The End of 2017

I have been insanely busy lately, with (un)important thing like exams, school, blah blah blah. I started writing this post almost, but I figured I'd put it out sooner rather than later. And I used to be putting out one a week... Oh well.
2017 was a great year to be a birder, 364 species were observed in the province, the highest ever in one year! After my Tufted Duck twitch, I had pretty much only one more opportunity for birding, the Meaford CBC. Last minute, my section got changed, but the new one still had quite a bit of shoreline and other interesting features. The day was pretty good, my section got 29 species, highlights including a Snowy Owl, several (Common) Redpolls, and a single flyover Snow Bunting. I finished off by having some Cider at the section leaders house. While waiting for the official wrap-up to start, my mom spotted a Northern Shrike out the window, putting the end to a poor House Finch's life. Then it flew up into a bush only a few meters from the window!

This blows away some of my previous shrike pictures:

You get the point... 

         The next few days leading up to the new year I mainly spent feeder watching, and some local birding. There's always a big flock of Goldfinches that cycles through our property at around the same time each day, and in past years I've had Purple Finches, Pine Siskins and Redpolls mixed in. There wasn't anything too exciting, but a few siskins did turn up, as well as a photogenic Downy Woodpecker.

I've since managed to get some ok shots of Hairy Woodpeckers on the same tree, so maybe I'll do a post comparing the two similar species. What do you think?

Goldfinch's streakier counterpart

Me and my family went for a walk not too far away from our chalet, and I found some Ruffed Grouse eating the buds out of a tree:

And then when I came back, I noticed a grey lump out on a tree limb over the feeder. An Eastern-screech Owl! Although not a yardbird, I think it's the first one I've ever actually seen in my yard, or maybe even county. A great way to end the year!

Not wanting to disturb him or her too much, I quickly retreated back inside. I went back out that night, and heard what was probably the same one doing it's monotonic trill. But of course in the new year when I went out (very) early that morning, it was nowhere to be seen or heard. Figures...

I birded my subdivision pretty hard the next morning, and turned up some Purple Finches, some heard only Redpolls, a flyover Common Merganser at my patch (the first!), and a leucistic Goldfinch at my feeder! Pretty good first day I think!

I think I'll turn out a few more posts this week, summarizing the rest of my new year, a chase, and a (still) upcoming trip to Florida!

Good birding!