The local birdies are busy searching for mates and the migrants are passing through on their way north …  (  I hope that they are all legal and have their papers in order!)

 

This group of Common Grackles were talking and ruffling their feathers at each other.

This lone Mallard played peek-a-boo with me …

Wary Bufflehead a long ways away.

 

A huge ( >50 birds) flock of these migrants were chattering away in the tops of the Tamarack trees in a swamp along Hwy 529.

 

They were constantly chattering and moving.

This is what they sounded like: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Cedar_Waxwing/sounds

This old guy was watching me from above a deer carcass.

This  Northern Flicker was searching for grubs at the very elegant Moose Lake Trading Post, just north of Pte au Baril.

So was this Robin…

This lone Sandhill Crane was in Dave and Irene’s hayfield, turning over the remnants of cut hay.

A lone Killdeer in the distance:

Ruffed Grouse is filling its crop with poplar buds:

OK, which sparrow has the bi-colored beak?   Yes!  This one.

An example of our smallest falcon, this female migrant just penetrated our southern border seeking to find a mate in Canada.

Obviously coy, she shows me both profiles and a full frontal.

On the same day I saw these two drakes avoiding me at the Naiscoot River landing.

And finally, yesterday, I saw this Northern Flicker pulling grubs out of the Jamot Lumber Road.

Yesterday I saw this event for the first time this year.  First pollinator on first Trout Lily:

That means that the warblers and other insectivores will soon be here.

In the meantime with a lot of practice and perseverance I would like to be able to do this sort of work.