I’m up to my ears in meetings today and haven’t much time to write, but I thought you might like to meet a gull that we spotted, nesting on the rocks below the Blue Moon Pottery Studio in The Battery, St. John’s, Newfoundland.
On guard
More tomorrow, I promise!
Update: General consensus among my bird-watching friends who have reviewed the pictures and assessed the plumage is that this owl is probably a “she” and not a “he” as was originally written. I concur and add that this owl was larger than I was expecting, having seen other male snow owls, which adds credence to the theory that this is a female and not an immature male. I have therefore modified the description accordingly.
I’m a little giddy about the owl.
Explorers!
Let me back up a step. The day before yesterday, a friend mentioned that she had seen three snowy owls in Pippy Park (thanks, Margaret O’Dea!). This morning, I decided that an owl hunting expotition was in order and so we (we= me, John, Katherine & my sister, Tamar) packed up and headed to Pippy Park.
We found the trail, headed up towards Three Pond Barrens and used our GPSrs and the waypoints for a couple of geocaches (of which we found neither, but only actually looked for one) to keep us heading in more or less the right direction.
John told me that he didn’t expect us to find an owl. After all, we had just failed to locate a geocache. I maintain it’s buried under the two feet of snow in the area, but for some reason he just didn’t want to excavate every larch tree in Pippy Park. In any event, he voiced serious doubts about the likelihood of our Quest to have success. To which I responded, “This day does not end until I found an owl.”
Then I turned around and said, “Hey, isn’t that an owl?”
There is a snowy owl in this picture.
This might help:
She let us get a bit closer. This is with my 200mm zoom lens at full extension. The mist made everything grainier.
Then she took off. I think we must have spooked her as we made our way around the pond. I managed a few shots as she flew:
Gliding
Landing
Then she landed out in the middle of the pond and stood there for the longest time, watching us.
Watching you
As we wandered around Big Pond, she kept swiveling her head to watch us, occasionally checking the other shores for movement as well. With the naked eye, I couldn’t see more than a white lump on the ice, but the zoom lens gave me more detail.
You would never know there was an owl out on that ice.
Then she took off again and soared around, landing on the far shore.
In flight
I particularly love this shot, where her wing tip just brushes the ice…..
Brushing the ice
We slogged around up to our hips in rotten snow (that’s snow that has warmed up and sometimes melted underneath, in case you don’t live where such terms are common). There were numerous spontaneous discoveries of the big rocks and water beneath the snow and we emerged rather sodden, but very happy.
A perfect way to spend part of the long weekend!
An old boat in Chapel's Cove, Newfoundland.
My sister and I took a meander outside of town today to Chapel’s Cove. We had a nice little visit with Linda and the critters at Baynoddy and a pleasant lunch at The Pantry in Holyrood (huge portions, not expensive and very good!). I didn’t take all that many photos as it was more of a “hang out and chat” than a “run around and snap shots” sort of day.
At one point, though, I did spot some wonky-looking duckish things flying overhead and we hauled over for a look. I got out, climbed up to look over a rock wall into the cove and…. nothing.
“Invisible ducks,” I explained to my sister, who gave me that look that says, “Clearly you are cracking up.”
Then I was vindicated as a flock of the same flew swiftly overhead out towards open sea, got half-way up the cove and did a 180-turn and came back at us. I managed to grab this shot, mainly for identification purposes later.
Common Mergansers
Since taking more photos, I find myself learning quite a bit more about birds. These look like Common Mergansers (not just based on this photo, but also on my observation of the invisible ducks whose beaks were long and orange-red). The other day I swung by The Bird House (brilliant little store – you must visit!) and picked up a copy of Stokes’ Field to Birds (Eastern Region), which I will theoretically start taking on these excursions so that the phrase, “Hey, there are some weird-looking whassisses flying overhead!” becomes less frequent. If I remember to put the darned thing in my travel bag, that is.
Oh, and Wally says, “Hello. Back off. I may spit on you”
Wally the llama at Baynoddy Studio, Fahey Farms. Wally is very large, somewhat territorial, and of ample saliva. Makes nice fibre for spinning, though!
Hope your Wednesday was as lively as mine!
Spruce Grouse, Mackinsons, Newfoundland
Probably because I chased him.
He wouldn’t fly though, despite the fact that I had the camera all set up to capture the beating of wings and fluttering of feathers; he just skittered as fast as his snowshoe feet could take him across the road and into the ditch.
Today we went adventuring in Harbour Grace and Mackinsons. More on that later.
One of the cool things that happened occurred when I spotted a beautiful beam of light flashing across Harbour Grace harbour and gently requested that we turn the bus around, head for the south side of the harbour with some alacrity because the light was falling on The Kyle (locally-famous, pretty nifty shipwreck).
So we turned and we hustled and we got to the spot from which I wanted to take a photo.
It was cold.
The wind was howling and the beam of light was….. gone.
It had completely clouded over in the 3.5 minutes it took us to get to the vantage point. So I got a mundane picture of the Kyle, which I post here for those who are unfamiliar with it. (I added the framing effect, to compensate for washed-out skies, skies which were not washed out 3.5 minutes earlier.)
The Kyle
While I was freezing my fingers off and thinking positive, sunny thoughts in the hopes of altering the atmospheric conditions (and those of you who were on the adventure with me and did NOT think sunny thoughts are in serious trouble; you know who you are), I spotted a wee bird. Actually, a whole flock of birds spotted us. This one stuck out as unusual, so I shot a bunch of pictures of him.
Green head strip, blue bill. Very nifty!
He’s an American Widgeon and while we do get them here, they’re not all that common.
He looked pretty silly flying. Sillier than your average duck, I mean, and those look pretty unwieldy in the air to start with.
The widgeon is the top one.
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