Owls and Ducks!

Birding wise, when I think of late October, I think of three things. Ducks, Raptors and Saw-whets. So last weekend I went to Ruthven Park National Historic Site, a great natural area along the Grand River near Cayuga. There is a fantastic banding station there that runs their own blog. I woke up early Saturday and drove down with my mom and sister. We banded all morning, there wasn't much of interest besides a late House Wren, and a Fox Sparrow that I missed while doing census (happens everytime).
          Later that night I went back to do some Saw-whet banding, where we caught three! I had previously banded about 10 birds, so I was at the back of the line in terms of priority, which was fine by me.

Of all the owls, I'm told that Saw-whets are the nicest to band, in that they won't tear your hand apart if given the chance!

The Owl seemed to have noticed that I'd been awake for nearly 20 hours straight, and wouldn't stop staring at me... In fear?

An interesting thing about aging Owls, is that you use a blacklight on the underwing, and the colour pattern determines the age! The bird below was an adult, due to the solid pink hue of the feathers:

Relative to their body, Owls have massive wings!

After banding, we place the owl in a small juniper bush outside the lab, so the Owls can let their eyes adjust, and will sit there for ten minutes or more!

Waiting for the paparazzi to go away

Unfortunately, I eventually had to go back to Kitchener, but that brings me to my next topic... Ducks! Every fall, ducks make the long trek back South through the Mississippi Flyway, and lots pass through central Ontario! So I decided to check out the Laurel Creek Reservoir on Wednesday. I was astounded by the number of waterfowl! The most that I have ever seen in Waterloo region by far! There was about 2000 birds on the very little water that was left, with amazing variety! There was 14 species of waterfowl, and also a handful of Pied-billed Grebes and Coots. 

If you look closely, you can see a lot of small dots - mainly Geese, Mallards and Ruddy Ducks.

A little bit more of a closeup

Also present was a high count of Greater Yellowlegs and Great Egrets.

 5 came up as a high count, I believe that these same birds have been seen on and off here over the past week or so

One of eight, getting late for Yellowlegs I guess.

And as for hawks... next weekend!