From Ron Kemp
This morning I went to the park with high hopes. After spending some time there and taking pictures of the usual birds I decided to take my wife's advice and took a long drive through the countryside. I drove for what seems like forever and saw nothing.Finally when had all but given up came across a bunch of Redpolls and was able to get some shots off. started to loop back towards home when thought saw what looked like a small bird in a tree( this happens often and in a lot of cases ends up being leafs that have not fallen or a wasp nest. I jokingly refer to these as tree birds. I also sometimes come across rock birds and shadow birds Lol).
When I pulled out the long lens I was surprised to see it actually was a bird. In fact for the second weekend in a row I have come across a lifer for me. Last weekend was an owl as well. Now for some reason after seeing it and believing it to be a Boreal owl I double checked in the Merlin App and it stated Northern saw whet Owl. As I have never seen either am at a loss and am going to go with Boreal, if I am wrong could someone correct me please.
It is indeed a beautiful Boreal!
I didn't know what a Redpoll was, but it's a type of finch that lives pretty fast up north. Here's a photo:
Oh yes, it wasn't the angry turtle, but there was another one I came up on too quickly. Thankfully I was off to the side of it and avoided getting turtle sprayed as I got it up onto the other side of the road.
mine was a water and halfway across and sprayed like a fire hose the whole rest of the way.
The do have a deceptively large reserve of pee! 😅