Trip Leaders: Judy and Norah
Participants: Fred, Judy, Margaret, James, Norah, Alice, Judith, Doug and BJ, Jim, Beryl, Mike, Kerry, Melitta, Connie, Beryl
Hi Everyone,
I would like to thank our two courageous and fearless leaders for taking us on a winter hike yesterday. Considering it was winter and a rough one compared to other years, we did mange to get 30 species of birds which was an excellent number considering the season and the cold. We even managed to get three species of duck in this vast expanse of frozen water that lies nearby. I was amazed at the private properties that Judy and Norah had access too. In addition to that, we did have a lot of fun yesterday. Jim Punnett got us going on subspecies of birds focussing on western species and eastern species of birds, birds we take for granted. Without him, we would not have found a western Red-tailed Hawk and a western Downy Woodpecker. We had to get our guide books out and check out his findings. Norah and Judy took us to an apple heritage farm to bird. The O’Keefe’s came out to meet us. We found that they had 225 species of heritage apples. One variety dated back 5.000 years to Roman times. I sit here this morning, drinking my apple cider that was made from apples that have long disappeared from the shelves of our giant grocery stores. The taste is slightly different with a little less sugar in it than what we are used to. Delicious, much better taste and more enjoyable in my opinion.
The weather got up to a balmy 0 C. and we had sun at the start and the ending of our hike; and surprise, surprise, you could actually see some dry pavement on the side roads. The winds at times got up to 20 K.
We found three Snowy Owls on the Bruce - Pailsley Town line. The water fowl we found off the bridge in Paisley and the open water a little farther down to the east.
• Ruffed Grouse (RUGR)
• Wild Turkey (WITU)
• Long-tailed Duck (LTDU)
• Common Goldeneye (COGO)
• Common Merganser (COME)
• Cooper's Hawk (COHA)
• Red-tailed Hawk (RTHA)
• Rough-legged Hawk (RLHA)
• American Kestrel (AMKE)
• Snowy Owl (SNOW)
• Mourning Dove (MODO)
• Rock Pigeon (ROPI)
• Herring Gull (HEGU)
• Red-bellied Woodpecker (RBWO)
• Downy Woodpecker (DOWO)
• Hairy Woodpecker (HAWO)
• Pileated Woodpecker (PIWO)
• Blue Jay (BLJA)
• Common Raven (CORA)
• American Crow (AMCR)
• Cedar Waxwing (CEDW)
• Black-capped Chickadee (BCCH)
• White-breasted Nuthatch (WBNU)
• Horned Lark (HOLA)
• Snow Bunting (SNBU)
• Dark-eyed Junco (DEJU)
• American Tree Sparrow (ATSP)
• House Sparrow (HOSP)
• American Goldfinch (AMGO)
• European Starling (EUST)
Number of species seen - 30