11am today at Coyoye Pond : 1 Greater white-fronted goose, 2 Cackling geese, 1 male Ring-necked duck + 1 male Pintail + a pair of Common mergansers + large numbers of Mallards including one female leucistic female and Black ducks; all in company with a steady stream of Canadas coming and going and a loafing, mixed flock of a 1000 gulls, mostly Ring-billed but with Herring gulls, juvenile Glaucous, Iceland and Great black-backed gulls in the mob. Also : 6, 1st summer Trumpeter swans without wing tags or leg rings, came and went yesterday as did 3 Hooded mergansers. Last week, between 5 and 10 thousand Herring gulls were staged in fields on the Markham Bypass - minor numbers of Ring-billed gulls were also in the flock. Horned larks showed up last week while Canadas in the thousands, Mallards in the hundreds and solitary Red-tailed hawks have been constant visitors throughout the winter.
Coyote pond lies on the North side of Hwy 7, 1km East of the Ninth Line in Markham - if entering its precincts - beware of gumbo, clay that is, as the frost is out of the ground.
