Greetings all, The last two days have been tough on birds at Presqu'ile. Dead birds continue to wash up - some from presumed botulism, and some are cripples from yesterdays hunting on the islands.
Yesterday walking from Beach 1-4 I found: 4 Horned Grebe 2 Red-necked Grebe 1 Mallard 2 Redhead (1 barely able to fly but wounded) 9 Greater Scaup 1 Ww Scoter 1 Red-breasted Merganser 1 Sanderling 1 Black-bellied Plover 1 Semi Plover 6 Rb Gull 1 Herring Gull The grebes, shorebirds and gulls were all thin and wasted, suggesting illness whereas the waterfowl were fat. Some of the ducks had snapped wings and or legs and were obviously cripples that had not been retrieved, probably due to the very high surf (which of course begs the question as to why they were shooting them in the first place if they couldn't retrieved them). Today on Gull Island there were more new dead birds: 2 Com Loon 2 H Grebe 4 Dc Cormorant 1 Greater Scaup (cripple - not sick) 1 GBB Gull 1 Black-b Plover 1 Sanderling Live shorebirds were restricted to Gull Island and included 1 Golden Plover, 9 Black-bellied, 38 Dunlin, 2 Pectoral and 17 Sanderling. The beach was a dead loss with a dozen kite driven surfboards and carts flushing everything off the beach, as well as a few dogs running around. Making matters worse, someone (likely park staff) has been driving their ATV's up the natural beach. Oh for the days when Ontario Parks actually cared about wildlife in parks. Cheers, Doug McRae
