23 January 2014. Burlington Ontario. A deep Arctic chill has laid its heavy hand on bird life around here. There’s not much open water anywhere, even the usually-open ship canal is heavily choked with plates of chunk ice. I went there to see what waterfowl might be around and in the ten minutes it took for the steely wind to cut right through me I saw lots of desperate looking ducks and gulls.
The picture above includes, (roughly from left to right) Common Goldeneye, Redheads, Mallards, Lesser Scaup and Long-tailed Ducks; there were Trumpeter Swans, Red-breasted Mergansers, Herring Gulls and Great Black-backed Gulls in the mix too.
The quest for food would be different from species to species. Diving ducks like the Goldeneyes, Scaup, Long-tailed, Mergansers and Redheads are probably doing okay feeding on the abundant colonies of Zebra Mussels. I’m never quite sure what Mallards find to eat as they sift the water surface but presumably it’s rather like a nourishing soup so I assume they’re okay; but the Trumpeter Swans, well I don’t know what sustains them at times like this. They’re browsers of sub-aquatic vegetation and these waters are too deep, cold and industrial for there to be any. Gulls scavenge and will attack other weak vulnerable birds. This first winter Great Black-backed Gull was doing quite well devouring what was probably not long before, a Lesser Scaup. Great Black-backed Gulls have few challengers, they’re the world’s largest gull, this one was clearly dining alone.
As I headed back to my car I glanced up to a site atop a bridge structure where Peregrine Falcons have nested every year for close to a decade. Sitting silently watching over the world below was one of them. In a month or two as the sun gains strength and days lengthen I imagine it will be pairing up. Although it was just a solitary bird it was my Bird of the Day. I liked the Great Black-backed Gull well enough but a Peregrine Falcon is a prize sighting any day. Here’s a photo of perhaps the same Peregrine but in better weather. 
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