ICE, ICE, BABY!

Thursday of this week all the schools were closed as the weather people warned of a serious ice storm looming on the horizon. However all day Thursday I waited in anticipation and we didn't get one single drop!! But on Friday... everything was coated in a thick sheet of Ice. The trees were so weighed down if you looked at them the wrong way they might have fallen over. So naturally I took a few walks around to see what I could find.

 

Kinglets and Creepers

 I went back to Newcastle to see what was around, in the pond it was the same red breasted mergansers, green wing teal, and Bufflehead. But the trees were covered in golden crowned kinglets and brown creepers so I tried to get a few photos of these as I already had some shots of the mergansers. They were way up near the tops of the trees but I did manage to find a couple closer to the ground.

I also found a couple ring necked ducks in Garden Hill

Redpolls

All winter I have had the odd redpoll come to my feeders but never in large numbers. But lately I have a flock of about 200 redpolls come to my feeder 2 or 3 times a week, so I have had fun getting some photos of them!

 

And a song sparrow I liked

Newcastle ON Birds

There is a small coastal wetland in Newcastle I like to check whenever I get a chance. It is often over run with fisherman as it is one of the only places that you can fish all year round. But there is a small pond there that usually has something interesting on or around it and because of the shape of the pond it is fairly easy to get close without scaring anything off. The last time I was there there where a few red breasted mergansers which was a first for me to see there.

Spring is in the air

This week I have been able to go and look for birds locally almost everyday. Even though spring is taking its time getting here there are quite a few birds around that were not here a couple of weeks ago. Here are a few of the photos I got this past week.

A windy day for this long tailed duck

This is the first killdeer I've seen this year

My wife was able to get these shots of a hooded merganser out the car window... pretty sweet!

Port Weller

I took a drive down to Port Weller last week because I really wanted to see the King Eider that has been there for a little while. I did not find the King Eider but I did find a Harlequin duck which I was pretty happy about. There were also many other duck there of interest and I don't travel in that part of Ontario very often so it was nice to see a different part of the province where spring was in the air.

for ID purposes only... it was too far out for a good picture

I stopped at La Salle Marina on the way home and there was a screech owl in a tree in the middle of the parking lot.

Photos of the week

This past week there have been many surprise photo opportunities that I wish I had had more time to photograph. First we got a ton of sticky snow that looked beautiful on the trees but was no fun to shovel. Then one day a fox ran by my car into a golf course and I was able to turn around a get few shots of it before he disappeared. And finally I didn't find may birds around this week but there was a very co-operative flock of redpols: