Week 7 (February 9 - February 15)

February has been pretty slow and very stormy. A lot of snow, it seems like winter has finally caught up to us. Along with these storms comes the low sightings of birds during the week.

Saturday marked the 75th straight day of birding. So, to celebrate I tried to go out and see some new birds for the year, and I did! Headed out along the shores of the lake and managed to round up about 30 Horned Lark and a small flock of Sandhill Crane!

Funny story about the Sandhill Cranes. I was actually not even birding! Definitely cool, I was driving down the road coming back from getting groceries and boom! I look up and 4 Sandhill Crane fly over, necks and legs outstretched, right over the car. It has been almost a year since I have seen Sandhill Crane, and it is definitely awesome to see.

Week's end totals:
Species: 16
Individuals: 111

Hairy Woodpecker - Halton ON

Horned Lark - Haldimand ON

Week 6 (February 2 - February 8)

This week was pretty average. Not a lot going on in the birding world, or in mine to be honest. Did get out to Ruthven on Tuesday since I had the day off work. Couple new birds for the year (Red-breasted Nuthatch and a wintering Wood Duck).

Ruthven was pretty normal, didn't see anything too exciting, 26 species including 5 species of waterfowl and a Bald Eagle flyover. Almost got 25 but then a little brown bird flew past me and gripped a tree, Brown Creeper!

I did visit a new place on Saturday though, Whirlpool in Niagara. Attempted to see a Black-headed Gull and Black-legged Kittiwake but missed out on both after a half hour of searching. It was too bad but what a place to see, gulls everywhere! Lots of your typical Ring-bills and Herrings along with a couple Great Black-backs.

Week's end totals:
Species: 31
Individuals: 740

Downy Woodpecker - Haldimand ON

Week 5 (January 26th - February 1st)

Sorry for the late post!

The beginning of the week was a very typical January week; cold, short and the birds were far from in between. From Sunday to Friday the only species I seen were very common, so I will not bore you with my mundane sightings. The real day was Saturday.

I ran all over the place! Niagara, Hamilton, Burlington and all around Haldimand. I accumulated 12 new species for the year, including a lifer Glaucous Gull! It was a huge runaround but I loved it. Did not find any Sandhill Crane or Snow Bunting but I still have more time this winter for those birds.

En route to find some Snow Bunting (unsuccessfully) but there was a large group of Wild Turkey so I pulled over to see if I could see any other birds feeding along side them but got an amazing view of a Rough-legged Hawk! Flew right over the field about 100m from myself. I went to get a picture of this bird, pulled out my camera and took some shots but, me being me, I left my SD card in the card reader... definitely something I will never do again!

Week's end totals:
Species: 36
Individuals: 1,351

American Black Duck - Burlington, ON