Snowy Owls

There are two snowy owls in the Weston area on York Road.  Many of us saw and photographed them on January 31.

Pelican and Evening Grosbeaks at Bennington Lake

There was a single American white pelican on the lake when we arrived for our Tuesday walk.  Soon it was joined by a ring-billed gull and several canada geese.  The only other birds on the water were three common mergansers, a female common goldeneye and a great blue heron.  The little birds were pretty quiet with the exception of a singing Bewick's wren that was perched on top of a shrub.  We saw numerous dark eyed juncos and white-crowned sparrows, several black capped chickadees, Townsend's solitaires, ruby-crowned kinglets, downy woodpeckers and two great horned owls along the trail.  However, the best surprise was seeing a flock of about 50 evening grosbeaks fly into a pine tree above the parking lot as we were returning to our cars.  The sunshine was a welcome change and although it made the trails pretty mucky, it was nice being outside.

Red-tailed Hawk Bonanza

Today was the Raptor Field Trip, and we saw oodles of raptors despite the fog and rain.  Highlights of the trip were 91 red-tailed hawks (with over 70 in the vicinity of Frog Hollow Road and McDonald Road), 23 American kestrels, 5 northern harriers and 2 rough-legged hawks.  We also saw 2 northern shrikes and 3 great horned owls.  The red-tails came in every color phase, including several rufous morph and dark morph birds.  Our total species count for the day was 27.