Outdoor Ontario
Birding Reports => Toronto Reports => Topic started by: greyowl51 on February 24, 2013, 07:08:03 PM
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[attachment=0:349620ik]Snowy Owl gives me a lookover - Frenchmen's Bay - Ontario - Canada.jpg[/attachment:349620ik]
Yesterday, my wife, Jean and I spent about two and half hours, between 12:30pm to 3:00pm observing the Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca) that has been spotted at Frenchman's Bay, Pickering.
The Owl was located on the ice in the middle of the bay. I have posted several of our pictures along with some of the video I filmed at: http://frametoframe.ca/snowy-owl-sighti ... io-canada/ (http://frametoframe.ca/snowy-owl-sighting-frenchmans-bay-ontario-canada/)
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Nice pic. I went there today but had no luck...seems like there was too much human activity on the ice today, including a couple of skaters, some hockey players and ice fishers. I heard it was there at 11am but I got there around noon. In fact in general the whole bay appeared quite stale...very few birds around...even the Canada Geese were mostly absent.
Oh well, hopefully better luck next time.
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Very nice photo essay!
I passed by twice today.
First at 11:30, no luck, but I too heard that it was out on the ice til about 11.
The second time was at 2:30 and we found the snowie perched on one of the poles in the open water area of the bay.
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I passed by today at 5pm and there it was in the middle of the ice only for a couple of minutes. Then it flew to some trees on the other side of the bay. A local fellow birder had a good scope with her and she spotted it in the trees. We jumped in our cars to go around the bay and try to get closer. I followed her because she knew where to go. Once we got there, it was too late as it had flow away. But a few minutes later she spotted it again, it was back on the ice...but a bit further North and East than usual. I decided to venture out onto the ice to see how close I could to get a good picture. It may have seemed risky but there were other people on the ice (fishermen) so I wasn't too worried. I got close enough to take pictures that prove it's a Snowy Owl but not pictures to be proud of. For my 36x zoom it was still too far away.
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Great pictures, I got a couple last week in the snowstorm, but had no luck finding the owl when the weather was nice. I will have to go back and have another look, but I am too nervous about going out on the ice. Maybe time to go buy an even bigger lens. I was thinking of going to Presquille on Wednesday, but will have to keep an eye on the weather. It's a shame when work starts to get in the way of my personal life.