October bowed out today with a damp squib of weather but it stayed dry enough for me to get to the pits and also to check out Coteaux Landing briefly. The pits were interesting enough, the wildfowl numbers are fluctuating but I’m seeing Cackling Goose most days and there are a few Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler and an American Wigeon today joining the stalwart Green-winged Teal flock.
Shorebirds will soon disappear for the duration of the winter but a late hurrah today involved a party of nine Dunlin that joined the three or so Greater Yellowlegs that are still present. The Dunlin became quite relaxed and I managed to get fairly close for a few shots but in poor light. There is some interest in promoting the long billed race of Dunlin found in North America as a separate species and, if you are familiar with the species from Europe, it is clear that there are plumage and structural differences although to me the voice remains the same distinctive “shreeep”.
New for the autumn at the pits today were five American Tree Sparrows and a Northern Shrike (another split candidate). The shrike was actually singing, they do that sometimes, and may also have had its beady eye on the same sparrows that I was watching. I didn’t get a photo of this bird but might in the coming months, they do tend to stick around a while, in the meantime here is one of last winter’s immature bird.
Les Coteaux was pretty quiet, no grebes yet and maybe it is getting a bit late for Horned now anyway, they have been very scarce in QC this year. Of interest (to me!) was a leucistic Double-crested Cormorant. Below is a very much record shot, I couldn’t get any closer.
Back at home and my seed carpet continued to pull in Fox Sparrows. There are two at present along with the odd White-throated Sparrow and upwards of 25 Dark-eyed Juncos. Below is a quick snap, they are always so wary and the first to scoot into cover at the first sign of a lens.
October for me was a great month. My pits year list went up to 180 species (out of 182 species seen there this year), a personal year record and my Québec year list went up to 245. It is very tempting to go for a year list now, my best was 266 back in 2007 and I know that there are still 30+ species out there waiting to be seen, including QC ticks, Sharp-tailed Grouse and Thick-billed Murre. In the QC year list stakes Gerard Cyr is well in the lead with 264 when I checked last on eBird, I was third. I’m not entirely sure what the actual QC year list record is but I would think Gerard is well placed to best it unless he has already mopped up the species I’m hoping to see before the clock strikes midnight on 31-December. It would be nice to have a local Northern Hawk Owl this winter. There was one east of Ottawa somewhere but kept quiet (again!). It is a disappointing trend this suppression and not always justified but more a knee-jerk reaction to bad behaviour at wintering owl sites by birders and photographers. I would hate to see birding here lurch the way it did in the UK for a while. Suppression brings out a lot of bad feeling and it ends up being tit-for-tat with everyone losing out in the long run.
Below are the Dunlin snaps.
QCbirding Blog 
At the MBO Wednesday there was also a singing Shrike, fist time for me.
Well owls in the Ottawa area is a very touchy subject. Even common species like Great Horned Owl are harassed by photographers. So the standing rule among birders in the area is to sit on your owls and share only with those you trust. It’s slowly becoming the standing rule right across Ontario as more and more photographers go for the shot and not the welfare of the bird. Not only with owls, but shrikes, and other rarities. There was a Painted Bunting that was sat on all summer in Ontario specifically because they did not want photographers. Birders that were known were allowed to show up, but only on the promise that they did not share with the general public.
Sad because it will only result in many people not in the know being denied life experiences (like the Painted Bunting) or the opportunity to simply enjoy the unusual. News does get out though and I’m a firm believer in having at least one public bird to occupy birders and photographers, the rest then get left alone more or less. Photographers supress birds the same way that birders do, it will all end in tears if ‘they’ find a long staying first and only ‘they’ get to see it.