January 2018 is in the books and my Biggish Year is off to a good start. I saw a total of 71 Ontario species, including some uncommon ones, which given the frigid conditions is a reasonably good number. Lake Ontario is well and truly frozen over and there’s not been much duck and goose action, so my main focus was on picking up the winter species of passerines. And moaning about the weather.

Early Days

On the first day of January Paul MacKenzie and I did a thorough search of Wolfe Island, turning up 22 species including Cooper’s Hawk and Snowy Owl. One advantage of a cold winter is that it draws in winter migrants like Horned Lark and Snow Bunting, and as expected we saw large numbers of both species.

The next day I “did” Marshlands Conservation Area, slogging  through deep snow but being rewarded with a light morph Rough-legged Hawk doing a low cruise over the golf course. Highlights from a trip with the North Leeds Birders were some large flocks of ducks at Ivy Lea as well as Ruffed Grouse, Great Black-backed Gull and an Eastern Towhee who apparently did not get the message when it was time to migrate south. And on a re-visit to Wolfe Island I manged to dredge up four Lapland Longspur, a winter migrant that is very scarce in these parts.

Northern Exposure

For a Big Year, or even a Biggish Year, to be successful you have to get out on the road and chase the birds where they are. So off I went to Algonquin Provincial Park in search of winter finches and other exotica. Day One was perishingly cold but I manged to link up with Red and White-winged Crossbills and Canada Jays. On the morning of Day Two I snuck in before it opened to see the feeders at the Visitor Centre, and had a bit of a moment enjoying large flocks of Purple Finch, Evening Grosbeak and Pine Siskin. So that was all the plausible winter finches in the bag, a success which partially offset the hours of frustration patrolling known habitat for Spruce Grouse and Black-backed Woodpecker and coming up with nothing.

 

On the way back home I spotted a nice looking Barred Owl in North Frontenac, which somewhat made up for dipping again at a known  Black-backed Woodpecker site.

Sweeping Up

The rest of the month was spent gathering sightings of the resident  bird species in the usual spots. There was a nice second winter Iceland Gull at the Lansdowne Dump, Trumpeter Swans at Chaffey’s Locks, a Northern Saw-whet Owl at an undisclosed location and a Horned Grebe at Invista, as well as the usual woodpeckers, cardinals, chickadees and crows.

Trumpeter Swans, an Eastern Ontario specialty.

 

January in Review, February Plans

So the total for January was 71 species. “Only” 179 to go to hit the Biggish Year goal of 250. It was a good start, but February promises to be fairly slow going. There are not too many likely species hanging around that haven’t already been nabbed. So far I have resisted the lure of driving to Hamilton to see the vagrant Tufted Duck, but I may break down and twitch it if under the guise of visiting my in-laws. Anything to feed the addiction while I wait for spring migration to kick in.

‘Till next time, happy birding!

BTW as time permits I will publish the better photos from my travels at the Biggish Year Ontario Birds Gallery page.