Bronte Harbour

Today I had some field work in Oakville and after we finished up at our nearby site, my colleague Pat and I decided to check out Bronte Harbour to see if we could find a snowy owl that had been reported here the past few days.

When we arrived at the marina I was surprised to see so much open water!  There was a ton of ducks everywhere including redhead, long-tailed duck, greater scaup, common goldeneye, bufflehead, gadwall, red-breasted merganser and white-winged scotor!  I managed to get a few record shots.  Please forgive the quality, most shots were taken at the limit of my zoom and are heavily cropped.

Long-tailed Duck

Redhead

White-winged Scotor

Mute Swan.  A gross non-native species, but pretty nonetheless.

After watching the ducks for a while I scanned the break wall and picked out a gray lump, which turned out to be a snowy owl! It was very dark and likely is a juvenile bird.

Trust me when I tell you that this lump is a snowy owl.  It was very far away.

We turned and headed back to the truck and had a Peregrine Falcon fly right over our head! A great ending to the day!

As we were about to get in the truck, a mink ran down the embankment towards the water and I snapped a few pictures and a short video.  Cute little guy!