First Signs of Spring on a Sunday Afternoon

This past Sunday afternoon my dear wife encouraged me to take the afternoon between church services to enjoy the warmer (relatively) temperatures and head out for a little trip to see what might be stirring in the sunny weather. Compared to the cooler temperatures which seem to be lingering on, it seemed pretty warm, but thankfully I still threw the gloves in the car when I left... the breeze still stole most of the warmth from the sun's rays.

male Downy Woodpecker

I headed first to Jacob's Wood, our local woodlot/park in town to see what might be stirring.  I heard the familiar local sounds of the Chickadees, Blue Jays, a Cardinal, and then saw a nice bright male Downy Woodpecker.  The crusty but deep snow in the forest was still quite deep and hindered me from following quietly and quickly.  But at one point the little bird flew into a dead pine tree right where I was standing.  I lost sight of it and was searching all over till I realized it was almost right above me.  I couldn't get a good picture, though it would have been a great, full frame shot. Although it knew it was there, it stayed on the opposite side of the branch, taking quick peaks at me.  This next picture was the best shot I could get.  Then the crusty snow gave way as I shifted and as I fell a good foot through the snow, the little guy startled away.

Downy Woodpecker

As I walked the outer trail loop, I noticed fresh work of a Pileated Woodpecker in a big live Pine tree. Though we're in their usual range, I think they tend to like more secluded woods than this. I've only ever seen one before out here, though briefly as it flew across a roadway as I drove. I'll have to go back and check soon... it would be great if there was a pair taking up residence there, though I won't count on it.

Pileated Woodpecker's work.

Pileated woodpeckers make these holes with an aggressive woodworking that leaves wood chips the size of quarters. With a series of holes like these, they're usually digging for their favourite food - carpenter ants. They actually listen for activity in side the trees and then start their seemingly brain numbing excavation to reach them deep inside.

I left this little forest and headed east of town to a closed road that crosses Fairchild's Creek.  I noticed birds drinking and bathing in the snow melt waters running down the eroding old gravel road.  It was a large flock of Cedar Waxwings.  They were flying between a big stand of old spruces some farmer had planted for a windbreak for the farmhouse years ago, and a large area covered with vines with berries a plenty.

Cedar Waxwings

Cedar Waxwing

A large group of very plump Robins was also enjoying the same opportunity.

American Robin

Another group of House Finches were busy there as well, though they were not feeding on the berries.  But the males were heartily singing away with their rambling song.

male House Finch

I finally made it down the Creek which was running fast with the waters of little snow which had managed to melt till then.  On the icy edge of the creek's bank was a deer skull, likely the victim of the cold, snowy winter.

Deer skull

Heading back, I heard the familiar scolding of a Red Squirrel.  It was nice to hear that sound as an indication of the spring warmth making it active, but also because I've not seen one about our area before. I'm accustomed to seeing them more up north.

Red Squirrel

A little further up the path, an Eastern Chipmunk also chattered at me and then nicely posed for a picture.

Eastern Chipmunk

As I arrived home and warmed up inside in the kitchen, I caught site of another welcome spring sign... a Song Sparrow had joined the crowd at the bird feeder in the back yard.  The House Sparrows are also back, being noticeably missing this winter, having been replaced with a large group of regularly visiting American Tree Sparrows. Even today, Juncos are still feeding on the ground - a sign that winter is still not gone?  I took a quick shot through the sliding door window instead of going back into what had become a window, cold afternoon as the sun had lost its warming strength.

First Song Sparrow of the season!

Till next time...
Keep enjoying HIS handiwork!

Double Screech

Anyone who's been following this blog for any length of time will have heard me grumble, well, at least mention more than once that I've not seen a screech owl  at two very well known locations.  I think pretty much everyone but me that birds in the area has seen both.  Well, that might be some sour grapes overstatement in play, but...  There is one in a prominent tree down at LaSalle Park, and another in Woodland Cemetery in Aldershot. Over the few years I've been enjoying this hobby, I've stopped numerous times at both locations, trying to coincide my visit with the time of day when the sun would be angled for prime sunning hour.  No results.

