I spent this morning (Thursday) birding along the Ottawa River in the west end of Ottawa. Britannia Ridge was really hopping with birds. Unfortunately, variety was not great. Warblers mostly consisted of three very well-represented species: yellow-rumped, Nashville and black-throated green. I also had one or two of palm, parula, blackburnian and ovenbird. There were lots of chipping sparrows and a few whitethroats and juncos. At one point a merlin zipped by. The other spots in Britannia that I checked were quiet.
There were a half-dozen shorebirds on the shore of the Ottawa River at the end of the street named Scrivens a bit further west. They included a ruddy turnstone, a Baird's sandpiper and a black-bellied plover. Ottawa Beach/east end of Andrew Haydon park appeared to be devoid of shorebirds, and was a lot muddier underfoot than in recent days. I was running out of time when I got to Shirleys Bay dyke so I did not go too far along it. By its own high standards, it was somewhat disappointing, with relatively few birds and most of them far from the dyke. There was no sign of the Hudsonian godwits reported yesterday. However, in addition to the usual common birds, there were two (quite distant) stilt sandpipers and one (very distant) great egret. Note: No sightings of peregrines this week on the Coats building at Tunney's Pasture (at least not by me). Paul Matthews Ottawa Directions:Shirley's Bay: From Ottawa take Hwy. 417 west to the Moodie Drive exit and turn north (right) on Moodie Drive and continue to Carling Ave. Turn left at Carling Ave. and follow Carling to Rifle Road. Turn right (north) on Rifle Rd. Park at the lot at the end (boat launch). Walk back to the road, and continue through the gate on the Department of National Defence property. There is a trail on your right (clearly marked with vehicle "No Entry" signs) which heads into the woods, and, eventually to the dyke. **** PLEASE NOTE**** YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE RANGE CONTROL OFFICE BEFORE ENTERING THE DYKE AREA-- Call (613) 991-5740 and request permission to visit the dyke area for birding. From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu Sep 1 18:12:34 2005 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from extsmtp4.localnet.com (extsmtp4.localnet.com [207.251.201.56]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with SMTP id BE6B863E82 for <[email protected]>; Thu, 1 Sep 2005 18:12:33 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 25421 invoked by uid 1011); 1 Sep 2005 22:16:31 -0000 Received: from 10.0.7.15 by bombastic (envelope-from <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, uid 1004) with qmail-scanner-1.23st (spamassassin: 3.0.2. perlscan: 1.23st. Clear:RC:0(10.0.7.15):SA:0(0.2/10.0):. Processed in 1.294377 secs); 01 Sep 2005 22:16:31 -0000 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.2 required.0 Received: from unknown (HELO smtp2.localnet.com) (10.0.7.15) by extsmtp4.localnet.com with SMTP; 1 Sep 2005 22:16:30 -0000 Received: (qmail 32693 invoked from network); 1 Sep 2005 22:16:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO dfs) (69.48.11.23) by mail1.localnet.com with SMTP; 1 Sep 2005 22:16:28 -0000 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "David F. Suggs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ontbirds" <[email protected]>, "Nysbirds-l" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Geneseebirds-l" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "birdeast" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 18:04:33 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Subject: [Ontbirds]WNY Dial-a-Bird 01 Sep 2005 X-BeenThere: [email protected] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 22:12:34 -0000 - RBA * New York * Buffalo * 09/01/2005 * NYBU0509.01 - Birds mentioned ---------------------------------------------------------- Please phone in any rare sightings so they may be shared via the DAB telephone update system, and submit email contributions directly to dfsuggs at localnet dot com. Thank you, David ---------------------------------------------------------- [Update - On Wednesday, September 7, the Buffalo Audubon Society will hold their first meeting of the season at the Iroquois Refuge. Meet at 3 PM at the Visitors Center on Casey Road for a two hour field trip, followed by a potluck supper at 5 PM, concluding with a 5:30 PM presentation by the refuge manager. Visitors are welcome to attend this Buffalo Audubon Society event. Thank you.] Green Heron Mute Swan Long-tailed Duck Osprey Bald Eagle Broad-winged Hawk Black-bellied Plover American Golden-Plove Semipalmated Plover Killdeer Solitary Sandpiper Whimbrel Ruddy Turnstone Red Knot Sanderling White-r. Sandpiper Baird's Sandpiper Pectoral Sandpiper Stilt Sandpiper Short-b. Dowitcher Wilson's Snipe Bonaparte's Gull Caspian Tern Common Tern Forster's Tern Yellow-billed Cuckoo Common Nighthawk Red-headed Wdpkr. Eastern Wood-Pewee Least Flycatcher Gr. Cr. Flycatcher Bl.