Eleven weekend naturalists joined me for a pleasant half-day excursion in the Newmarket area yesterday. The focus of the trip was supposed to be on waterfowl, but a it was evident that a lot of ducks and geese have already passed through. Hochreiter Road, a focal point here in spring, appears to have run its route already. The water in the fields has mostly disappeared and most of the ducks and swans have gone. There were still about 20 PINTAIL, 15 or so GW TEAL, 6 Black Ducks and the usual Mallards and Canadas, but little else. The adventurous drive down this muddy lane is - at this point anyway - not worth the risk of getting stuck. We observed some HORNED LARKS, a GREAT BLUE HERON, and a sleek male NORTHERN HARRIER along nearby Bathurst St. North. The nearby Holland Landing sewage lagoons held a few more ducks for us: RINGNECKS (6), WOOD DUCK (2), BUFFLEHEAD (2), and a few more GW Teal. The most pleasant and productive location, however, was the Cawthra Mulock reserve in NW Newmarket. Highlights there included a high-flying COMMON LOON, a COOPER'S HAWK carrying a fresh kill, a passing PILEATED WOODPECKER, a singing EASTERN MEADOWLARK, two N. FLICKERS, a local Red-tailed Hawk, some passing TVs, and numerous GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS. We observed at least four different Eastern Phoebes and heard a frustratingly familiar song that we couldn't immediately place. Double checking our CDs later, Gene Denzel and I both concluded it was a Fox Sparrow (as revisionist as that may sound). I went back there this morning before the rain came, hoping to rediscover this handsome spring arrival, but did not find him. I was, however, led to a very nice consolation prize by a discordant quartet of Blue Jays: my first ever LONG-EARED OWL at the reserve. The McKenzie Marsh in Aurora is always worth checking at this time of year. Yesterday evening and this morning there were two BELTED KINGFISHERS, 18 RING-NECKED DUCKS, 6 HOODED MERGANSERS, 8 COMMON MERGS, and - today - the first PIED-BILLED GREBE of the York region spring. Many thanks to the Richmond Hill Naturalists and York Simcoe Naturalists who came out yesterday morning. Too bad the grebe and the owl waited until this morning to show themselves, but that's birding for you. Ron Fleming, Newmarket Newmarket is halfway between Barrie and Toronto. Contact me if you require specific directions to any of the locations described above From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Apr 1 11:08:45 2007 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from pegasus.math.carleton.ca (pegasus.math.carleton.ca [134.117.21.21]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 275376388A for <[email protected]>; Sun, 1 Apr 2007 11:08:45 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [10.0.1.2] (bas12-ottawa23-1177806962.dsl.bell.ca [70.51.232.114]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DES-CBC3-SHA (168/168 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pegasus.math.carleton.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0D1E47FC08E for <[email protected]>; Sun, 1 Apr 2007 11:08:40 -0400 (EDT) User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.3.3.061214 Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 11:08:37 -0400 From: Brian Mortimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: ONTBIRDS <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Thread-Topic: Eastern Pheobe and Snow Geese at Ottawa Thread-Index: Acd0b5+H3h/89+BiEduyaQANk2HJsg== Mime-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.1 Subject: [Ontbirds]Eastern Pheobe and Snow Geese at Ottawa X-BeenThere: [email protected] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 15:08:45 -0000
There was an early Eastern Pheobe this morning at 9:15 am (Sun Apr 1, 2007) on the fence along the south side of Corkstown Road, just above the Nationa= l Equestrian Park in the west end of Ottawa. Further south (9:45 am), there were three Snow Geese mixed with a flock of Canadas in the corn field in th= e NW corner of Moodie and Barnsdale. An update for local Ottawa birders: the ice is pulling back form the shore at the big quarry pond on Moodie =AD a dozen common mergansers had enough ope= n water to feed and frolic. --=20 Brian Mortimer Ottawa Ontario [EMAIL PROTECTED]
