The Road to Sudbury and Back

This past Friday I began to make my way up to Sudbury to visit the boyfriend for a Ice Fishing weekend.  I am usually really good at finding my way around places without the use of a GPS (my brain tends to have a pretty good working internal compass!), however this day...I got lost.  Making my way to Highway 7 towards Lindsay I took a "wrong" road and instead realized I was taking the same route I did all summer to get to my gravel pits.  Going the wrong direction was likely the best mistake I'd make all summer!

While trying to gather my bearings to get back to the Highway, I was chatting with my mother over Bluetooth.  We were having a lovely conversation up until the point I started screaming "OH MY GOODNESS THAT'S NOT A HAWK TAIL!!!!".   I immediately turned my car around and drive a few meters back to see a beautiful Barred Owl sitting in the closest tree to the road!  What are the chances!  Luckily my camera was in the front seat with me so I was able to get out easily and take a few shots of it (below).

The owl let me watch it for a few minutes before it decided to fly off into the woodlot.  I noticed it suddenly turn and come back towards me, when it suddenly landed on the ground.  Of course his landing shot turned out all blurry (!!) but it managed to quickly and ever so silently land on an unexpected vole.  It stayed on the ground for a little while before finally taking off into the woodlot for good to devour its meal.  I finally made my way back to the car to hear, "You found a bird didn't you?" over the bluetooth speakers.  You know your mother knows you well when....

While in Sudbury we didn't get to do much birding, but we did do a nice day of ice fishing out on Windy Lake!   The day was fairly slow up until dusk when we caught two Ling or "Dogfish".  It was definitely one of the strangest fist I've ever seen!  It's always so cool to see a "city" basically out in the middle of a lake, all the huts, skidoos, trucks, it's a fun and somewhat strange experience. Especially when you can hear the ice pressure building up and popping under you!  Just before leaving a small flock of Snow Buntings flew by up (yes...in the middle of a lake!), which was so exciting for me because I hadn't seen them yet this season!  Koodos for the boy on spotting them!

The drive back to Peterborough was a fairly uneventful one.  The most exciting bird I spotted would have to be two fully mature Bald Eagles circling over the Parry Sound area (a new bird for the year for me!).

Hopefully I'll be able to get out a few more times before the winter comes to a close and see some other favourites of mine (like more Snowys!).

Happy Naturing!