On Tuesday I saw my first of the year Brown-headed Cowbird briefly visit the feeders at my house. The following days after that we had some light flurries of snow which brought even more birds to feeders, expecially blackbirds! At times it seemed like there were at least 100 individual blackbirds in the trees and at the feeder, it was quite neat to see. These blackbirds consisted of Common Grackles, Red-winged Blackbirds, and a small group of Brown-headed Cowbirds; was hoping for a Rusty Blackbird with them.
On Thursday, my mom and I drove over to Oakville Harbour to check out the gulls for rare things as places like Ohio, New York & Michigan have had quite the luck with them (GWGU, SBAG, COGU, CAGU). There was a few hundred Ring-billed Gulls with a few Herring Gulls peppered in.
We then scanned the lake where I was surprised to count eight Red-necked Grebes! These were recently arrived migrants and a good number of them too. Soon (April) we'll start to see them in the hundreds, looking for a Western Grebe mixed in.
After that stop, my mom had the idea to check Bronte Provincial Park for American Woodcocks. It would be a little early for them to show up now, but there have already been a few heard throughout the province. Also, forecasted for the next day was a bunch of snow so if we were to try, this would be the day. Just as we stepped out of the car at Bronte PP, the very first bird we heard was a woodcock! We heard the fluttering sound of its wings as it quickly flew over the parking lot into a grassy field. It was dark so we could just make out the shape and long bill in flight. As this bird was in the sky, we heard the PEENT! of another one!
Friday was pretty terrible weather, snowing almost all day but that didn't stop the birds from being out. There was again a large number of blackbirds visiting the feeder.
On Saturday, I took part in the West End Lake Ontario (WELO) IBA Survey with my mom and Sarah Richer. This was basically going out and counting waterfoul on the lake between 8am-12pm in an assigned area. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary there, just the usuals.
After finishing up the count, we drove over to Windermere Basin to see if there was anything cool there. We spent an hour and a half there, tallying up 42 species (quite decent for March). Some of the highlights included 2 Peregrine Falcons, a Northern Harrier, 209 Northern Shovelers, an Iceland Gull, and 14 Double-crested Cormorants.
On the way back home, we stopped in Bronte to track down an American Woodcock that had just been found by Mark Jennings. It was an opportunity to photograph a woodcock as they are very rarely ever seen during the day. If a few arrive early and a snowstorm occurs, they will try to find open water to stay warm and to use it as a source of food. When we got there, he was just sitting in a little puddle of water surrounded by deep snow. My mom ended up finding a second one just a few feet away from the original one and I accidentally flushed one while looking for small puddles of open water in the forest. There were a total of at least 3 there that day, pretty neat!
My Sunday was very exciting as I added 5 new species to the HSA Big Year list that day. From 8am-4pm, I was hawkwatching with the president of the Niagara Peninsula Hawkwatch, Keith Dieroff at Beamer CA in Grimsby! My mom also watched with us for a few hours. From 8am-12pm raptor migrants were few and far between, had something like 3 raptors. Luckily there were other birds who kept us company including a Pileated Woodpecker flying by and several cheerful Northern Cardinals singing! At 1pm things started to pick up and soon we had a few small groups of Turkey Vultures migrating over as well as a very nice adult Red-shouldered Hawk. It's still a bit early to see hundreds of raptors migrating in a single day, but it's nice to get out and experience the randomness of raptors flying over you. By 4pm we had seen 15 Turkey Vultures, 1 Red-shouldered Hawk, 6 Red-tailed Hawks, and a Bald Eagle migrating north.
Keith & I then drove around Stoney Creek looking for puddle ducks and sparrows. Keith spotted a nice White-crowned Sparrow along the side of the road with many American Tree Sparrows and Horned Larks. Down the road from there we saw a Sharp-shinned Hawk zip quickly over the car, which we could not relocate.
HSA Year List: 110
Recent Rare Bird Sightings:
Great Cormorant - Continuing; seen on the wave tower in the evening
Bohemian Waxwing - A group of 4 found just south of Guelph. Birders were unable to relocate them the next day (Fred Urie; March 11)
Snow Goose - One seen flying along Lake Ontario (Grace Pitman, Gwyneth Govers; March 11)
No comments:
Post a Comment