-gr. Gnatcatcher Swainson's Thrush Warbling Vireo Philadelphia Vireo Red-eyed Vireo Blue-winged Warbler Tennessee Warbler Chestnut-s. Warbler Magnolia Warbler Bl.-thr. Bl. Warbler Blackburnian Warbler Pine Warbler Bl. and w. Warbler American Redstart Wilson's Warbler Canada Warbler Dark-eyed Junco Purple Finch - Transcript Hotline: Dial-a-Bird at the Buffalo Museum of Science Date: 09/01/2005 Number: 716-896-1271 To Report: Same Compiler: David F. Suggs (dfsuggs at localnet dot com) Coverage: Western New York and adjacent Ontario Transcriber: David F. Suggs Website: www.BOSBirding.org Thursday, September 1, 2005 Dial-a-Bird is a service provided by your Buffalo Museum of Science and this answering system was donated by the Buffalo Ornithological Society. Press (2) to leave a message, (3) for updates, meeting and field trip information and (4) for instructions on how to report sightings and use this system. To contact the Science Museum, call 896-5200. And, please check the update for an announcement regarding the Buffalo Audubon Society. Shorebirds and warblers continue to highlight reports received August 25 through September 1 from the Niagara Frontier Region. Along with great tragedy, Hurricane Katrina has displaced seabirds from the Gulf of Mexico to unexpected locations; be on the watch for rare species on local waters. The BOS field trip to the Canadian shore of Lake Erie on August 28 reported 14 shorebird species highlighted by a WHIMBREL at Morgan's Point and a STILT SANDPIPER at Grabell Point, both in Wainfleet. At Rock Point in Dunnville, 3 RUDDY TURNSTONES and a BAIRD'S SANDPIPER, plus several LONG- TAILED DUCKS. Nearby at the Canal Bank Road turf farms, 85 BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS and at least 2 AMERICAN GOLDEN- PLOVERS. August 31 in Fort Erie, Ontario, nine shorebirds included RED KNOT and WHITE-R. SANDPIPER plus 250 COMMON TERNS at Jaeger Rocks, OSPREY and RED-HEADED WDPKR. at Erie Beach, BROAD-WINGED HAWK at Kraft Road and 6 MUTE SWANS at Stone Mill Road. Also the 31st, at Braley and Ransomville Roads in the Niagara County Town of Porter, eight shorebird species were highlighted by 13 AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVERS plus 9 BLACK- BELLIED PLOVERS, SEMIPALMATED PLOVER, 4 WHITE-R. SANDPIPERS, 30 PECTORAL SANDPIPERS and numerous KILLDEER. High counts of SANDERLINGS were noted at two Lake Erie beaches on the 31st. 43 at Wright Park Beach at Dunkirk Harbor, and 40 SANDERLINGS at Woodlawn Beach State Park in Hamburg. Also in Dunkirk Harbor this week, BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER, BAIRD'S SANDPIPER, 8 CASPIAN TERNS and 2 FORSTER'S TERNS, and at Woodlawn, over 200 BONAPARTE'S GULLS, 2 CASPIAN TERNS and 3 FORSTER'S TERNS. Fifteen shorebirds species in the Iroquois areas. At Goose Pond, 3 BAIRD'S SANDPIPERS and SHORT-B. DOWITCHER, at Center Marsh BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER, SOLITARY SANDPIPER and STILT SANDPIPER and at Griswold and Route 77, AMERICAN GOLDEN- PLOVER, SEMIPALMATED PLOVER, 7 SHORT-B. DOWITCHERS and WILSON'S SNIPE. Nine warbler species at Amherst State Park this week included BLUE-WINGED WARBLER, TENNESSEE WARBLER, CHESTNUT-S. WARBLER, MAGNOLIA WARBLER, BL.-THR. BL. WARBLER, BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER, BL. AND W. WARBLER, AMERICAN REDSTART and WILSON'S WARBLER, plus a GREEN HERON, rarely found at this location, EASTERN WOOD-PEWEE, LEAST FLYCATCHER, GR. CR. FLYCATCHER, WARBLING VIREO, PHILADELPHIA VIREO, RED-EYED VIREO, BL.-GR. GNATCATCHER and the season's first SWAINSON'S THRUSH. In Orchard Park, at Birdsong Park Town Park, eight warblers highlighted by 2 PINE WARBLERS, likely of local origin at this time, plus CANADA WARBLER and PURPLE FINCH. Also of note this week - in the Chautauqua County Town of Sheridan, a new high count of 8 sub-adult BALD EAGLES at Saint Columbans on Route 5. Small numbers of COMMON NIGHTHAWKS at several locations, with a maximum of 45 over Eggertsville in Amherst. YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO in Clarence. And, on Lake Road in Wilson, an early DARK-EYED JUNCO. Dial-a-Bird will be updated Thursday evening, September 8. Please call in your sightings by noon Thursday. You may report sightings after the tone. Thank you for calling and reporting to Dial-a-Bird. - End Transcript
