And still the birds fly...

In spite of global warming, the war in Iraq, multiple murders and assorted mayhem, da boids are doing that crazy migration thing that they do. The Redwing black birds have been back for a while. We've seen a few Great Blue Herons and some have seen Egrets. Today we took a walk at Thickson Woods in Whitby, and found returning Phoebes, Golden Crown Kinglets and Winter Wrens. The woods were waking up with Northern Flickers, Sapsuckers and Downy woodpeckers hammering away. A Great Horned Owl -- a regular at Thickson's -- dosed high up in the canopy (I included a pic of two babies from a few years ago). It was a pretty good show, a warm up act for the return of the warblers in May.

Last weekend, we headed out to Grimsby for a taste of the spring Hawk Watch and watched waves of TurkeyVultures and sporadic flights of Coopers, Rough-legged, Sharp shin and Red shoulder hawks rise up over the Niagara Escarpment. I have neither the time, the eyesight or the skill to do a full-day observing and counting the return of these creatures, but those who do are a rare breed and are to be respected. I should have taken a picture of the large crowd of people out for a day of hawk watching, but all I got was this pic of the town of Grimsby and Lake Ontario.

NB. If Grimsby does not have a sports team called the "Reapers", they really ought to.