Morgan’s Point Conservation Area, ON. May 20th.2021. My calendar was open and invited me to squander a day in spring birding. I had some ideas where good birding was to be found so made my way to the south shore of Lake Erie. At this time of year, Morgan’s Point can be a very good place to watch for northbound migrants; it’s a landing spot for birds that have dared to fly across the lake rather than take the longer way around. But birding Morgan’s Point can be hit and miss and today might have been a miss had it not been for two good sightings.
The first was totally unexpected. I was staring at a forested hillside, not seeing much at all, and had scanned far and wide including past a large lump high up by the trunk of a tall pine. I didn’t quite see as much as sense something. Could it be that something primeval had tapped me on the shoulder, or was it just experience? Whatever the reason I was looking at an owl looking at me, the Great Horned Owl in the photo above. It set me speculating on whether momentary eye-contact somehow makes a connection, even between species so distant.
I remembered a provocative experience a month or so ago when I was examining with binoculars a sprawly nest quite high overhead. I had reason to think it was a Cooper’s Hawk’s and knew that if it was at home it might very well be low in the bowl and impossible to see. I looked long and hard but could only see the twiggy nest structure. After a long while I’d had enough, stopped looking and let my binoculars drop, and at that very instant of stopping, some mechanism deep in my brain yelled, ‘Being watched!.’ I looked up again and yes, there was an eye looking at me, the Cooper’s Hawk was at home. Uncanny? Maybe. Take a look at the photo below and find the eye that caught my eye.
Today’s Great Horned Owl watched me warily. It was going nowhere; daylight hours are their quiet time. I took several long-shot photos and left it alone.
I knew that Red-headed Woodpeckers like the Morgan’s Point area, I’ve seen them here a couple of time before. Red-headed Woodpeckers are always a wonderful sight, dressed in bold bands of crimson, white and black and showing flashy, bright white wing panels in flight. Today a pair was engaged in some kind of courtship around the trunks of towering Cottonwood trees. Courtship that consisted of long periods of ‘don’t come near me’, ‘let me help you pick out that grub’ and two-second, wham-bam, copulations.
The woodpeckers and the owl made the excursion very worthwhile and were my Birds of the Day, rescuing a journey whose only other notables were a handful of Semi-palmated Plovers. But a nice place and I’ll go back.
Really cool “eye” picture. Amazing that it caught yours.