Ducks, GHO's, Merlin Red fox (20140321) An annual trek with Dan down to Frank Lake.

Well the spring Equinox is a time for Dan and I to head down to Frank Lake to see how the migrations are going. With our extended winter and recent cold spell we were interested in what we would find. The lake itself did not disappoint but the sun, light, and clouds were not cooperating. We found thousands if not tens of thousands of pintails.

We were also please to find hundreds or thousands of Scaups. Here are a small group.

A typical year round bird are the Goldeneyes, but they were abundant at the lake, so it looks like they too are coming back to the north.

I managed another attempt at a passing group of Pintails.

The perennial favourite Mallards were also there in the multitudes.

There were also probably 10-2000 Canada geese present as well. I won't post any geese shots at this time, perhaps later. We left the lake and decide to take a little cruise for some owls. We were planning to visit a couple of the nests that I knew of for updates. First on the rounds was this little sweetheart.

The second nest we visited has been abandoned, as near as we can tell the recent weather was too much and the nest has been partially destroyed.  My third nest did still have Mom warming the eggs.

On one of our roads home Dan spotted this Merlin with her fresh kill. We didn't actually see the strike.

She popped up onto this telephone pole, and posed for us beautifully.

She just swung over to an Aspen tree for another perch. She was just gorgeous.

As we left, we watched her return to her lunch, and we were very glad that we had not disturbed her and taken her from her meal. As we were getting near to home I took Dan a little side route, and we got slightly waylaid. Back on the road and Dan spied this red fox.

He was headed to the other side of the road and nothing was going to stop him, not even a "No Trespassing" sign!

It made for a super close out to a great day. I hope you enjoyed, and get the urge to come out for a track of your own!
Turbo