Waterfowl at Mountsberg were primarily limited to Canada Geese (with a few distant hoodies thrown in). Golden- and Ruby-crowned Kinglets were numerous. Before I left, I made my obligatory stop at the raptor cages for a few minutes with the male Kestrel.

There’s not much daylight left this late in the year by the time I get home from work. I spent a few evenings at the old alma mater trying to get a decent look at the flocks of White-throated Sparrows as they circled the ponds at dusk.

Unseasonably hot, muggy weather brought heavy fog to Colpoy’s Bay this Thanksgiving weekend. The loons had appeared, the adults in varying stages of moult and the young birds trailing their elders. Some great views of these birds through the scope as they drifted by in the morning mist.

There was very little migrant activity in this humid weather. At Bruce Caves near Oxenden I spent an hour in an eerily silent wood before spying a small flock of Hermit Thrushes in a tangle of branches. Back at the head of the trail, a few warblers, kinglets and creepers foraged in the treetops while sparrows poked about the piles of branches left alongside a swath of cleared woodland. Juvenile Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers — looking smart in their crisp new feathers — chased one another about from tree to tree.