Great weather but where are the birds?

Clear blue skies with tolerable temperatures this weekend so far but very little bird activity around St-Clet. Even species like Snow Bunting and Lapland Longspur har proving scarce and the Snowy Owls are just keeping well out of the way. We still have a couple but they seem less inclined to approach the roadsides this year.

On a brighter note, a Great Grey Owl was at Boucherville a few days ago and now another couple have made their way to Hudson which is not too far from me. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will get a chance to see and photograph one soon. If we have a mini invasion I might even get one on my pits list.

There is a definite feeling that spring is coming, I don't know whether working outdoors for 15 years gave me a subconcious empathy with the weather but I just get the feeling that we might see the grass a few weeks earlier this year. It would be nice, we have had record breaking levels of snowfall, over ten feet so far and more promised.

Enough waffle, a couple of poor photos below.

Through the wonders of digital photography this Snowy Owl perched high up on a grain silo becomes almost a record shot.

If the snow gets any deeper I'll on be tip toes to avoid sounding falsetto!

Its pretty cold at the moment but, being a stupid birder, I went out in stiff winds and -36 wind chill, it was still bright and I had spent the day looking at a computer screen, so off down the lanes I went.

One good feature of the mass of drifting snow that covered some of the roads was that the local's speeds were kept to the low 140 kph, they even almost paused before pulling around snow ploughs into the oncoming traffic (me), almost!

My main reason for risking life and bodywork was to try to get a good look at the male Snowy Owl that others keep seeing and photographing around St-Clet. This time I was lucky although the photos were not great, I did get a good look as he sat atop a steel hydro pylon, wind buffeted looking for hardy voles.

It was bitterly cold so I took the shots from the van and the bird steadfastly ignored me despite convincing squeaking. It only looked down when I started the van, so I rattled of a few fast shots on auto. In the short space of time that the window was open, I lost the feeling in my fingers and that was either a potato chip or one of my ears that I noticed in the footwell, I must do a count.

Winding back to Sunday and a new Hoary Redpoll was a regular visitor to the feeders. This one is a hornemanni, possibly a female. It was hard to get a photo of it in a natural setting although for redpolls this winter I think a feeder qualifes as a natural setting.

The other bird here is a White-breasted Nuthatch which is pretending to be part of the tree to fool the Cooper's that was hanging around.

Roll on spring.

A rubbish day

So here is a rubbish video! Just messing around with it really, they are redpolls if you are not sure.

Oh good, more redpolls!

Friday saw the third reasonable snow event of the winter and so on Saturday access to my usual winter weekend haunts was not easy so, what to post? The obvious answer is more redpoll shots so here they are.

The first redpoll is quite interesting and so I posted this sequence of photos for your delictation. The bird is obviously quite chunky with a broad back and grey base colour. The rump is white but with streaking at the base of the tail, I don't think we have a minimum of 10mm white there. The structure does suggest Hoary Redpoll until you look at the bill which is not delicate. My thoughts are that I would call this a Mealy Redpoll in Europe, here its a common but then so are the darker, less distinct other redpolls with it. I fear there is much to learn about these enigmatic little finches.



























Below are another set of shots, all of Common Redpoll although some of the birds are marginal.












































































































Who ate all the pies, who ate all the pies, you fat redpoll you fat redpoll, who ate all the pies?
A little something for the football fans there, incidentally you North American readers, football is played with a round ball that is kicked and the players only dress like nancy boys off the pitch (unless you are Petr Cech that is)!