On the evening of May 3 Harvey Medland presented an excellent talk to the Pickering Naturalists club, on Bird Migration--after enlightening many with the known fact that birds are able to use star positions, the members could hardly wait to test this fact. Well, Thursday evening was a "star-bright" one; birders rushed in masses to Thickson's Woods. A major fall-out was that of hundreds of White-throated Sparrows--they turfed about in the leaf litter throughout the woods all day. Richard Joff had 3 mist-nets set up in the meadow--throughout the day he helped people with the technique of collecting data from caught birds, prior to their release. To properly hold a CATBIRD/ White-throated Sparrow----while data was entered on age, sex, weight, age, feather condition, et al, was appreciated by all.
Among other songbirds that arrived in the morning were--Wood Thrush, many Hermit Thrushes, 1 or 2 Veery, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Towhee, Eastern Phoebe, a few White-crowned Sparrows, Blue-headed Vireo, RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER, BLUE-GREY GNATCATCHER, ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK, OVENBIRD, and the following Warblers--Yellow-rumped, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Black-and-White, Pine, Palm, Nashville, and 1 CAPE MAY. Exit the 401 at Thickson Rd. in Whitby, south toward the lakefront, turning left along the north side of the woods, parking on the deadend roadway. Doug Lockrey, Whitby, ON From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri May 4 18:21:59 2007 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from mout.perfora.net (mout.perfora.net [74.208.4.194]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BB5D0634A2 for <[email protected]>; Fri, 4 May 2007 18:21:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [172.23.126.14] (helo=ntxsmtpus.exchange.xchg) by mrelay.perfora.net (node=mrus1) with ESMTP (Nemesis), id 0MKpCa-1Hk6A30XYZ-0007jn; Fri, 04 May 2007 18:21:59 -0400 Received: from ntxbeus08.exchange.xchg ([172.23.126.10]) by ntxsmtpus.exchange.xchg with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Fri, 4 May 2007 18:21:43 -0400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Content-class: urn:content-classes:message MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 18:21:45 -0400 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: Blue-winged warbler, harlequin duck at Bronte Bluffs Park, Oakville thread-index: AceOmpnEQOtCG/jSREuSOAEHiY2IHg=From: "Giraud, Jacques" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 04 May 2007 22:21:43.0175 (UTC) FILETIME=[9820E970:01C78E9A] X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX18OBQKF75TGyjoupi5b69CvyPtVLQR4JnNIeIn 8QsRPoNpyCoIupfkW7DPfbO70gwGy5HWG/Jb/FcMUzMSBTlav Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.1 Subject: [Ontbirds] Blue-winged warbler, harlequin duck at Bronte Bluffs Park, Oakville X-BeenThere: [email protected] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 04 May 2007 22:21:59 -0000 At around 9:30 AM this morning, I found a blue-winged warbler and a male harlequin duck (non-breeding plumage) at Bronte Bluffs Park in Oakville. A Google map and photo of the birds can be seen at: http://www.giraud.com/maps/20070504/map.htm Either click on the orange targets or use the drop-down in the left hand corner to view the pictures. The blue-winged warbler was at the very top of a tree so the pictures are not great. The harlequin duck was located with a small flock of bufflehead and a couple of greater scaup along the bluffs about 20m off shore. Other birds in the park included blue-gray knatcatchers, yellow-rumped and black and white warbler. Bronte Bluffs Park is located off W. River St. Take Bronte Rd until you get to Lakeshore Road West. Turn right and W River St will be the 1st right. Drive until you see a small parking lot on top of the bluff area. Good Birding Jacques Giraud PS. The locations plotted are where I took the pictures from not where the birds are located. I was almost directly underneath the blue-winged warbler. The harlequin ducks were photographed from land and were about 20m out in the lake.
