MORNING VISITOR

We had a really exciting visitor this morning! 

Great Horned Owl - June 20, 2015

We hear the Great Horned Owls frequently when walking the dog in the early morning or at night, but rarely see one.  This morning, we were looking out the window, trying to hear some other strange sound at about 5:30AM, and noted the jays and other little birds seemingly mobbing something (also a common activity around here with all of our hawks and owls!).  I saw a movement - something flying toward a tree, but had no clue even how big the bird was, let alone what it might be.  I grabbed my binocs and went into the other room where there were fewer branches in front of where I thought I saw a bird.  It took some hunting, but I finally found an odd lump up next to the trunk of the tree.  Cool!  This lump has ear tufts!!!

Great Horned owl hiding from mobsters

Our visitor hung around for about a half hour, so I managed to set up my camera and the scope and we got some really good views of it.  I had hoped to get some pix of the little birds mobbing the GHOW*, but never managed to click at the right moment, and the owl was doing a good job of not being noticed much.

It did come out onto the branch more, so the rest of the pictures are frontal.


















It was mostly still, but occasionally looked from side to side.















Owls can turn their heads all the way around to look behind them, but I'd never actually seen that.  These next two pictures are interesting because in the first one, you see the blurred movement of the head, and the second one shows the head turned backwards.  

Great Horned Owl turning its head all the way around

Looking at all 40 some pictures that I took, there was almost no change in the bird's body or its feet and the way it was clamped onto the branch.  Only the head moved.

We have no idea why the owl was out and about after dawn.  Could have been caught away from its usual daytime roost and was waiting for the mobbers to go away; could have been seeking food for its nestlings - owls will hunt in the daytime when they have nestlings; or it could have been chased away from its usual roost.  Ooo!  Or maybe its usual roost is right around here and we just haven't seen it before!  Suzanne has seen a GHOW* here a few times this year.  In any case, we sure enjoyed the visit!

Great Horned Owl - June 20, 2015

*There are four-letter "Alpha Codes" for all birds, a bit of shorthand.  The Great Horned Owl is "GHOW"

INTERMEDIATE BIRDERS...

Linda and I are good birders when it comes to the birds around our house and neighborhood -- the ones with which we interact frequently.  We know some of them by sight and even sound, and some of them by general affect (flight, position on a tree or the ground, attitude of the head...).  But overall, we are just intermediate level birders.  We don't do birding trips or travel to see rare birds, but this year in May, we DID do a birding trip!  We went to Point Pelee National Park, in Ontario (Canada).  

Point Pelee is a triangular peninsula that points due south from the north shore of Lake Erie; therefore, birds crossing the lake in migration are likely to see Point Pelee first and land there to rest.  Consequently, something like 340 species of birds can pass through Point Pelee on migration to their northern nesting grounds. 

What an amazing experience, being at Point Pelee during spring migration!!  We were there for three days of the two week festival and in those three days, added many "life birds", otherwise known as "lifers".  (A life bird is one you have never seen before.)    In our three days, Linda got 17 lifers and I got 22.  Most were on guided walks, but some on our own.  (Then later in our trip to visit our moms, Linda saw two more lifers and I saw one more, to bring our total life bird sightings for the trip to: Linda-19, Diane-23.  Very cool!)

For both of us, the most special was the Red-headed Woodpecker: for Linda, because she grew up with them and hadn't seen them since she was a child, and for me because I had never seen one!

Red-headed Woodpecker at Point Pelee, Ontario, May 15, 2015

Other highlights of the "normal" type were, Northern Parula (lifer for both), Scarlet Tanager and Indigo Bunting (just cuz they are so strikingly beautiful!), many nesting Barn Swallows (lifer for both and just so interesting!), seeing the Red-winged Blackbirds acting like house sparrows and picking up food scraps from under the picnic tables, and seeing two nightjars - Common Nighthawk (lifer for Linda) and a Chuck-will's-widow (lifer for both).

In the OMG/rare bird category were the Chuck-will's-widow and a spectacular little Kirtland's Warbler (!!!)

The Kirtland's Warbler has been on the endangered list since 1967 because it nests only among the Jack Pine forests (which are rapidly decreasing) in two very small regions of Northern Michigan & the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  With some controlled burn projects, the Jack Pine areas are coming back, as are the birds.  For a while, the Kirtland's Warbler was counted as just a few hundred.  Now it is over a thousand breeding males.  (http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/solve/conservation/rare-bird-focus-kirtlands-warbler.php)

We were lucky, and a Kirtland's female was resting at Point Pelee while we were there, and was very cooperative!  

Kirtland's Warbler at Point Pelee, Ontario, May 14, 2015

The pictures here were taken with my new camera that Linda got me for an early birthday present - a Canon SX50 HS super zoom.  It is a "point & shoot" but super fast and has an optical zoom to 600 and a digital zoom to 1200!  The Northern Parula picture below is unedited, shot hand held and was not from close range!!)  

Northern Parula at Point Pelee, Ontario, May 15, 2015

Total list of birds seen in our three day venture (not necessarily seen by both of us):
Canada Goose
Mallards
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Wild Turkey
Common Loon
Double-crested Cormorant
Turkey Vulture
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Black Tern
Common Tern
Mourning Dove
Common Nighthawk
Chuck-will's-widow
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Red-headed Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Least Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Warbling Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
House Wren 
Swainson's Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
American Redstart
Kirkland's Warbler
Northern Parula
Magnolia Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
White-crowned Sparrow
Scarlet Tanager
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Orchard Oriole
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch
Common Yellowthroat

Some of the above were seen and pointed out to us on one of the bird walks that we took.  In some cases it helped us learn more about the bird so that we could more easily ID it next time; in other cases, it was a spot it, enjoy it and totally forget what we'd seen!  However, we learned a lot about warblers on this trip!  Combined with seeing more of them around home this year (by looking up to the tops of the trees instead of down to the bird feeder or ground) I feel like I can have a better chance of ID-ing a warbler other than the yellow warbler.
 
And later in our travels to the midwest we also saw:
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (3 different ones banging on pieces of metal)
Bald Eagle
Veery
White-breasted NuthatchCarolina Wren
American Tree Sparrow 
Common Raven
Chipping Sparrows
Cardinal 
Great Blue Heron
Various Gulls, not determined

A good trip from a birding point of view!