Owl sounds likes a cat?

Photo by Dave Kemp

Several days ago, my photographer friend, Dave Kemp, of Richmond, British Columbia, sent me this Short-eared Owl photo, which he took.   I shared it with readers of this blog.   Now, Dave has sent me a video of the same raptor.   Dave shared this video with several of his online friends and one of them said this owl sounded like a cat.   It's true, it does.   While most of our 12 owl species in Canada make a hooting sound, a few do not.   The Short-eared Owl is one that does not, except during the mating season when the male gives a hoo-hoo-hoo.   According to my Royal Ontario Museum Field Guide to Birds of Ontario, both male and female give an emphatic, barking keee-ow sound.   Click on the link below to hear Dave Kemp's owl.   You will need to click on a second version of the link after you make your first link.     

http://youtu.be/5PDl0fq6Bz0

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BtheB

Trumpeter Swan eyes Mute Swans

Photo by BarrytheBirder

I took this photo on November 27 on the King/Caledon Townline, south of Highway 9.   The swan on the left, with a yellow tag on its left wing is a Trumpeter Swan, while the object of its attention is a pair of Mute Swans.   The Trumpeter is probably a migrant while the Mute Swans are likely residents of this pond.   I've rarely seen swans of different types associating with each other, but this trio seemed rather chummy and lent a pleasant vista to a cold, late November day.

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BtheB 

Geese make way for gulls

Photo by BarrytheBirder

Most area ponds in King Township, in late November, are restricted to Canada Geese, more or less.   But this one, north of Kettleby and west of Keele Street has a flock of very well-fed-looking Ring-billed Gulls.   No doubt these skilled scavengers will hang around as long a local farmers are ploughing their land and turning up worms and June Bug larvae.
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BtheB   

B.C. Short-eared Owl

Photo by Dave Kemp

Three blogs ago, on Nov. 23, I presented several raptor photos by Dave Kemp taken on Canada's west coast.   Here's another recent photo taken by Dave.   It's a rather compelling picture of a Short-eared Owl (look into those eyes).   Let me share Dave's email that accompanied this photo, as it has a trace of B.C.'s west coast sensibility, and I get a hint of what it might be like to be there, at the moment this great image was captured.
" Today we ventured down to 72nd and Boundary Bay, Ladner, and we came across this owl that just sat there and let everyone take pictures of it... sometimes you just have to be there at the right time.   A few Snowy Owls but I think it's early and more should be arriving within the next month... plenty of harriers but mostly people on a sunny Sunday afternoon...week days are much better".
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BtheB

Dave Kemp's west coast raptors

SNOWY OWL

SHORT-EARED OWL  and  NORTHERN HARRIER

My friend Dave Kemp  from Vancouver, British Columbia, sent me the photos above.   I think these are all wonderful photographs and I am especially knocked out by the second picture from the top, of the Snowy Owl in full wingspread, from the rear.   I don't recall ever having seen such a spectacular shot, from this angle.   I also found the owl and the harrier challenging each other over hunting territory quite mesmerising.   See more of Dave's great photos by going to www.pictureperfect.nu/photogallery/ or Googling Dave Kemp's Picture Perfect Photo Gallery.

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BtheB

Facing its first winter

Photo by BarrytheBirder

Red-tailed Hawk

BBButeo jamaicensisBB

I photographed this immature Red-tailed Hawk sitting on a post on Hwy. 27, in Schomberg.   It was a small bird, probably at the lower end of the species size range of 19 - 25" (48 - 63 cm.)   There was nothing special about this hawk as it surveyed the field below keeping an eye on anything that moved.   I couldn't help but wonder if this first-year bird had any idea of what lay ahead as the warm mid-November day was close to ushering in December and winter snow and ice.   And when it does find itself in the depths of our frigid winter, will it have any comprehension, at all, that the winter will eventually end and the world will warm again, or will it think that the season of snow is a permanent environment.

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BtheB  

Fox Sparrows still coming through

Photos by BarrytheBirder

Fox Sparrows are normally late migrators, usually passing through these parts in early November.   This year, after the summer that seemed to never end, did end, it got rather chilly quickly.   Fox Sparrows started to show up in the backyard in the second week of October.   Then there were more during the third and fourth weeks.   There was a break of a few days and now they have shown up again.   Birder and noted author Kenn Kaufman describes this bird as a "big chunky sparrow".   Not only are they big and chunky, but they have that rich foxy red colour.   This is my favourite sparrow, although I am very partial to White-throats (see photo below) and White-crowns also.   They can all hang around for as long as they like, as far as I'm concerned.

  The colour of House Finches is most welcome also.

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BtheB

Snow Buntings arrive at Schomberg

Photos by BarrytheBirder

Before you jump to the conclusion that the ground in King Township, just north of Toronto, is covered in snow, let me say that I took these pictures of Snow Buntings a couple of years ago near Schomberg.  This past Friday, I spotted a small flock of about 25 Snow Buntings at the habitat wetlands that have replaced the Schomberg sewage lagoons.   The lagoons were decommissioned about a year and a half ago.   A large pond and island have replaced the main lagoons and they have been taken over by Canada Geese, gulls, shorebirds in migration, and now by beautiful buntings like the ones you see here.   I could not get close enough to photograph this year's buntings because the site is a huge sea of mud and unapproachable.   Of all the winter birds hereabouts, the Snow Buntings are my favourite -- because of their appealing colouration and markings and their synchronous flight.   They help hugely to make winter bearable, I think.

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BtheB

Trumpeters at Marylake

Photo by BarrytheBirder

Many of King Township's ponds and lakes, of a certain size, are visited by migrating Trumpeter Swans at this time of year.   This family of six were settled in on Marylake, just north of King City this past weekend.   The four young birds still have their juvenile buff colouring.   I would have loved to get closer to these magnificent birds but they had chosen to station themselves at the most remote corner of the lake.   You would think they had done it deliberately.   Trumpeters are the 'come-back' swans in Ontario after having been extirpated during the 1880s.   Efforts to re-introduce them in the 1980s continue to appear successful.   According to Wikipedia, the Trumpeter Swan is the heaviest bird native to North America and is, on average, the largest extant waterfowl species on earth.
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BtheB

Deeper into autumn

          That time of year thou mayst in me behold
          When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
          Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
          Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

 William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73

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BtheB

Juncos take over

Photo by BarrytheBirder

My brother Bob, who lives just north of Parry Sound, Ontario, told me today that all his migrant sparrows had left and the Juncos had taken over at the feeders.   Parry Sound is about 150 km north of King City, but my situation is similar.   The last of the White-crowned and White-throated Sparrows left in the past few days and their places have been taken over by two dozen  Dark-eyed Juncos.   Below is a photo I came across of a leucistic Dark-eyed Junco taken by Bob McElroy, of Point Alexander, on the Ottawa River, near Deep River.   Bob and his wife Diana have a website about the goings-on in the upper Ottawa Valley and nearby Algonquin Park and it's certainly worth a look.   Google them at Bob and Diana McElroy.

Photo by Bob McElroy

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BtheB

Hurricane Sandy

Photos by BarrytheBirder

Hurricane Sandy brought a few days of rain and one night of high winds to King Township, north of Toronto.   On Tuesday morning, the Holland Marsh in northern King Township saw thousands and thousands of Ring-billed Gulls, Canada Geese and Mallard Ducks that had been brought to ground.   Many places in the marsh had large areas of standing water, but it was inconsequential compared to the devastation of Hurricane Hazel in 1954. 

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BtheB