Drove to Dawson Creek yesterday to spend the weekend with family. Today we moved some logs from a neighbours to the home place to be cut up for firewood. It took 3 trips with the trailer to move the logs home and most of the day was used up by the time we had finished.
As we were so busy i hasd no time to do any birding but managed a few new year birds anyway.
Eastern Phoebe
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Bluejay
Chipping Sparrow
Western Tanager
White-throated Sparrow
Pectoral Sandpiper
Spotted Sandpiper
Tomorrow I will try and go to McQueens Slough and Jackbird refuge and see what is there, the forecast is not very good for the day with a late snowstorm for tonight and tomorrow possibly mixed with rain. Sometime at this time of the year that is good for seeing migrants as they are forced down by the bad weather, I hope this is the case as otherwise it is going to be an ugly day.

Stupid mistake

This morning I was down at the Lake and saw a beautiful Red-throated Loon swimming and diving in an open lead in the ice near the community jetty. I rushed out shooting pictures every time the bird surfaced, getting some great shots. As it was a very bright day I was unable to get very good looks at the pics due to the bright sun and my tinted glasses. Very proud of my self I drove home and downloaded to the computer only to find that they were Black&white due to the fact that I had been shooting in Monochrome last night and had forgotten to change the settings. So much for my fantastic shots of a beautiful Red-throated Loon. It is a boring shot of a Grey-Throated Loon :). I now have decided that I should do my Black&white pics in Photoshop.

Ruffed Grouse

The Ruffed Grouse Male picks a special perch for the spring season. He will stay on this perch for hours drumming his wings rapidly sounding like an old engine trying to start. .they will stay on this perch day after day trying to attract a willing female.
This Grouse has been using this same log for at least 5 years. I check on him every year to see if he has survived another winter. In past years I was unable to walk my dogs on the road up to our neighbours because my Boomer knew where this guy was and would rush after him as soon as we were near his drumming log and chase him away.
My Pal Boomer Died last year which has been sad for me and I really miss him, but is good for the poor grouse, they can drum in peace.

Stuart Lake ice

It is May 3 and Stuart Lake is still covered in ice. I scanned the open area at the mouth of the river for birds yesterday. There is an amazing amount of birds in the open water.500+ Western Grebes, 100+ Red-necked Grebe, 25 Common Loon, several hundred Northern Pintails and many others that were lost in the crowd.
The area around home has White-crown Sparrows everywhere, several hundred in the area. They will be around for a couple of weeks then leave for the northern nesting areas. The spring birds are slowly arriving, we had our first and so far only Rufous Hummingbird arrive on Thursday. I hope it is a good year for them, we have had up to 250 coming to our feeders in past years.

It is definitely looking like spring. The snow melt runoff has hit our road. We came home to a flock of Mallards swimming in the water on our road The above picture was taken through the windshield of our car, that is my only explanation for the bad picture, sorry. The water was at least a foot deep on Saturday and many many Mallards, American Wigeon, Northern Pintail and Green-winged Teal around.
We should have Wilson's Snipe and Killdeer back by now but haven't seen or heard any yet. There is a flock of Horned Lark flying around the fields on thier way farther north, our Common Redpoll, and Pine Grosbeaks are long gone now and the first of the 100s of White-crowned Sparrows are here, along with the first Savana Sparrows.
The snow is slowly melting off our fields, the last 2 days of rain have helps a lot with that. It has resulted in some big meltwater ponds in the area filled with ducks and geese.
Around the first of May we should be expecting the first Rufous Hummingbirds but the way it looks right now I can't see that happening, but the weather is supposed to improve by the weekend so I can only hope. I will fill the hummingbird feeders before we leave for Terrace on the weekend just in case.

New yard Bird

While driving to town to bring Katrina some dinner at work last evening I spotted this bird sitting on our fence. Had to go back and get the scope and camera to get a few photos and look at it though the scope. Managed to get a few bad pictures but it is enought to see that it is a beautiful adult Peregrine Falcon of the of the Tundrius sub species. This is property bird # 136 in the almost 20 years we have lived here.
Needless to say Kats dinner was a little cold when i got it to her.
Today i heard a Greater Yellowlegs flying over the house and managed to get a look at it before it moved on . There is some open water in the field across the road with lots of Mallards and American Wigeon, and yesterday there were 6 Cackling Geese which I could see from our driveway so I guess I can claim as another new property bird. Also on the field were 2 Trumpeter Swans and many many Mountain Bluebirds.

Rough-legged Hawks

Drove to Vanderhoof to retrieve Sharon's purse,after She discovered it missing and we tracked it down to where we had stopped for lunch on a shopping trip the day before.
I managed to get in a little birding on the way and saw at least 20 Rough-legged Hawks, which i think is the most I have every seen in 1 day. There were also very many Mountain Bluebirds and hundreds of Dark-eyed Juncos. I also spotted a lone pair of Long-billed Curlews looking very out of place in a snow covered field. I think they are going to be hungry before the snow melts on those fields.
Had a Ruby-crowned Kinglet hit a window and managed to retrieve it before one of our cats got it. I put it in a paper bag for a couple of hours to let it get its senses back and released it just before dark and it looked flew away, i hope it makes it.