Recently, I heard a second pair of Screech Owls had been found at Woodland Cemetery***, or at least their nesting spot has been located recently.  I had to try again.  This time I used one hour of a previous, crazy long night at work to leave the office early and headed off for another try on Friday afternoon.  When I got to the location, a few other photographers already setup with camera barrels aimed at the subject made it easy to find the bird that has eluded me for more than two years.  I'd like to think I would have found the bird on my own, but the image below is the beautifully camouflaged scene I would have had to have found.

UPDATE
*** A quick note to those using this location information to find these birds, or for those who have already been and plan to return: As most know, these owls are active at night, and need rest during the day to stay healthy. Although enjoying creation is something I'm 100% for, it shouldn't be a selfish pursuit on our part.  It was suggested to me (and I was tempted) to take down the location, but it's a trade off between enabling more people to see and enjoy the beauty of God's creation and learning to appreciate these birds, or keeping this information to a small circle of people because a small number will abuse the privilege.  So... Please be respectful of the birds and don't do things like playing predator sound tracks or whacking on the tree to wake it up.  And don't be embarrassed to calmly encourage others of the same if they aren't following this line of thinking.   It seems the other owl pair has been successfully living with its paparazzi following for a number of years now, and if we all use some common sense, hopefully these ones will put on a show year after year as well.  

Eastern Screech Owl (grey morph) - Sleeping sentry?

Well, needless to say, I was quite pleased to get to see this beautiful little owl. It didn't seem to mind its little little admiring audience in the slightest, so we all snapped away while sunned in the sunny afternoon warmth. A couple times some activity like walking neighbours with dogs would  cause it to partially open its eyes to casually take a peak at the happenings - often only with one eye opened.

Eastern Screech Owl

This grey male is on guard at the nest mouth where its red morph mate is reportedly sitting on eggs as it has not been seen for a few days.  The larger female will incubate the eggs the entire time, depending on the smaller but better hunting male to keep it fed.  From what I've heard, it seems the female has been out of sight for a little less than a week which means that in about a month, anywhere between two to six owlets will be needing to be fed regularly.

Eastern Screech Owl
(on this shot you can see its bloody beak from its last meal)

I had almost forgotten the original owl location I had previously stopped by so many times before, and decided I'd better walk over and check it out.  Well, my day got doubly better... this bird was out well even though it had no no sun rays to soak in.  This bird's hideout faces southeast where as its neighbour's faces southwest.  The male of this pair is a red morph, again with the opposite morph colour for its mate.  Owls' vision is extremely good in low light, but it is at the cost of being unable to see very much colour. So it is likely neither of the two pairs know they're matched up with the opposite colour - not that that is a problem of course!

red morph Eastern Screech Owl
(two years of waiting to see this bird!)

Needless to say, I was pretty excited to finally see these little raptors, and then not just one, but two, and on top of that, see both colours - all in one day!  So will the usual trend hold true now? ...the bird you've been trying to see for ages will pop up many more times?  Well, I'm not anticipating many other sightings of this species, but hope that when I stop by in the future again (it's just off of my route to and from work) that the general trend will mean I'll be more successful in seeing one of the two pairs again.  Seeing some fledglings would be a bonus!

Don't worry, I'll be sure to share the sightings if I'm able to capture them!
Till then...
Keep enjoying HIS handiwork!

Costa Rica - Papagayo

Continuing on my Costa Rica report, here is the second half of our trip back in January....

After our three night stay in the lush and tropical flora and fauna of La Fortuna, we packed up our rental car and drove the three plus hours to Papagayo with the Occidental Allegro Papagayo Resort as our destination. The drive was great with a gradual change from the large leafed, dense, jungle like foliage to arid and mostly leafless surroundings as we got closer to the coast.  By the time we were half way through our trip, the contrast was already obvious.  The resort is in an area of Costa Rica which is in dry season in January and most trees have shed their leaves with the lack of rain.  The temperature we left in La Fortuna had never gotten above about 23 degrees and we were welcomed with 35 degrees and blue, sunny skies as we got to the all inclusive resort, cut into the steep bank of the volcanic slopes.

We saw a few sights along the way including Cattle Egrets in flight (no really worthwhile pictures), Black Vultures eating some roadkill, and a Coati.

Black Vultures

Coati

When we arrived, the first birds we saw were the very large, and starkly differently shaped Magnificent Frigatebirds.  They are huge, and their angular shaped wings are nothing like our Southern Ontario birds. Later I got some good looks and chances for pictures as they circled endlessly over the Ocean bay we were on.

