Winter Visitors

Not all birds are snowbirds -- although we currently have a flock of those here, swirling about. We mean the kind that fly south every year to avoid the winter.
A lot of our birds stay year round. Chickadees, for example, brave little puffs of feather that venture out in the coldest weather.

In the winter, the bird feeders are busy places, with old friends, like the huge noisy flock of bluejays that are currently here emptying out the sunflowers almost faster than you can pour them in.


And woodpeckers. Like this little downy woodpecker. Along with his bigger relative, the hairy woodpecker. And the pileated who never bothers with the bird feeder while he can be tearing up a tree for bugs.


Sometimes, we get birds that should go south, but don't. Like the mourning doves that seem to be wintering over. They do that sometimes -- but seldom enough that Nancy always has a notation in her diary in spring when the mourning doves reappear.
This winter, we've got about five of them, coming in for seeds.


And there are more seasonal birds, those we'd never see around in the summer, like this striking Pine Grosbeak.

But the Big Feather in the bird watchers' caps this Christmas came nowhere near the feeders. Instead, he spent his time tracking the wolf pack to find his dinner...

Brian Slattery, along with Quinn, and several of our other guests, spotted a Bald Eagle circling out over the lake. These birds are very rare here. The staff in Algonquin Park were excited last summer when they discovered about 3 nests, indicating that there was breeding activity, because the Bald Eagles haven't been seen here in close to a century.

They are spectacular, and surprising enough that if you see one, it's not hard to be so engrossed watching the bird that you take a small detour into a ditch... talk to Nancy about THAT little adventure!