A visit to Fletcher Wildlife Garden to check out the barred owl turned into "cacawphony" 😊 of crows. The barred owl was not to be found, but there obviously was another owl about with the crows making such a racket. The owl was a great horned owl, whose chicks would have hatched already. Crows hate great horned owls as the owls rob the crows nests to feed their young. The owl, as per usual, was deep in the middle of tree, but we did finally get a photo of its tail amongst the branches.
We knew it was too early for the snow geese migration, but we headed down to the St Lawrence to see what might be there.
We headed for the ever colourful South Lancaster wharf.
About 150 yards west of the wharf in a small opening in the ice were 15-20 common mergansers, more males than females. They were a long way off for a photo
With no large areas of open water, there were very few Canada geese, but a few flew over.
Red-winged blackbirds were calling, but then I heard a song that I hadn't heard since last fall. A song sparrow had returned.
The marshes at Coopers Marsh were still frozen over so there wasn't much there. We settled for a robin sitting on the ice of a small pond....
As we drove east towards Cornwall, there were a few small openings in the ice close to the shore. At one spot there were a few geese, but a flock of about 50 0r so ducks. Most of the ducks flew off when I approached to take a picture, but they returned. Common Goldeneye ducks.
There were a few (few thousand) Canada geese waiting for us at the east end of the Long Sault Parkway
And more were arriving
We headed home after checking out a few other places and finding nothing exciting