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Good evening, This afternoon, Suzanne Borkowski and I scouted out and re-flagged my owl route in the Pockwock watershed. Overall, birds were quiet although stop #4 near a small pond showed quite a bit of activity: 2-3 Palm Warblers at least a dozen Yellow-rumped Warblers Kingfisher Am. Black Duck pair 2 pairs pf Ring-necked Duck Red-tailed Hawk singing Ruby-crowned Kinglet (our first this year) Also seen enroute were a few Juncos and a N. Flicker. However, the high-light of the afternoon had to be a male Ruffed Grouse in FULL DISPLAY mode!! What a sight! The illustration in Peterson came no where near to doing "our" bird justice. We first saw it in the middle of the road about 100 m ahead. We stopped immediately and checked it out through binoculars. Once we had figured out its identity, it ambled slowly off the road and we moved forward to where it disappeared from view and Suzanne turned off the engine. Within a few seconds, we noticed it again moving slowly through the saplings at the side of the road. Apart from the fully fanned out tail, the ruff around the neck was fully extended such that the head was barely visible. Every few seconds it shook its head and the ruff feathers magnified every move. This bird did everything but go into the drumming mode. We never did see the female but there must have been one around; certainly this male would have been very hard for a female to resist. The best illustration that we could find is on page 61 of the 5th edition of the Nat Geog field guide. In 33 years of birding in Canada, I had never seen this display before - it really gave new meaning to the name RUFFED GROUSE!! Yesterday while doing some geocaching in Oakfield PP, an owl gave 2 long quavering calls in mid-afternoon. The bird was easy to find since it was being mobbed by a very vocal and upset Robin. It turned out to be a Barred Owl - only one was seen. Cheers, Bob McDonald Halifax
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