Spring has been unleashed.

What an amazing weekend so far. Yesterday we headed up to Minesing swamp and when we got there we found that the water had really retracted quite a bit but I think this really helps our views of the waterfowl. There was a lot less water for them to hang out in making it a stronger concentration and bringing them closer to the road. We had much better views of the northern shovelers, pied-billed grebes, hooded mergansers and northern pintails. We also got to see a porcupine wonder around on the road for a while and a very sleepy raccoon that we woke up by mistake. Just on our way out of the area we got to see a shrike hunting along the side of the road. Upon further inspection we are pretty sure this is a loggerhead shrike instead of the more common northern shrike. There are a lot of concerns right now for this bird in Ontario because they say there are only 30 breeding pairs in the whole province. We will be doing a grasslands bird survey this year to help provide them with some information to better assess their populations and distribution.

On Saturday we headed down to the lakefront with hopes of catching a glimpse of the red-necked grebes and possibly the horned grebes that have been mentioned. We ended up seeing hundreds of the red-necked grebes but no horned were to be found. There were also lots of long-tailed ducks and a first for me was a pair of red-breasted mergansers. Both of these guys were calling a lot and fighting over the ladies. It was amazing to hear their sounds. I really like the call of the long-tailed duck. Click here to hear their call. Speaking of sounds, the frogs were out singing in the ponds this weekend and I also got to see the first painted turtles of the year and while uploading some pictures the first mosquito came in the back door and tried to suck my blood. So over all just a great weekend so far although I could have gone longer before seeing a mosquito.