Unexpected Encounter at Leslie St Spit

The temperature’s been inching up over the past few days so I took another gamble with Leslie St Spit to see if the melt had coaxed back any overwintering hooded mergansers.

It was a mild but wet day, some low fog getting swept around that kept threatening to become precipitation.

On the long road into the park, bordered on one side by a marina, I thought I saw at least some female hooded mergansers hanging out in occasional pools tucked between docks and ice.

Should've given it a few more days...

But none were close enough to get any good shots, and they were skittish enough that even approaching the far shore caused them to take wing. I learned pretty quickly that it’d be an exercise in frustration to keep moving down the docks to each open pool, only have its occupants fly off before I could even plonk my tripod down - exercise in frustration on both sides, I imagine.

In fact the whole loop I took myself on was pretty bereft. The milder weather was not resulting in any more noticeable activity. A few chickadees flitted between bushes and I grabbed what shots I could, but by the time I was rounding the shore of cell 3 I was ready to call the whole thing a wash.

That, naturally, is when serendipity struck. Out of the corner of my eye I caught something on the ground: almost impossibly, a great horned owl, casually hanging out barely six feet off the path.

He looked just as surprised to see me as I did him. As for why he was grounded, who knows? No obvious sign of distress. Maybe he had just made a successful catch and had a rodent under his claws, I couldn’t tell. But I wanted to give him his space. I grabbed a couple of shots from the far side of the path as he eyed me warily but didn’t move and inch, and then I left him to whatever it was he was doing.

Technically I only have a half-baked idea for an episode on owls going, but one does not turn one’s nose up at the opportunity when a great horned owl plants itself for a perfect close-up.

That surprise encounter suddenly justified the whole trip around quite out of the blue. I went on to the floating bridge on cell 3 to check for any hooded mergansers on the reliably open water there, but it was just the usual contingent of long-tailed ducks, buffleheads and trumpeter swans. Disappointing, but post-great horned owl, I simply wasn’t allowed to complain.

I actually tried High Park for mergansers again the next day, still hoping the weather had opened up more water for them. The extreme north end of grenadier pond did have a little more flow, but it was absolutely dominated by mallards and only mallards. And as I made my way south it was still iced over completely - just slightly wetter ice. 

So, sometime in the next few days I’ll try another supposed hotspot at Ashbridges bay. I have a sinking feeling that the ones I almost accidentally caught on my first seasonal visit to Leslie St Spit were on their way south, and that it’s going to be a lot harder to track any of them down until spring. But I have heard over and over that there are a few who will overwinter here… if I can find them.