Unlike last year, when winter birding was really over by March, February and March 2018 brought snow and cold almost every weekend. Not exactly pleasant weather for searching for birds, but there were a few opportunities to capture images of birds in flight. A Trumpeter Swan duo flew in to join a few others that were resting on the ice on the river in Burnsmead. At the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, a juvenile American Bald Eagle perched in a tree far across the river for least an hour before it finally decided to fly over and show off a little.
On a different weekend, a male Mallard Duck showed off his colours, taking off in full sunlight, greens and purples blazing. Not to be out done, a Pintail duck made an appearance – a first photograph of that breed for me.
Another first, in Carburn Park a male and female Bufflehead swam close enough for me to see their markings properly. These are quite small birds, as ducks go, about the size of a crow, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The male looks black and white from behind, but from the side in sunlight his beautiful colours are very impressive.
In addition to water fowl and birds of prey, there were some smaller birds like American Robins and House Sparrows, doing their best to ignore the snow and frost and pretend that spring had come.
One weekend at the boat launch in Fish Creek Park, several deer came running across the path and through the trees with only one pausing to look at us. I never saw what they were running from, but from the panting, they seemed to have been going for some time.
