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Nature Link

With Blake Mann

RECENT SIGHTINGS

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

With the continuing strange weather, some good bird sightings have come of late. Several Snowy Owls are still being seen in this invasion year. Many have been frequenting Erieau. They are mainly seen in the corn fields.

The Great Gray Owl at Kingsville was last seen January 11. Hopefully it has survived and moved on successfully.

Northern Shrikes seem to be in good numbers this winter. I have encountered a few in recent weeks.

Horned Larks have been moving north for almost the last two weeks. These are actually early spring migrants! Lots have been seen in the rural landscape along with Snow Buntings and a few Lapland Longspurs. Once we did get some snow, these birds became more visible. Snow Buntings have been in good numbers lately, and I saw one flock with upwards of 1500 birds!

Ducks have been very scarce on the St. Clair River this winter. Nothing of note this year!

A Black-crowned Night-Heron was a surprise find by Jim Burk near Erieau last Friday. It was still present on Sunday along Bisnett Line as depicted in my photo.

The best bird of the area is a Mountain Bluebird that was found by Pete Chapman near Shetland on January 16. I went to see it this past Saturday. A female Eastern Bluebird is accompanying it. The Mountain Bluebird is quite rare for Ontario, but this is the fourth one in the province in the last year. Another was being seen recently south of Guelph.

At Erieau lots of waterfowl are present plus a large number of American Coots. Over 1000 Coots have been there which is remarkable for this time of year.

For more up to date stuff, I write a blog of nature/bird information at www.burgbirder.blogspot.com