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This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --Boundary_(ID_pfDoqwCtwGSdJZEA0iKavw) Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Ken McKenna Box 218 Stellarton NS B0K 1S0 902 752-7644 Hi all I woke a tad early Mon. morning and decided I had enough sleep. Since it was quite calm, I decided to head out and atlas in some of the squares near the drainage area of the Liscomb River. I entered the area via Seloam l. Rd. and stops near the Lake produced all 3 common owl species in 2-3 squares. I was astounded I did not hear a single woodcock which are normally active pre-dawn. I did however almost drive over 2 on the road. A Common Loon called from Seloams L., the only one I encountered despite checking several lakes. The dawn chorus was really neat with the predominant birds being Winter Wrens (30+) and Hermit Thrushes( 20+). A single White-throated Sparrow in song was my first singing for spring, but hardly constituted a movement. Swamp Sparrows on the other hand must have come in over night as I had 8-10 and did not hear a single one the day before. The Swampie songs were rather weak and at first I thought they were Palm Warblers till I tracked down the songsters. There were no Palms present despite ideal habitat (a little early yet). Woodpeckers, mostly Sapsuckers and flickers were drumming and I had my first drumming Ruffed Grouse of the spring. A made an unsuccessful attempt to locate the nest of Gray Jay and Red-tailed Hawks which both acted somewhat suspicious. A male Spruce Grouse posed for loads of nice photos and did not move when I approached it. A Ruffed Grouse was caught in photo leaping from the ground to pick seeds from a road-side plant. It was interesting to sit and watch it feed this way coming on a few meters from me as it walked along. I heard a single Rusty Blackbird, and then 2 more a few Km up the road. These were the only Blackbirds seen. Question- do female Rustys make the squeaky hinge sound? The light was not greatto get a good look at the Rustys which popped up when I played the species of special concern CD. They seem to want to perch into the sunlight. The squares out in the centre of the province are usually missing or have very low numbers of some common birds seen closer to more built up areas. There were no Starling. either dove, no Corvids other than the Gray Jay and no House Sparrows. Interestingly, after 9 a.m. one would not know there were that many wrens or Hermit Thrushes in the area as the birds went quiet as the wind came up a bit. Nice to get out early in spring for the dawn chorus. Every few days, more birds will be added to the chorus and it is nice to relearn songs not heard since last year. cheers ken --Boundary_(ID_pfDoqwCtwGSdJZEA0iKavw) Content-type: text/html; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.18904"> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Ken McKenna<BR>Box 218 Stellarton NS<BR>B0K 1S0<BR>902 752-7644<BR>Hi all</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I woke a tad early Mon. morning and decided I had enough sleep. Since it was quite calm, I decided to head out and atlas in some of the squares near the drainage area of the Liscomb River. I entered the area via Seloam l. Rd. and stops near the Lake produced all 3 common owl species in 2-3 squares. I was astounded I did not hear a single woodcock which are normally active pre-dawn. I did however almost drive over 2 on the road. A Common Loon called from Seloams L., the only one I encountered despite checking several lakes. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The dawn chorus was really neat with the predominant birds being Winter Wrens (30+) and Hermit Thrushes( 20+). A single White-throated Sparrow in song was my first singing for spring, but hardly constituted a movement. Swamp Sparrows on the other hand must have come in over night as I had 8-10 and did not hear a single one the day before. The Swampie songs were rather weak and at first I thought they were Palm Warblers till I tracked down the songsters. There were no Palms present despite ideal habitat (a little early yet). </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Woodpeckers, mostly Sapsuckers and flickers were drumming and I had my first drumming Ruffed Grouse of the spring. A made an unsuccessful attempt to locate the nest of Gray Jay and Red-tailed Hawks which both acted somewhat suspicious. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>A male Spruce Grouse posed for loads of nice photos and did not move when I approached it. A Ruffed Grouse was caught in photo leaping from the ground to pick seeds from a road-side plant. It was interesting to sit and watch it feed this way coming on a few meters from me as it walked along. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I heard a single Rusty Blackbird, and then 2 more a few Km up the road. These were the only Blackbirds seen. Question- do female Rustys make the squeaky hinge sound? The light was not greatto get a good look at the Rustys which popped up when I played the species of special concern CD. They seem to want to perch into the sunlight. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial> The squares out in the centre of the province are usually missing or have very low numbers of some common birds seen closer to more built up areas. There were no Starling. either dove, no Corvids other than the Gray Jay and no House Sparrows. Interestingly, after 9 a.m. one would not know there were that many wrens or Hermit Thrushes in the area as the birds went quiet as the wind came up a bit. Nice to get out early in spring for the dawn chorus. Every few days, more birds will be added to the chorus and it is nice to relearn songs not heard since last year. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>cheers</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>ken</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML> --Boundary_(ID_pfDoqwCtwGSdJZEA0iKavw)--
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