Christmas was green ~ New Year is white

                                                                                                                                                                                 Photos by BarrytheBirder

On the day before New Year's Eve, most of King Township was under a covering of snow, but it was quite mild and fog was the order of the day.   The birds in the backyard were still quite visible however.   Mt wife, Linda, noted a day or so ago that the mild weather, so far this winter, seems to be keeping the goldfinches just a little more yellow than usual (see top photo).   I have to agree, as many of 50 or 60 goldfinches we have are showing a little bit of extra colour.   The bottom photo shows a half dozen of our Mourning Doves taking over a couple of the feeders, while a tree sparrow perches above them waiting its turn.   The pecking order at our feeders has the Blue Jays at the top and one shrieking, charging Blue Jay will send this group of doves, above, fleeing in a frantic flurry of loud whistling wings.

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BtheB

The addition today of real suet to the backyard feeders seems to have been well-received by the Downy Woodpecker.   I haven't seen the Hairy Woodpecker yet, but it's the first day for the real suet that is now supplementing the reconstituted suet that contains many seeds and which I have been been offering for many years.   I did also notice a Junco, an American Tree Sparrow and a Chickadee all  helping themselves to the new suet offering.   We shall see what we shall see.

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BtheB

Well-behaved goldfinches

                                                                                                                                                                                   Photo by BarrytheBirder
"Okay, everyone smile"

The first decent snowfall of the winter has covered everything up.   This means that the space at the feeders is at a premium, a situation readily evident in the photo above.   There were 15 goldfinches posing on this tray and a couple of dozen more at the tube feeders nearby.   One certainly has to admire goldfinches for their ability to get along so well with each other.   They are easily the best-behaved backyard birds.

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BtheB

Pretty Snow

Painting by Phil 'The Forecaster' Chadwick

The first decent snowfall of the winter fell overnight and as I was shovelling the driveway last evening I could see that the scene in the morning was going to be very pretty indeed.   I told myself that I would take some pictures around the village before the wind came up and disturbed the snowy mantle everywhere.   As I was putting the shovel away and thinking of today's blogspot, I knew it should feature some of the snowy photographs I'd planned to take.   Then I remembered a copy of a painting I had in my computer by Phil Chadwick, former King Township resident, former Environment Canada weatherman and plein air artist extraordinaire.   Phil's outstanding talent with a paint brush is exceeded only by his formidable output.  The copy of Phil's painting you see above is exactly what King City looks like this morning.   Lucky us.   
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BtheB

Muscovy Ducks poor substitutes for Snowy Owls

                                                                                                                                                                                  Photo by BarrytheBirder

I was on the lookout for Snowy Owls again today but had to make do with a pair of free-range black Muscovy Ducks on the side of an irrigation channel in the Holland Marsh.   Muscovy Ducks, particularly the domesticated birds come in a myriad of amazing colours but the original feral Muscovy has always been black with red faces.   The two ducks above certainly appear true to their wild ancestors in appearance but they, along with two others nearby, seemed to right at home and part of the family, on their Holland Marsh farm.

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BtheB

Backyard birds on Christmas Day

American Tree Sparrow

Blue Jay

Mourning Dove

Northern Cardinal

Chickadee

American Goldfinch

Dark-eyed Junco

Downy Woodpecker

Red-breasted Nuthatch & Junco              

 All photos by BarrytheBirder

These then were the very welcome visitors in the backyard on Christmas Day.   Missing were the Hairy Woodpecker, White-breasted Nuthatch, House Finch, Purple Finch and House Sparrow.   Maybe they are waiting for Boxing Day to make their appearances.

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BtheB    

Soaking up some rays on first day of winter

Photo by BarrytheBirder

These two seem to be quite accepting of the fact that it looks like it's going to be a white Christmas in this part of the world, or at least on Dufferin Street, near King City.   According to Environment Canada, most Canadians will go without a White Christmas this year.   In the 56 years that Environment Canada has been tracking country-wide snow coverage at Christmas, 2011 will set a new record for the least amount of snow on the ground.

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BtheB

It's just a matter of time

Photo by BarrytheBirder

I was out again this morning looking for Snowy Owls but once more came up short.   Others are seeing them in this area but not me, so far.   I keep reminding myself to be patient and that's it's just a matter of time.   At one point this morning, along the Canal Road, I spotted something from the corner of my eye, perched in a tree. It was about the size of a Snowy or Great Grey Owl and greyish-white.   Could it be...could it be?   Rats!   It turned out to be a large wasp nest.   Oh well. maybe tomorrow.

