavily Cropped

Can you identify three finch species in this photo?

Seeing a Little Gull was pretty exciting because today's sighting is only the second time I've seen one. I haven't been able to chase some of the mega-rarities in the province right now but I'm pretty happy that I was able to catch up with some of the great birds in this posting.

Good birding!
Dwaynejava

Point Pelee Piping Plover

This morning, I had heard my phone chime as new email had come in. Classically conditioned like Pavlov's dogs, I instinctively checked my email to see that Steve Pike and a Local Leamington Birder who goes by the name "afternoon shift" posted a Point Pelee peninsula Piping Plover! Much to the chagrin of my wife and two kids I kissed them adieu and fled to the southernmost point of Canada. Upon arriving to the tip, Jeremy Bensette hinted that I might best walk to East Tip (not East Beach!) through Sparrow Field. There it was, in perfectly front-lit perfection! At one point, we heard it singing or 'piping'! This little flufball of cuteness was for many years (and still is) "Endangered" because its preferred habitat is big wide sandy beaches. If you have a few minutes check out this amazing link documenting the life and habitat of the piping plover: http://www.audubon.org/plover

It soon fled from East Beach upon Kory's arrival to see the bird. But we agreed it probably flew back to the tip, and that guess was correct. At one point, a few birders were laying down on the sand to get better photos and I had noticed a lady with a dog was walking by - Did she think we were nuts? It just so happens that staying low to the ground lets you separate the bird from its background, making the bird jump out from its Gaussian-blurred background.

A couple of other cool birds seen today were four Tree Swallows (sitting on the sand!), an Eastern Phoebe, and a Long Eared Owl!

Last weekend, I tried to get a Purple Sandpiper at Pelee's Tip but dipped. I did get a breathtaking look at this Eastern Screech Owl... A dirt bird at Pelee but still amazing!

Tufted Titmice are easy to see at Ojibway Park during the late Fall and Winter months. Always fun to see these birds!

Good birding!
Dwaynejava

This is what a plover looks like at normal zoom range. Can you find it?

Note: At some point today on Sunday Nov 25, 2013 - My blog reached 100,000 hits!

Long eared Owl and some other Pelee area birds

My wife is too good to me to let me go out for these occasional mini-birding trips! I was lucky enough to make it out to Point Pelee and Hillman Marsh area today for a quick two hour nature walk.
 
I ran into a friend of a friend who happens to be a subject matter expert when it comes to owls at Point Pelee. He was driving by me and we spoke for a minute and he agreed to show me the location of this wonderful, mysterious bird. (lifer #225).

My main impression after seeing a long eared owl is... How beautiful.  Its smaller than I thought it would be. It was very skinny around the chest, I don't think the photo gives a good context of scale. Its like a rolled-up pennysaver newspaper. In my mind, I was thinking this would be a big as the great horned owl. It is so well camouflaged that even though it was 10-15ft away from me, I would completely lose the owl if I looked away even momentarily... very weird.

Just a quick mention of birding ethics with Owls... Never use flash on them*. Never try to attract birds with Ipods. This is unethical and not in the birds best interests. We also remained in our car and used it as a blind. This gave us limited angles with which to photograph. Use a strong telephoto lens and give the owl some room (I use a Sigma 500mm zoom lens and most of my photos are cropped which increases zoom even further).  Make an attempt to observe the bird without flushing it and then leave it be.

This Eastern Screech Owl has been featured before on my blog (deja vue?). I guess its always exciting to see an owl, even if its in its predictable and favorite tree hole. I walked Shuster Trail to east beach and then walked to the tip. Nothing overly exciting today other than the Long-eared Owl!

Some birds seen today include:

Horned Larks
Northern Flicker
Eastern Screech Owl
Long eared Owl (lifer #225)
Red Tailed Hawks (5 along highway 3 to Windsor)
Rough legged Hawks (2 dark morphs)
Sharp Shinned Hawk
Cardinals
Dark eyed Junco
Robins
Various gulls and duck along East Beach of PPNP.

Good birding,
Dwaynejava

*Instead of using flash, use other techniques such as increase ISO settings, increase aperture, lean on a steady object to reduce camera shake.