jane_c's Journal

Marth 23rd, 2013; Oberlin, Ohio

Wow, a ridiculously awesome bird watching day.

as i began, a great blue heron swooped from the air and landed across the street from me. bam! what were the odds. crazy.

then a good walk led me to see about 20 robins, 2 black capped chickadees, several robins (both male and female), and 3 common sparrows.

then i reached a wooded area (the Arb, as called locally) and spotted two turkey vultures! i got a beautiful look at them. Lovely, amazing birds. I suppose they were a mated pair? One was slightly darker than the other. Will have to look up if coloration is sexually dimorphic in turkey vultures.

Then i reached the ponds and that was the truly amazing part! there was a flock of fourteen ring necked ducks!!!!! I spent a lot of time walking around the lake to get good looks of them through the binoculars. Was briefly distracted by a Red-bellied Woodpecker! finally a pair of canadian geese started honking at me and blew my cover.

i went to the second pond in the area and saw another pair of ducks! a male and female northern shoveler!!!!! as well as two more pairs of canadian geese. both of these species of ducks are uncommon in the area, and my first time seeing either of them. Wonderful.

March 26th, Toronto

Spotted very many Long Tailed Ducks, both male and female, in their winter plumage today on Lake Ontario. I am very happy to have seen them. I could see them diving through the water for part of the way down because the water was clear enough. They can hold there breathe for a long time haha, i guess a minute or two, perhaps longer?

There were two dark black and grey ducks at a distance that I couldn't see well enough to identify, unfortunately.

Also a red winged blackbird.

Back in Oberlin after the foray in Toronto.

Birdwatched in the arb today again. It was rather chaotic! a lot of little birds flying around! a lot of noise!

Spotted:
white breasted nuthatch. I'm a big fan of nuthatches!

blue jay

downy woodpecker(I believe! at least, they looked very small and had "short and slow" drumming so I'm going to go with Downy vs. Hairy woodpecker. I saw three woodpeckers that could be either downy or hairy. two males with the red patch and one female without the patch)

an intense encounter with a bird of prey. Though I saw a lot of this bird, I never saw enough of it to be confident in an identification. Grey with white speckles across the wings and a white underbelly. Very magnificent. I believe the turkey vultures were harassing it, perhaps. I think I saw them force the hawk into the trees, where the hawk fell to avoid hitting a tree. Or maybe the hawk just flew into a tree...?

tufted titmouse. a good find. I heard something rustling around in the underbrush and thought bird, rather than squirrel, and turns out it was a bird!