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BtheB

Water, please?

Photo by BarrytheBirder

It was -5C this morning and the water in the birdbath was a frozen slab, so I boiled a kettle of water and poured it into the birdbath.   Within five minutes, these Blue Jays were filling themselves up and they were followed by several Chipping Sparrows.

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BtheB

The Mill Pond ~ Richmond Hill

A thin layer of ice covers much of the Richmond Hill Mill Pond today, except at the north end, where a pair  of resident Mute Swans share a small open lagoon with a hundred or so Mallards.

Photos by BarrytheBirder

While most of the ducks chose to paddle about in the last remaining bit of unfrozen water, some of their millpond brethren got cold feet standing on the thin ice.

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BtheB

FEATHERS... ...by Thor Hanson

I am no book-reviewer but am making an exception here for Thor Hanson's new book: FEATHERS The Evolution of a Natural Miracle.   This is a must-read for those who consider themselves a birder or birdwatcher.   It is not for the uninitiated.   It has taken me to a new level of understanding and appreciation, not to mention curiosity, about the pastime I have now enjoyed for over 20 years.   This is Hanson's second book.   The first was called The Impenetrable Forest: My Gorilla Years in Uganda, which won the 2008 USA Book News Award for nature writing.   If you are familiar with that book and enjoyed it, then you probably won't need much convincing to pick up Hanson's latest effort.   For everyone else, I will only say that FEATHERS is being raved about by reviewers everywhere.   It is encyclopedic and eclectic, but very readable and even entertaining.   Here's an example in the early part of the book: "From the quill to the rachis to the vane, a feather's parts consist largely of keratin, the same kind of protein found in hair and fingernails.   People don't generally eat feathers, but their nutritional potential has not been overlooked by the animal feed industry.   Chicken and turkey processors in the United States churn out more than ten billion pounds of feather waste every year.   They turn a tidy profit by channelling these pluckings to the likes of ConAgra and Purina, where the feathers are boiled, dried, and ground into protein-rich meal that finds its way into everything from canned dog food to cattle pellets.   In a macabre twist, it's even fed to chickens."   This paragraph serves to illustrate that Hanson's book is indeed about feathers.   But the scope is worldwide and fascinating and will intrigue any person who calls himself or herself a birder.   I paid $28.50 Cdn. for it at Chapters/Indigo and made it an early Christmas gift to myself.
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BtheB

Egress for eagles

Photo by BarrytheBirder

It was a cold, bright Sunday morning on the 17th Sideroad of King Township and I was lucky enough to see a Sharp-shinned Hawk and a small flock of Pine Siskins.   As I retreated along the dead end road, I passed this eye-catching gate, featuring soaring Bald Eagles, at the entrance to a private country home.

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BtheB 

These sitting ducks are safe

                                                                                                                                                                                   Photo by BarrytheBirder
Free-range domestic ducks soak up some afternoon rays beside a farm pond at Dunkerron, near Schomberg.   The -8C temperature didn't seem to bother these sun-worshippers in the slightest.

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BtheB

Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers have white backs

                                                                                                                     Photo by BarrytheBirder

We have three woodpeckers coming regularly to our single suet feeder: a male Hairy (see photo above) and a male and female Downy Woodpecker.   Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers  are the only woodpeckers in eastern and central North America with white backs without markings.    I normally put out the prepackaged suet blocks that have seeds or nuts, or other goodies imbedded in them.   But I'm thinking that this winter, for a change, I may go to a butcher and buy some large suet remnants that are otherwise sold off to renderers.   The name woodpecker, in English, dates back to about 1530.   Meanwhile, the game bird known as the woodcock derives its name from the Old English wuducoc (about 1050); formed from wudu wood + cocc cock.

