Blog entry from other site from June 6, 2011

Today, a group of Ottawa birdphotographers drove to Montreal’s, L’ile-Bizard. We were visiting Parc-Nature Du Bois-De-L’ile-Bizard, we’d heard that many Least Bitterns had been seen and photographed recently.

We arrived at 7 am, once again Environment Canada got it wrong, instead of partly sunny, we had a cloudy, windy, drizzly morning.

We walked out to the boardwalk and WOW…a lovely boardwalk 8 feet wide right through the middle of the swamp.

First off we saw at least 3 Green Herons flying, Moorhens swimming and Black Terns on their nests, Marsh Wrens singing everywhere….we then saw our first Least Bittern walking through the reeds. A brief look was all we got. Then for 2 hours we waited, without a glmpse. We saw a single bird flying, in the direction the reeds closest, to the boardwalk. It landed on the edge and proceeded to hunt for fish, very calm and couldn’t have cared less we were there. for the next hour it weaved its way through the reed edges giving us all great views and opportunity to photograph it…the sun even came, out for a bit, improving the light .

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Probably my best photo of a Bullfrog ever….go figure

Another highlight for us was a juvenile Pied-billed Grebe, that came out for a swim with Mom…

Thanks Mike, Bill and Wade was a great day..