{"id":10610,"date":"2022-03-20T20:47:51","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T00:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/?p=10610"},"modified":"2022-03-20T20:47:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T00:47:51","slug":"snowy-owl-eastern-phoebe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/2022\/03\/20\/snowy-owl-eastern-phoebe\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowy Owl & Eastern Phoebe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Eastern Phoebe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

North Service Rd. Woods, Burlington ON. March 20 2022. <\/em>\u00a0My birding worked as it\u2019s supposed to today: I (or you could too) go birding, look, pay attention and something unexpected will usually pop up. Two specials today: A Snowy Owl<\/strong> this morning and an Eastern Phoebe<\/strong> this afternoon.\u00a0 On this date, both would likely fall into the category of \u2018unexpected-but-certainly-possible,\u2019 so certainly worth dancing a little jig for.<\/p>\n

The Snowy Owl<\/strong> took me by surprise, I was visiting a nearby marina where I had hoped to see early-returning Red-necked Grebes<\/strong>, (and did). But as I walked out to the end of the breakwater a dog-walker said, \u201cGood thing you have your camera, there\u2019s a white owl by the lighthouse – flying around\u201d Right away I knew what he meant and \u2018- flying around\u2019! My heart started to beat a little faster. Not that I keep records very seriously but I hadn\u2019t seen a Snowy Owl all winter and assumed that I probably wouldn\u2019t. Late or not, in flight or not, a Snowy Owl is always a nice sighting and it must be said, a real privilege. Here it is \u2013 it didn\u2019t fly \u2013 not for me anyway.<\/p>\n

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Snowy owl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After lunch, I took advantage of this bright, if blustery, March day to follow up on a couple of possible sites where I nurse hopes that American Kestrels might decide to set up home this spring. The population of American Kestrels is on a steep decline and I really hope to find a breeding pair somewhere in my study area for the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas<\/a>. There were no kestrels at either site but there\u2019s plenty of time, it\u2019s still early.<\/p>\n

Despite rather muddy trails I made a loop around a nice old woodland, not expecting much in the way of birds but enjoying the still sleeping forest floor and the reaching twigginess of Sugar<\/strong> Maples<\/strong>, White<\/strong> Oaks<\/strong>, Shag<\/strong>–bark<\/strong> Hickories<\/strong> and Hop<\/strong>–hornbeams<\/strong>. And then quite unexpectedly this Eastern Phoebe<\/strong> did what phoebes do best, fly off and watch me from a safe distance.<\/p>\n

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Eastern Phoebe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The appearance of the first Eastern Phoebe is always notable and always a bit of a surprise. They are a flycatcher and you wouldn\u2019t think there are any flies around to catch. I bless them for their optimism and also because they have a way of sitting still long enough and close enough that I often manage to get a decent photograph.<\/p>\n

The Snowy Owl<\/strong> and the Eastern Phoebe<\/strong> were sightings of quite different times and places, but they were equally My Birds of the Day. For similar reasons; one taking winter back north to where it belongs, the other dragging spring along behind it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

North Service Rd. Woods, Burlington ON. March 20 2022. \u00a0My birding worked as it\u2019s supposed to today: I (or you could too) go birding, look, pay attention and something unexpected will usually pop up. Two specials today: A Snowy Owl this morning and an Eastern Phoebe this afternoon.\u00a0 On this date, both would likely fall … Continue reading Snowy Owl & Eastern Phoebe<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10610"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10618,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610\/revisions\/10618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}