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BtheB

Kettleby crows and wooden barns

 Photos by BarrytheBirder

The 400-strong 'murder' of crows at Kettleby is nearing 500 I believe.   Today the flock was joined by a 'murmuration' of 200-odd starlings.   It's 9 days to Christmas and we had record-warm temperatures in this part of the country yesterday.   In the past these crows and starlings would have migrated to the south side of Lake Erie or the Windsor area, but with global warming and other recent climate changes, it's possible that these birds will over-winter right here in King Township.   On the opposite side of Keele Street, from where the crow picture was taken, is a newly re-clad wooden barn (picture blow).   A few miles south of this barn, near Eversley, is another reconstructed wood barn (second picture below).   With all due respect for stylish, modern, all-metal, plastic or vinyl barns, the two mainly wooden barns pictured here are a welcome sight to old traditionalists like me.

  

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BtheB

Old railway line runs through college grounds

 With the exception of the Red-tailed Hawk (at top), I had no luck today, looking for birds in the woods around the former Eaton Hall country estate.   I did for the first time, however, pay close attention to the particular trail beneath my feet.   Between 1902 and 1927, the Schomberg and Aurora Railway ran through part of, what is today, the King Campus of Seneca College.   The former rail-bed of that train line (pictured above) remains today and is a well-used hiking trail at Seneca.   The Seneca trails and the Oak Ridges Moraine Trail are easily accessed by a stile (below right)  on the west side of Dufferin Street, about a half mile north of the Seneca College Main Gate.   The southern end of the old railway trail section starts right behind the old Eaton Hall, and now Seneca College, gatehouse (below left).   There's lots of parking on the west side of the gatehouse.

Photos by BarrytheBirder
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BtheB

Lower East Humber River scenes

 BarrytheBirder photos of Boyd Conservation Area at Pine Grove, near Woodbridge,

and the McMichael Canadian Art Gallery in Kleinburg.

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BtheB

Bathurst Street ends here

Photos by BarrytheBirder

Abandoned buildings, birdhouses and an Osprey nest mark the spot at which Bathurst Street ends, at the northern tip of King Township.   To continue north would require a boat and a 1,200 metre journey up the West Holland River to where it joins the East Holland River, which flows north from Newmarket.    The combined Holland River continues through marshlands for another six kilometres until it flows into Cook's Bay, at the southern end of Lake Simcoe.

The last hydro pole on northern Bathurst Street supports a sizeable Osprey nest.   It won't be known for another four months or so whether the nest will continue to be used.   It's location on the east bank of the West Holland River, a few kilometres south of Lake Simcoe, would suggest this nest is perfectly located to support an Osprey family.   Meanwhile, below, a couple of Purple Martin houses still seem to be in good condition, at the same site.   Being relatively new to this site, I cannot say whether these boxes have been recently used or not.   I will keep a eye out for nesting activity here, in 2012.

Another view of the end of Bathurst Street in King Township.   The major Toronto thoroughfare is reduced to a single gravel track, frozen puddles and derelict structures.
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BtheB

Cooper's Hawk on Strawberry Lane

Photos by BarrytheBirder

MMMCOOPER'S HAWKMMM

Accipiter cooperii

I was out looking for Snowy Owls today in the Holland Marsh but had no luck.   Snowies have been reported there, by a couple of online spotters, since December 10th.   I did however see the immature Cooper's Hawk pictured above, on Strawberry Lane.   The top photo better shows the immature's whitish underparts with fine streaks on its breast.   It is quite smart-looking for an immature bird.   Snowy Owls tomorrow, maybe. 

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BtheB    

Former church lives on

                                                                                                                                     Photo by BarrytheBirder

I never tire of  photographing this bucolic scene on Dufferin Street, between Eversley and Snowball, when I am out looking for birds.   The building is the former Temperanceville Presbyterian Church which was built in 1858 and served the faithful in the community for half century before being turned into a private residence in 1912.   It lasted as such for another 60 years when it was purchased by Dr. David Willinsky.   Dr. Willinsky had it disassembled, plank by plank, and rebuilt on the property that he owned on Dufferin Street, north of the Eversley corners.   Its appearance was only slightly modified and now, after 153 years, it continues to charm passersby.   And of course, the peaceful animals bring the scene to life each day.   The overall effect always seems to heighten with the advent of Christmas.
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BtheB

Not so wild birds

MMMMMMMMMMMFree-range mixed-breed ducks on a Kettleby farmMMMMMMMMMMMM

MMMMMMMMMMMMMPigeons huddle together in the Holland MarshMMMMMMMMMMMMM

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMale Mallard at Fairy Lake Park in NewmarketMMMMMMMMMMM

Photos by BarrytheBirder

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BtheB