On a day off this week, I went to the Mud lake conservation area in Ottawa's west end for some early spring birding. I got an osprey building its nest (nearby, not at Mud Lake), as well as the Black Cormorant flying overhead, a couple of ganders engaged in territorial fighting and a Bohemian Waxwing, part of a huge flock of Waxwings that suddenly took flight when a hawk drifted by.