This Sunday I woke up early and walked down to the Terwilligar Dog Park to start the Christmas bird count. My first decent bird was a group of three Common Redpolls foraging with a group of Pine Siskins near the river. I continued to the Anthony Henday bridge were I saw a adult Bald Eagle soaring above the bridge. After I was satisfied that I had seen most of the birds that could be spotted in that area, I walked to my next spot. Not seeing much aside from the common backyard birds, However things started to turn around when I found a tree that had been recently debarked by a Black-backed Woodpecker. I spent the next hour and a half scouring the spruce trees in search of this uncommon woodpecker but no luck. I eventually settled down to watch some chickadees foraging in some low shrubs when I noticed a flash of brown in the corner of my eye. I looked to the ground to see a small shrew run into its burrow. By the time I had spotted the shrew, the sun had set so I decided I would come back in the morning with my camera to photograph it. As I walked home I was delighted to see a Coopers Hawk fly over bringing my Christmas bird count tally to 14 species.f
I returned in the morning and I set up in-front of the many burrow entrances in the hopes that the Shrew would venture out for a photograph. After two hours trying to photograph him, I eventually got a shot I could accept and called it a day.
To put this into perspective, this shrew is about 2.5 cms. long and only comes out of one of its 25 burrow entrances of about half a second before scurrying back into the snow.
And a Partridge on a snow bank!
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