Duck Dynasty

Totally stole this blog post title from my friend, but it's accurate! This weekend I went up my family's chalet in Grey County, very close to Kimberley. I had a PD day on Friday, so we headed up earlier in the day. I convinced my parents to make a quick detour to Shelburne, which had been housing a Townsend's Solitaire for the past few days. I would have called this post Townsend's Twitch Part II, but unfortunately there was no Part II to be seen. Nonetheless, I still saw a lone male Northern Harrier cruising around the fields. Hopefully it's last meal hadn't been the Solitaire!

The 'Grey Ghost' of winter

So on to the ducks. I started off the weekend by checking on my patch. There was a good number of Buffleheads (48), a single female Goldeneye, my first ever actually on the ponds, and a couple mallards. As I was scanning, I noticed a larger duck popping in and out of view at the back. I got my scope on it, and it turned out to be a female wood duck! Wood Ducks are really common here in the summer and spring, my highest count ever 96 birds! But this female was quite late.

A low quality picture indeed, but at least it's identifiable!

Amazingly there was only one male in the mix of Buffleheads! Lucky guy...

Goldeneye n' Goose

Later we went to the Collingwood Harbour, and my parents left me there with my sister, before going off to look at X-Country skis. 

          The main part of the harbour was quite productive. There was a few white-winged scoters, the first I'd seen here in a while, as well as high numbers of Goldeneye and Bufflehead. There was also a few Long-tailed Ducks and Horned Grebes.

Horned Grebe - So different in their non-breeding plumage

Long-tailed Duck

Another scan of the East side of the harbour turned up all three Merganser species - Common, Hooded and Red-breasted. There was also a lone American Coot hanging around on the West side. Occasionally these birds stay the winter, in fact last year on the Meaford Christmas Bird Count we had one at the harbour there!

Female Red-breasted Merganser - Nothing like their male counterpart

Lighting was already pretty low, so I did a quick scan through the gulls, turning up 3 Great Black-black Gulls, as well as the usual Herring and Ring-bills. Satisfied, I headed home with 12 waterfowl species, plus Coot!

          The next day I got a ride with Lynne Richardson to Owen Sound, where we unsuccessfully looked for some continuing (60 some) Greater White-fronted Geese. There was a few Goldeneye and Bufflehead around however, and we even saw a Red-bellied Woodpecker climbing up a dead tree by the lakeshore. Red-bellied Woodpecker is one of a handful of species that would have been impossible to find this far North 20 years ago.

          Back to Kimberley we went, and I checked the ponds one more time, turning up even more Bufflehead, but no Wood Duck. 

All in all, a great weekend (as usual!), and tomorrow I'm skipping first period for 'good reason' to see a continuing Mountain Bluebird in my own county!

Good birding, Ethan.