Day 10, Rose-breasted Grosbeak female

The last five days, we have been in a deep freeze. Any routine birding wallks have been cancelled day after day - in fact, tomorrow will be the sixth day in a row - and I'm not sure that this has ever happened before. A nasty shock after enjoying so many milder winter days for quite some time this winter. I actually went out of the house this evening, the first time in about a week! Was it cold! A friend gave a very interesting, excellent talk and slide show of his Big Year of birding in Alberta in 2018. He and his wife, plus several supportive friends on some of the trips, decided to find as many birds as they could, but only for their own interest, not for any sense of competition. They succeeded in finding 304 bird species in our province in one year, which was very impressive.

Normally, I don't post a string of photos that are all birds and kind of similar. However, I didn't want to post these birds in between the photos I will eventually post, of the dry-dock event. Maybe another 10 or so bird photos tomorrow and then I can get to the boats. The 12 photos I posted tonight were all taken on 16 May 2018, Day 10 of our two-week trip to Ontario and Quebec in May 2018. All these photos were taken in the morning, after a local walk along the cliffs overlooking Tadoussac. After our walk, we spent a little time watching and photographing some of the birds that visited our friend's garden. We also had lunch, ready for driving down to the dry dock. This was going to be a big day for the people of Tadoussac, as it was going to be High Tide, which happens twice a year, and the water was going to gradually overflow the entrance and flood the dry dock. Everyone was busy making final preparations for this event, and everyone was eager to see whose boat would be the first one to become afloat and make it out of the dock into open water. One of Anne B's brothers and his wife had a small boat and it was just about at the furthest point of the dry dock. Slowly, the water rose, and after maybe two hours (?) Alan and Jane's boat was ready to sail out, making them the winners. Photos to be posted tomorrow or the next day. It felt so good to see a small community come together in this unusual, friendly contest.

While we were waiting for the tide to be at its highest, we had fun watching a beautiful little Magnolia Warbler feeding frantically on the ground, not far from our feet. All the birds who migrate had only just arrived on the coast, after flying across a huge body of water. They were exhausted and so hungry. Same thing at Point Pelee, Ontario, the week before.