January 8, 5:00am the alarm went off and we were out of bed and the house by 5:33. The Limpkin, a species rarely seen north of Florida was re-found in Wheatley Provincial Park after not being seen since December 26. A birder used a thermal imaging scope to find it late January 7. This is one of those mega rarities that birders hope for in their Big Years. We were first to arrive and did not see the bird up the creek from the road and were not sure how far to walk in – we didn’t want to flush the bird, but within minutes birders arrived and Rick (from Pelee) quickly showed us where he had seen it the night before and THERE IT WAS!

It looked in pretty good shape and after a few minutes to take some pics and video we left it, not wanting to over stress it. There were bound to be more birders arriving all day to see this mega rarity. A fantastic start to Week 2! The rest of the week slowed down with Jerry having some minor surgery and some nasty weather keeping us close to home for a few days. We managed to add 14 more species this week including our first two owls, a Short-eared Owl hunting at dusk in Haldimand and a Long-eared Owl on a private site in Brant County.

There are 10 Owl species in Ontario with 7 seen regularly in the south and 3 seen in the North. Most years we will just have Heard Only reports of some of the owls but this year we would like to get pics so we will be trying to see as many of the species as possible. Owls are much sought after by birders and photographers and there has been much discussion as to how we keep the birds safe from the few unethical people who do not consider the birds when viewing and photographing. Many owls are considered sensitive species now to protect them and the sightings just do not show up publicly for anyone to see, our Discord chat group does not allow owl postings, nor does Ontario Birds FBook group. Seeing an owl is a fantastic experience but we make sure to keep a long distance, spend as little time as possible and do not divulge locations especially of nesting owls until after the breeding season. Our focus for the next week is more owls, a few ducks we are missing and then I think the end of the week, weather permitting, we will be heading north for our first trip to Algonquin. I expect that we will only add 1-2 birds per day going forward until Algonquin. My goal is to get to 100 species by the end of February and I should hit that target with the Northern trip and the local owls and ducks.

Week 2 1 rarity, 2 owl species, 14 species added 91(E) 92(J) species seen

UPDATE! On Sunday January 14 a few people captured the Limpkin and took it to a Wildlife Rehab. There are mixed opinions, those birders that believe in “nature taking its course” and those birders that believe we should try to “save” everything. It was no doubt in stress with the extreme cold and its food source (snails) frozen over and would have likely perished in the next day or so but it likely faces a stressful rehab of trying to be force fed and end up having to be euthanized in care. No easy answers…I’ll keep you posted if I hear more.