Miscellaneous

Lame title, eh? Well, I have a bunch of stuff so I figured I'd put it all into a single blog post.

Last weekend we were visiting Erica's parents and as has become quite normal recently, we found some Gray Partridges right near the farm.  Erica's parents have even seen them right up on their lawn this winter.  Anyways, I had my best looks ever at this species:

Note the black belly on the male

 

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Last week while out at lunch with some colleagues, we noticed a huge emergence of stoneflies (Plecoptera).  This was happening all along the Otonabee River in Peterborough.  We grabbed a specimen and kept birding when we eventually noticed some Bohemian Waxwings enjoying the feast (fruit has become fairly scarce here).  I checked Birds of North America Online and found a specific reference to Bohemian Waxwings eating stoneflies- go figure!  Rob eventually ID'd our specimen as a species of Allocapnia (Plecoptera: Capniidae):

Small Winter Stonefly (Capniidae): Allocapnia spp

On the same outing we had nice looks at both male and female hybrid Mallard x American Black Duck:

male ABDU x MALL hybrid

female ABDU x MALL hybrid

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And finally, Erica and I got to watch a Sharp-shinned Hawk make a kill (Common Redpoll) from our feeder area last week. I got some photos and video of it enjoying the snack:

In this photo you can see the dark red eye, a trait of (adult) male Sharp-shinned Hawks; although in real life the size made it instantly clear that this was a male.