My Birding Weekend (Kingfisher, RB Woodpecker)

[Rotarran]

Well I had a nice weekend birding.  

I went to Cosmo's suggested hotspot for finding the Red Bellied Woodpecker at Morningside early Saturday morning, cleaned the snow off the feeder roof and smacked some peanut butter (chunky) on that sucker and no sooner did I get back to my car and the Red Belly was all over the peanut butter.  So I stuck around a bit and took quite a few pics...but many are from far away due to the thickness of the snow...I couldn't get closer by car and by foot the bird got easily spooked.  Still this one turned out ok:


Later in the day I headed over to Leslie Spit to see what's going on there.  It's a vast park and maybe a bit hard to handle but there are things to be seen there.  I saw Red Polls (most likely all Common), a Kestrel and a variety of ducks.  Here are some pics:

This has got to be one of my best pictures ever of what's probably a Common Redpoll...but if you think it's a Hoary, I'd happily be wrong:


Kestrel with recently caught mouse.  Actually I noticed him swooping down to catch the mouse, then took pics of him perched on a tree top with its prey firmly clutched in its claws:


Today I headed over to Lambton Woods to see what all the hoopla was about regarding the Euro Greenfinch.  It was spotted at 10:15 but I got there too late for that and never did see it, but I'm ok with that.  To me it is a non-native species and if it's an escaped bird, it hardly even qualifies as a wild species.  

Speaking of European birds, here's an example that's firmly part of our landscape now: the European Starling.  I know it's not the most popular bird but I liked this picture...they're actually quite intricately decorated.  Its breast reminds me of a starfield making the name Starling rather fitting:


But here's my catch of the probably the entire weekend: a winter Belted Kingfisher.  Love this bird, so much character...causes all this racket and commotion...not a shy bird, I'll tell you that much.  I think she's a female.  Tried to get better pics but I was verging on being a nuisance to the bird so I decided what I had was good enough:


I also saw the White Throated Sparrow but the picture is only good enough for ID purposes not for show.

[amack1163]

Good for you!! A lot of good stuff there. Interestingly, I was at Bluffers Park this Saturday and saw a Belted Kingfisher there as well.

[Palo]

Very nice. I see you made it down to Lambton Woods... Excellent!

[cosmo3667]

nice catch all around glad you got the Red Bellied Woodpecker.

[Rotarran]

Palo - yeah Lambton Woods is an interesting park.  The feeder provides quite an interesting opportunity for quite a few birds...if you're patient.  I also saw a Sharp-Shinned Hawk but was unable to take a pic in time.  Will probably head back there before the end of winter.

cosmo - Thank you...yeah I had a much better plan on Saturday...get there very early (arrived at around 8:15am) and come armed with PB and wow he must have been waiting because he was there instantly.  I could have left 8:30am with enough pics to be satisfied with.  You know what they say, the early bird gets the Red Bellied Woodpecker.  And the early Red Bellied Woodpecker gets the peanut butter.