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Oct 24th:
Jenn drove my tired backside to North Bay in the dark (I was sleeping in the passenger seat), in hopes of giving us lots of daylight to explore our way to Cochrane. The first train wasn't until the 25th (Monday, 9am)! Lots of time for fun.
I forgot to bring my notes for this day with me, but in short, we had lots of fun exploring some cool parks, a 100m fire tower and a few nice towns.
We had our first taste of Northern Birds when a Gray Jay gave us a short roadside visit in Temagami. It wasn't long after that when we had a feeder hosting a few Evening Grosbeaks ... Of course, a Red Squirrel chased them off the feeder before I got my camera out, but I did manage a record shot:
Cobalt was a fun town to drive through, and a flock of Waxwings was probably my bird-highlight of the drive. I was excited to see them, and told Jenn we should chase them down in case there was a Bohemian or two mixed in... We found them in a nearby tree, and were delighted to see that the whole flock of 75 birds was Bohemian Waxwings!
No other noteworthy sightings on the drive. Lake Temiskaming was dead!
Oct 25th Train:
Train rolled out of the station at 9am. We saw some finches etc. in the early going, but it wasn't for a few hours before anything really started to show itself. Jenn spotted an odd looking Grouse-sp. that was flushed by the Train - so we started keeping a keen watch out the window.
After a few more "Grouse sp" sightings, we had good looks at a flock of Sharp-tailed Grouse flying away down a clearing!!! Actually a life bird for me.
The next big excitement came in the form of a Northern Hawk Owl perched on a hydro pole. We had a second NHOW 30 mins later. Pretty enjoyable looks considering the fact we were on a train.
Not much else on the old train. 1 Rough-legged and 2 Red-tailed Hawks. Lots of Snow Buntings, other grouse. We arrived in Moosonee around 2:30 and had some time to look around!
Oct 25th in Moosonee:
We turned up the following species in the few hours of daylight we had left:
Canada Goose 25
American Black Duck 11
Green-winged Teal 2
Common Merganser 1
Bald Eagle 3
Rough-legged Hawk 1
Ring-billed Gull 5
Herring Gull 50
Great Black-backed Gull 1
Mourning Dove 1
European Starling 2
Snow Bunting --- lots.. everywhere! Houses, parkinglots, on the road, yards, shoreline,
The G Black-backed Gull was distant on the sandbar. The odd Mourning Dove was only a few feet away from us, walking down the road. Sure hope the crazy bird decides to fly south before the real cold weather arrives.
Spent the night in a hotel room, getting ready for our next days adventure! Which will also be the topic of the next blog post (Oct 26th, Ship Sands Island)!
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I'd love to leave this blog posting with a parting bird-photo, but it only took 15 minutes of us being in Moosonee for my Camera bag to split open, sending my Camera and 100-400mm lens crashing to the pavement. The camera was ok, but the lens was not - connections broken :(
Bird photos will be somewhat lacking in future reports, but I'll make up for it!
Sad :(
Good birds!
ReplyDeleteCackling Goose again? We don't get many of them in CK it seems!