Not being able to make Ron Fleming's OFO trip scheduled for the coming
weekend, we headed up to Tiny Marsh yesterday to take advantage of the
weather. A (very) few people were walking the banks of the canal at
Tiny Marsh yesterday, but nobody seemed to have any luck finding the
way-out-of place prothonotary warbler seen on the weekend. There
certainly is plenty of habitat there which mirrors places in Pelee or
Rondeau where this bird is often found.
The trip provided plenty of other good birds, including several pairs
of BLUE-WINGED TEAL, GREEN-WINGED TEAL, and HOODED MERGANSER. Numbers
of RING-NECKED DUCK, LESSER SCAUP were seen. Although no TREE SWALLOWS
were seen in the morning, they were becoming quite numerous by
afternoon. The OSPREY were working on their nest on the platform, and a
female NORTHERN HARRIER was flushed from along the dike trail carrying
prey. A pair of CASPIAN TERNS were hunting successfully. There were
numerous sparrows, including zillions of SONG and SWAMP, but also two
AMERICAN TREE. Only one YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER was seen, but no pine
warblers were heard or seen. There were a number of other species, but
the highlight of the trip was two SANDHILL CRANES which took off from
the field across the street from the main area and spiralled up into
the bright blue sky.
Here are Ron Fleming's directions:
Taking the calculated risk of driving all the way of up to Tiny Marsh
in hopes
of seeing the first Prothonotary Warbler to occur up there in 31 years,
I
sacrificed my last hockey game of the season and dragged a reluctant
birder (my
15-year old son Ryan) out of bed. Fortunately, the bird was right where
it was
last reported, though my son and I and another birder must have
initially
walked right past it at 8:00 this morning.
We bumped into a young birder from Barrie named Scott Watson who had
just
finished walking the full dike loop and, as seven Sandhill Cranes
noisily
passed, he informed us that he had seen the warbler when he first
arrived at
7:00 a.m. We walked back toward the secondary parking area where we had
started
and - sure enough - there was the bird.
It was between 60 - 70 regular walking paces east of the base of the
Trotter
dike, spending most of its time feeding on the north side of the little
canal
that parallels the trail. It did not stray any farther east than the big
section of debris that almost dams the water about 100 paces east of the
parking lot (there is a very long wooden beam that angles eastward from
the
south shore at this point).
We had excellent views of the bird from 8:30 - 9:00 a.m.
On the way up we had a Great Gray Owl sitting by the roadside on County
Rd.
#27, less than a km south of the Horseshoe Valley Rd. (Road #22).
Thanks to Bob
Bowles post yesterday mentioning that there were still several of these
owls in
the area, I had my birding antenna up.
As we left Tiny Marsh we had two Wild Turkeys on the south side of the
Tiny
Flos Townline, about a km before reaching County Rd. 29, which is a good
alternate route home if you live in Barrie or south. (It runs all the
way down
to the Horseshoe Valley Rd., then you turn right, travel a short
distance, and
hook up with #26. Turn left, then soon afterward turn right on George
Johnston
Rd. (#28), which goes south through Minesing and past Snow Valley,
paralleling
Hwy. 400 southward.)
Ron Fleming, Newmarket
Directions: Tiny Marsh is about a 20 minute drive northwest of Barrie
and about
10 minutes east of Wasaga Beach. Exit Hwy. 400 at the Bayfield St. ramp
in
Barrie, then follow Bayfield northwest (left). Bayfield becomes County
Road 27 (do not turn onto #26 west toward Stayner and Wasaga). Keep
going north (straight). Take 27 north through the village of Elmvale,
cross the little Wye River, then look for Simcoe Road 6 and turn west
(left). The road quickly angles northward through the hamlet of Saurin.
Go a
short distance to 1st Conc., which is the Tiny-Flos Townline (a sign on
the left indicates the way toting Marsh). Turn west (left) on the
unpaved townline road and go 3.5 km to either the first parking lot on
the
right or another half km to the Interpretive Centre parking lot.
Professor Gene Denzel
Information Technology Program
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
York University 416-736-5250
