Twelve birders braved the very wet weather forecast to join trip leaders Harvey Dueck and Michelle Baudais at Trout Lake on October 14th, including a visitor from Ottawa who happened upon our gathering on the South Beach and asked if he could join.

We started by focusing on the birds on the water: more than 80 Canada Geese, about 40 Wood Ducks, and a few Mallards.  After a Downy Woodpecker flew into the willow behind us, we started moving counterclockwise around the fringes of the lake.  Alas, this is when the rain began to fall.  We managed to spot some Song Sparrows and Golden-crowned Sparrows, as well as a few Black-capped Chickadees and Bushtits at the south end of the lake, but by the time we rounded the corner to the east edge it started to pour.  The best we could do as we walked the eastern side of the lake was to listen to some kinglets sheltering in the trees and point out the spots where birds tend to show themselves in more clement weather.

When we reached the north end beach we got a great view of a feeding coot just off the dock, and as we rounded the north end of the lake we spotted a few more distant Northern Shovellers feeding with their heads down.  Here we also got a real highlight — a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk perched at the top of a bare tree. 

Birding wasn’t quite over for the morning: as we walked along the west side of the lake we spotted a number of sparrows and practised our sparrow identification skills.  

Overall we had a pleasant, if wet, Thanksgiving morning, seeing a total of 17 species of bird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S198892136