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Fox Sparrow at Humber Bay: March 26, 2020

I have a friend who informs me that I take a lot of “foliage” photos.True enough and here are a few from this morning:

Wayfaring Tree (Viburnum lantana)
Black alder (Alnus glutinosa)
Cottonwood (Populus deltoides)
Tartarian Honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica)
Trembling Aspen (Populus tremuloides)
Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum)

The last few days I have been hiking far from the lake but today (11 degrees and cloudy), I decided to do some lakeside bird watching and see how the spring migration is progressing.

Two of the most common birds at Humber Bay at the moment are these:

Red-winged Blackbird (male)
Red-winged Blackbird (male)
Red-winged Blackbird (male)
Red-winged Blackbird (male)
Red-winged Blackbird (male)
Song Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Song Sparrow

Some of the ducks which soon will be heading north are still here:

Long-tailed Duck (male)
Red-breasted Merganser (female)
Red-breasted Merganser (male)
Red-breasted Mergansers
Common Goldeneyes

Other birds that I was able to photograph:

European Starlings
American Robin
Mallard (male)
Mallard (female)
Common Grackles

Red-necked Grebes are very vocal now and a few of the smaller Horned Grebes were about:

Horned Grebe

I also had my first Tree Swallow of the spring overhead. There was also a migrating Fox Sparrow on its way to Newfoundland or the far north.

Fox Sparrow

The Fox Sparrow has a much redder appearance than the Song Sparrow:

Song Sparrow
Fox Sparrow

Park scenes:

There was an exciting visitor in my yard today and I took many photos:

Carolina Wren
Carolina Wren

I prepared a post of 15 photos with text by my grandfather; Dr. J. Murray Speirs, which is now on line: https://mileshearn.com/2020/03/26/carolina-wren-dr-j-murray-speirs/

NATURE POETRY

Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins.
Which of the two has the grander view?   – Victor Hugo (1802–85)

Miles Hearn

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