A photo essay from Algonquin Park
Algonquin Provincial Park is one of the finest places in North America to see winter birds, those boreal species that rarely come down to more southerly locations. Situated in central Ontario, the park is a three-hour drive north of Toronto and about the same distance west from Ottawa, Canada’s capital city.
I spent two days in Algonquin near the end of January to photograph birds that, most winters, I can’t find in Toronto, my home town. These included different types of finches, crossbills, and grosbeaks, as well as certain species of grouse and jays. Our main target bird was the beautiful but uncommon and retiring Black-backed Woodpecker, whose back has the color intensity and the shine of buffed black shoe polish. We were hoping to see a male, which bears a yellow badge on the forehead, a feature that the female lacks. The Black-backed is one of the few woodpeckers that only has three toes instead of the standard four. Altogether, an intriguing package of a bird.
We started the day by driving along Highway 60, the paved road that intersects the park from west to east. We pulled to the side and stopped whenever we noticed a flock of birds, either on the road or in the nearby evergreens. In the morning, finches and sparrows tend to congregate along the roadside not just to feed on seeds and road salt but also…
