Despite the intense fog, Michelle and I left home several hours before sunup yesterday. We spent several hours in the morning hiking northeast of Clyde. Ruffed Grouse, a couple of Rough-legged Hawks, a nice encounter with a Northern Hawk-owl, and a Northern Shrike were highlights of this portion. Wakamao Lake was completely invisible, so we headed up to Cross Lake Provincial Park.
Another Northern Hawk-owl on Highway 801 north of the Long Island Lake turnoff was nice to see. Looks like we may have a pretty good year for owls.
There were Ruffed Grouse on the road into the park and a pair of Rough-legged Hawks fighting over an unfortunate rodent of some sort at the fish ladder. Three American Robins bathing and feeding at the boat launch roundabout were a bit of a surprise. The park itself was fairly quiet, only marking two Boreal Chickadees (no Black-capped at all) and a couple of Gray Jays. There were however at least 3 American Three-toed Woodpeckers foraging between the boat launch and the viewing platform.
Birds on the lake included many of the usual suspects, but highlights here were over 30 White-winged Scoters, three grebe species, Barrow's Goldeneye. No loons visible at all.
On our way home, we took Cross Lake road west to highway 44 where we found a single dead Spruce Grouse (still warm, but missing it's head) and a very unexpected Golden Eagle perched atop a spruce in a farm yard. We stopped and scoped this guy for quite a while, since I we expect it may well be our last Golden Eagle for quite a while.
One Tundra Swan found along highway 44 just north of Westlock had an excessive amount of yellow on its bill, probably the most extensive we've ever seen.
Finally, just north of the Highway 37 / Highway 44 intersection, we had a very nice dark morph Rough-legged Hawk perched on a power pole.
Happy birding!
Michelle and Curtis Manly
Spruce Grove
Location: Cross Lake PP
Observation date: 10/20/09
Notes: 2-7 degrees celcius<br>calm, mixed sun/cloud<br>1 km on foot,
8 km in/out of park<br>
Number of species: 27
Canada Goose 26
Gadwall 32
Mallard 45
Northern Shoveler 45
Redhead 1
Ring-necked Duck 3
Lesser Scaup 8
White-winged Scoter 31
Bufflehead 79
Common Goldeneye 300
Barrow's Goldeneye 1
waterfowl sp. 300
Ruffed Grouse 3
Red-necked Grebe 1
Eared Grebe 1
Western Grebe 4
Bald Eagle 1
Rough-legged Hawk 2
American Coot 2
Bonaparte's Gull 2
Ring-billed Gull 2
gull sp. 8
American Three-toed Woodpecker 3
Gray Jay 4
Common Raven 3
Boreal Chickadee 2
Red-breasted Nuthatch 2
American Robin 3
Snow Bunting 2
This report was generated automatically by eBird
v2(http://ebird.org/canada <http://ebird.org/canada> )
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