Pictures taken since Jan 9 - 7132
Operation GBPOTTRGITWMECPOTYLG (Get better pictures of those two rare gulls in town with more emphasis currently placed on the Yellow-legged Gull) was put on hold today. I awoke to brilliantly blue skies, which are really nice - but create poor lighting conditions on Quidi Vidi lake for photography. I quickly decided that I would do some traveling today, heading north out of St. John's in search of whatever might show itself.
I visited Torbay, drove past Bauline without making it to the coast (whoops), Pouch Cove, Shoe Cove, Flat Rock, then back through Torbay.
It was boreal birding at its finest. Hardly anything to look at, but when you find birds - the quality is high. Pockets of Boreal and Black-capped Chickadees kept me entertained. I really wanted pictures of the Boreals, but they really weren't cooperating. After several pockets of birds, I finally decided to do some citizen science instead. For the fist time, I left my camera gear in the car - got out, pished twice and 4 Boreal Chickadee's hopped out low and in the open. Buggers! I threw my camera gear together, and thankfully 2 more eventually posed for a few pictures. They're pretty fast - so not a lot of time to worry about composition etc. But I managed a few:
Other highlights while driving around were the finches; a few Purple Finch, Pine Grosbeaks and several flocks of White-winged Crossbills (are they finally arriving?!). Perhaps the most exciting discovery was a flock of Robins (about 200) in Pouch Cove. This town is on the far NE corner of the peninsula, the perfect place for a euro-turd to show up - and here I had the largest flock of Robin's seen in Newfoundland all winter... And all to myself! I probably searched through them for close to 2 hours, in hopes that some Fieldfare, Redwing or sulking Song Thrush would magically appear. Alas it didn't. A Northern Shrike flew over, carrying a small mammal - probably the most unusual sighting I had while there.
There was an abundance of Black Guillemots in the coves today. In Torbay, I had great views of the two subspecies together, and adult "atlantic" Black Guillemot and a snowy-white "Arctic" Black Guillemot. Really pretty birds! Now only if they'd come close to shore for pictures... I finished the day at Quidi Vidi where activity was pretty low. A dead gull lay on the ice, tempting the eagles downwards.
Fun fact of the day: is that I'm tired enough to not think of one right now! zzzzz
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