Magnificent Frigatebird

During the next three days, I spent lots of time wandering the beach and enjoying constantly sighting a new bird, sometimes a few at a time as they clustered in the few trees which were flowering or had fruit of some sort.  Here is another selection of the birds I saw during our stay here.

Black-headed Trojan

Blue-gray Tanager
(lots around, but never got any better a shot than this)

Brown Booby
(Not quite sure where this bird name came from!)

  

female Hoffman's Woodpecker

male Hoffman's Woodpecker

Great-tailed Grackle

female Nicaraguan Grackle

Howler Monkeys

Iguana species

Inca Dove

 

Ringed Kingfisher

a mutant Royal Tern
(note the strange protrusion from the bottom of its beak)

The next bird deserves some introduction... the Rufous-naped Wren.  I got up early most mornings to do some birding before meeting Holly for breakfast.  This bird was nicely cooperating with the morning light when it turn around, looked down into the underbrush below, and clearly called out .  In a flash, another wren flew up to its side, and immediately, obliged to search in the first bird's plumped up feathers and preen it. Both continued this for a few minutes before heading off, possibly for their own breakfast engagement. Did I just witness the morning routine for two birds after just getting out of bed?  It was so comical as the first birds call seemed so deliberate, and the response of the second bird so immediate.  I do not know of any other bird that does this.

Rufous-naped Wren

Rufous-naped Wrens preening each other

Rufous-naped Wrens preening

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Short-tailed Hawk

  

Squirrel Cuckoo

Steely-vented Hummingbird

Stripe-headed Sparrow

Snowy Egret and Tri-coloured Heron - fishing buddies.

Snowy Egret

Tri-coloured Heron

Tri-coloured Heron portrait

Tri-coloured Heron with catch

Tri-coloured Heron

Whimbrel

White-faced Monkeys

White-throated Magpie-Jay

White-winged Doves making more doves.

female Connecticut Warbler
(this one took me forever to ID)

 

Yellow-tailed Oriole

One of the days we headed to another beach for some change of scenery, only about a 15 minute drive away.  There a walk resulted in a few more finds.

Great Kiskadee
(these were at the resort too, but my best shot was here)

Brown Pelican
(again, lots at the resort but got my closest shot here)

Little Blue Heron

Orange-fronted Parakeet making more parakeets.

On the same outing, I happened to catch sight of something flitting about, which had a very weird flight pattern; very un-bird like....because it was not a bird, but a bat.  I'm not sure if I flushed it from its roost as a pushed through some foilage along the water's edge, but it landed on a big tree up the bank and this is the best shot I could get of it.  It seemed bigger than our little brown bats.

A Bat of some sort.

And so ends my posts on the trip we enjoyed to Costa Rica.  It was a great trip and we thorougly enjoyed it. Who knows where our 20th anniversary trip will bring us. :) Hopefully there's some new birds to see there.

Again, here is a short summary of the birds which I saw in Papagayo, totalling 35 birds to bring the total I saw in CR to 71 birds.  If my numbers are correct I think all but about 3 were life birds! I hope to update my life list soon as it gets a massive bump into the 200's I think.

Magnificent Frigatebird

Brown Booby

Brown Pelican

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

Little Blue Heron

Tricolored Heron

Cattle Egret

Osprey

Short-tailed Hawk

Spotted Sandpiper

Willet

Whimbrel

Royal Tern

Inca Dove

Squirrel Cuckoo

Steely-vented Hummingbird

Black-headed Trogon

Ringed Kingfisher

Hoffmann's Woodpecker

Olive-throated Parakeet

Orange-fronted Parakeet

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

White-throated Magpie-Jay

Rufous-naped Wren

White-lored Gnatcatcher

Connecticut Warbler

Blue-gray Tanager

Stripe-headed Sparrow

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Great-tailed Grackle

Nicaraguan Grackle

Yellow-tailed Oriole

Baltimore Oriole

Spring is coming, and I just found out about a third screech owl location.... I know of two other spots where everyone but me has seen the birds. It's not for lack of trying... I've stopped by both locations over the last two years many times, but never seem to see the little owls.  I hope adding a third location will increase my chances, especially because this spot has a pair there.  Hopefully I have a post to put up with pictures of them soon, but I'm not going to count on it! :)

Till next time...
Keep enjoying HIS handiwork!