Today our neighbours took us out to Boundary Bay and Reifel. We were hoping for some owls, and though we didn't see any, we still had fun!
We went to Boundary Bay first, hoping for Long-eared Owls, Short-eared Owls, and Snowy Owls, and a lot of other birds. We did see Northern Harriers and 35 (at least! There were 14 in 3 trees right beside each other alone!!) Bald Eagles among other things. The harriers were flying around everywhere, passing over the trails and looking for food. I didn't get any in-flight shots, but I wish I did. It was just so cold!
Virginia did spot this harrier on the ground with prey. It was so windy though, so I could barely get a shot. This was my best:
We didn't see much more so we headed off to Reifel.
At Reifel we were greeted with the usual parking lot suspects such as Mallards and American Wigeons, this time with a Sandhill Crane. There were 8 other cranes on the lawn of the caretaker's house.
Seemingly endless hordes of mallards
Pretty American Wigeon
7 Sandhill Cranes
Parking lot Sandhill
Cool-looking Mallard
We started down the trail and saw plenty more birds including lots of ducks, swans, sparrows, herons, blackbirds and others. As usual, the mallards were swarming around us, eating the seed and the chickadees were landing on our hands.
Black-crowned Night-heron
Northern Pintail
Tame Black-capped Chickadee.
I love the feeling of the chickadee's feet on your hand (even through two layers of gloves!), you feel as if you're holding something so precious and fragile.
Cooperative female Mallard
Northern Pintails
Some Handsome Mallards
We walked the rest of the loop and saw so many birds and got so many good, closeup photo opportunities
In all, we had a good (and cold!) day, despite seeing no owls.
You can click on any of the photos to make them bigger.
