The capital letters used below are for quick scanning, not for dramatic effect. A good day of birding started with a large female COOPER'S HAWK sitting across from my van while I was picking up coffee at a drive-thru in south Newmarket this morning. As unlikely a setting as it is, I have observed Cooper's here before (behind the Country Style Donuts south of Mulock and Yonge). When the pick-up window opened, the bird flew away, going west along the strip of trees behind the Dominion store. Mike Vandentillaart and I then went on a long winter hike between Bathurst and Dufferin Avenues, just north of Green Lane. There was not a lot of bird activity, but we did observe one RUFFED GROUSE (that flew right over my head) and one GREAT GRAY OWL (hunting in the hydro cut about 1 km east of Dufferin). Home from my "official birding" at noon, I wisely kept my binoculars in the car when my wife and I drove out to Kleinburg to pick up our daughter at a friend's house. Approaching Keele Avenue from the east, I had very good looks at an adult NORTHERN SHRIKE on the south side of 19th Sideroad (which is the western extension of Mulock Road out of Newmarket). On Weston Road, a few kms south of the Lloydtown/Aurora Road, I observed my second GREAT GRAY OWL of the day, sitting on the west side of the road only a few metres north of the 17th Sideroad. Just west of Kleinburg there was a light-phase ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK on the south side of the Nashville Road, less than a km east of Hwy. 50. Leaving Kleinburg to return to Newmarket, I took the Stegman's Mill Road east from Islington Avenue. This becomes Teston Road when you cross the river and ascend from Bindertwine Park. At the corner of Teston and Kipling, where there is an enclave of large homes on the southeast side, I saw another owl in a tree right there at the roadside (SE side). Based on its conspicuous perch, I assumed it was another Great Gray, but the size and colouration seemed "off", so I pulled over despite my wife's reminder that "we can't stop for every bird". I'm glad I did, however, because, to my pleasant surprise, it turned out to be a BARRED OWL. Once my wife and daughter had a good look at the dark eyes and yellow beak, they forgave my apparent self-indulgence. Nearing Newmarket I flattered my family by saying they were bringing me good look, then turned north on Keele Street from Hwy. 9, making my way over to King Street in the Holland Marsh flats to check for the Snowy Owl I saw there yesterday. I did not find it, but did see my third GREAT GRAY OWL of the day when I turned south on Dufferin Street to return to Hwy. 9. It was perched at the southern margin of a line of trees that delineates the property at # 18705 on the east side of the road. Ron Fleming, Newmarket
