Things With Wings

We started our birding day at the Lake Huron Shoreline yesterday.  Lots of ice sculptures from the wave action were visible while gulls flew past.

A Northern Harrier made a "fly by" while birding along Stewart Road north of Wallaceburg.

8 Sandhill Cranes were spotted south of Port Lambton.  We saw an additional 70 Cranes on a nearby side road that were too far back for photos.

A Red-tailed Hawk soared above Stewart Line.

"U.S. Air Force" was clearly visible on this "Thing With Wings" which entered Canadian Air Space 4 times. It did a turnaround near Kimball Side Road on each pass.

While driving along the St. Clair River we found a decorated Christmas Tree

 with 8 Bufflehead swimming past!

Winter Things

Despite the cooler temperatures, when the sun is shining I can't resist bundling up and heading outside. Finding birds at this time of year has proven (this week) to be difficult. Instead, I photographed some interesting seeds and dried flower stalks.

An intricate pattern is visible inside many seed heads. 

Some plants are still holding onto their fluffy seeds.

 Milkweed has definitely been letting seeds fly on these windy days.

We found signs of insects including this egg case for the Praying Mantid. Approximately 100 tiny Mantids will emerge in early June, identical in appearance to the parents.

A beautiful Cecropia Moth Cocoon was exposed to the sun at Henderson C.A.  

I will keep an eye on the location in hopes of finding another pair of mating moths next spring as we saw last June (below).

Lots of Goldenrod Ball Galls housing fly larva can be found. The larva are a good food source for hungry woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees in the winter when other food is scarce.