At 5 pm this afternoon, I found an adult Ross's Goose feeding with Canada Geese in a corn field just north of Port Rowan along Regional Rd. 42 (the main north-south drag in Port Rowan). The birds were on the east side of the road just north of #3552. The Ross's was no more than 100 metres off the road. This is the fifth goose species for Long Point this winter.
At about 6 pm all of the birds left the field for the evening and headed off to roost over at Long Pt iself. I believe that there is some open water once again at the mouth of Big Creek (just off the causeway) as all of the birds seemed to be dropping into that area. There are several hundred Canadas involved. They have been feeding in the fields just north of Port Rowan for several weeks now and the Ross's may return there tomorrow. Port Rowan is just east of Highway 59 on Regional Rd. 42 on the north shore of Lake Erie. The fields with the geese are no more than 500 metres north of the outskirts of town. From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sat Mar 3 11:37:09 2007 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from web88003.mail.re2.yahoo.com (web88003.mail.re2.yahoo.com [206.190.37.190]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A2EA4638D5 for <[email protected]>; Sat, 3 Mar 2007 11:37:07 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 67046 invoked by uid 60001); 3 Mar 2007 16:37:07 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=rogers.com; h=X-YMail-OSG:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Message-ID; b=GPFiBCJEA07wcRch+7eBImDRZpnef0TpZfGTUeYLtDW+qEFTq+FIgy+WFh6zKUPUnDBTUGM3YmL5UjyBrtSYyJQlX85HL3piMCKhoLivs/On2pZONX+s2n4kgsBUhsMNYRO80wEC7twEZB+kbDxumZsI9kMFXA9eF7c/m0+Y8kA=; X-YMail-OSG: nZkZzf0VM1nYD5izUV0ucuvfR3Ka01bkFtSaWm61D_AujIuKDYWdksVHlU9fxLhCc.5VCY9eM3S9NsZNCx0Gd0InubBIOrjaLfwKOTH.KNrEb1Rf07sBKZUOzFZWxsg7gfMJg3moq_4RXNazuF1_ZQ-- Received: from [74.120.216.165] by web88003.mail.re2.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 03 Mar 2007 11:37:07 EST Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 11:37:07 -0500 (EST) From: RON FLEMING <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: OFO Bird Sightings <[email protected]> MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.1 Subject: [Ontbirds]Red-shouldered Hawk, Snowy Owl - York Region X-BeenThere: [email protected] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2007 16:37:09 -0000 There has been an adult Red-shouldered Hawk in the general vicinity of Cardinal Golf Course on Hwy. 9 west of Newmarket this past week. This is a species that nests locally but is rarely seen here in winter. Chris Dunn and Julia Marko discovered it Thursday afternoon and took some excellent photos of it Friday (see link below) as it perched along the south side of Hwy 9 just west of the main entrance to the golf course. (For the record, traffic on Hwy. 9 is apparently ceaseless, so pulling over, getting out, and re-entering traffic afterward is never relaxing). Keith Dunn and I crossed paths on the shoulder of Hwy. 9 this morning in vain attempts to find the bird, but we did observe a huge flock of Snow Buntings (approx. 1,000 birds) flying and perching all over the horse ranch on the south side of the road just west of Jane Street. Keith informed me that, up in Keswick, he had seen the wintering Snowy Owl on Yonge Street this morning around 7:30 a.m. The section of Yonge Street referred to is a short and totally uncharacteristic stretch of that famous road - it is desolate, windswept, and virtually uninhabited. It runs south from Ravenshoe Rd. in southwest Keswick (which, in turn, is northeast of Newmarket). The two Snowy Owls I observed in the Bradford Marsh last Sunday afternoon went undiscovered by me this morning, but there were Horned Larks and Snow Buntings a-plenty, especially along Jane St. north of Hwy. 9, especially near Woodchopper's Lane. Red-shouldered Hawk photos: http://kesh-vibel.blogspot.com Ron Fleming, Newmarket
