On a clearer and cooling morning, I made the morning trek to CSSP in a last ditch erfort to see if there were yet more Whimbrels passing through ... it paid off with another 436 this morning between 5:30 and 5:56 [groups of 3 and 7 on rocky [EMAIL PROTECTED]:30; 350 + 45 passing a half km. offshore heading wnw over the [EMAIL PROTECTED]:35; 6 and 8 overhead from sw to [EMAIL PROTECTED]:40; 17 overhead from se to [EMAIL PROTECTED]:56]. I left the area at 7:00 a.m. at which time at least 8 birders were still on the lookout for more birds. David Hallett and I had a flock of 40 Whimbrels flying north over Rattray [EMAIL PROTECTED]:00 pm yesterday (25 May).
According to my notes and postings by others the total count of Whimbrels from Colonel Sam Smith Park,Etobicoke to Rattray Marsh, Mississauga from 14 May when I saw my first flock to this morning stands at 7,082. The value of this documented total and high day count on 23 May of over 3000 cannot be underplayed ... but much more work needs to be done to further document the exact numbers passing. Several others, among them Jean Iron and Richard Joos, and I strongly believe a more concerted effort should be organized next year to monitor the Whimbrel migration continuously from dawn to dusk from CSSP from 22 to 26 May. If people can stand for hours and hours over weeks and weeks at the hawk watches ... why can't they stand for 5 days watching for Whimbrels? As far as I know actual numbers like this have not been recorded in the Great Lakes basin and rarely even on the Pacific flyway (max.: Brawley, Imperial,CA, 3 My 1990 3000+ McCaskie (1990). The exact size of the eastern arctic breeding population which migrates north from winter areas in nw south american via coastal Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia then via the great lakes basin to breeding areas in nw Ontario and n Manitoba is still uncertain with the best estimates for the major staging area Virginia. In 2001 surveys conducted by the Chincoteague Natural History Association estimated 40,000 along the Virginia coast (Chincoteague Natural History [EMAIL PROTECTED]//www.assateague.org/plover/3-96 [EMAIL PROTECTED] November 2001). Only in the central flyway along coastal Texas have higher record day counts ( Anuhac NWR 21 Ap 2005 5127 Lockwood et al 2005). >Directions: >Kipling runs directly into Colonel Sam Smith Park and adjacent Humber College Lakeshore campus, located west of Islington and east of Brown's Line south of the Q.E.W. > >Wayne Renaud >905.274.7103 or 905.278.5813 >[EMAIL PROTECTED] From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sat May 26 10:15:29 2007 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from simmts5-srv.bellnexxia.net (simmts5-qfe0.srvr.bell.ca [206.47.199.163]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BD09563489 for <[email protected]>; Sat, 26 May 2007 10:15:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [10.0.1.3] ([69.156.146.210]) by simmts5-srv.bellnexxia.net (InterMail vM.5.01.06.13 201-253-122-130-113-20050324) with ESMTP id <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> for <[email protected]>; Sat, 26 May 2007 10:15:28 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) To: "Ont \"birds\"" <[email protected]> Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: Doug McRae <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 10:18:20 -0400 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.1 Subject: [Ontbirds] Presqu'ile LBB Gull, Peregrine, small number of shorebirds X-BeenThere: [email protected] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 14:15:29 -0000 26 May 2007 Greetings all, Diane Whitman and I checked a few spots at Presqu'ile this morning and found a first summer Lesser Black-backed Gull on the gravel island between Owen Pt. and Gull Island. While watching we could see a huge disturbance going on in the gull nesting colony on Gull Is. and within a few minutes an adult tundrius Peregrine flew in from that direction being seriously chased by Caspian's. However the disturbance kept on going and eventually a Coyote with a slightly deformed or injured jaw emerged from the veg. and sat on the cobble shore. We saw it gulp down one Herring Gull chick, and there is an endless supply of Ring-bills there too. Shorebirds were pretty limited (for this time of year) with 115 Dunlin, 8 Ruddy Turnstone, 18 Semi Sandpiper, 1 Semi Plover, 1 Spotted Sandpiper and 4 Killdeer - all of which were on Gull Is. or the gravel island off Owen Pt. A Virginia Rail was calling from the Owen Pt. pond. The small remnant ephemeral pond being used for feeding by shorebirds at the north end of the raked beach that I mentioned the other day has now been ditched and drained by MNR/ONtario Parks staff so there is now no shorebird pond habitat left on the main raked beach - the area that traditionally has been the principal staging and feeding area for northbound shorebirds. As one local birder pointed out, "guess you shouldn't have mentioned it earlier". Also quite odd was a flock of 14 Black-bellied Plovers that just flew over my house in the north end of Brighton (@ 5 km inland from the lake shore), coming from the east and heading WNW. Cheers, Doug Doug McRae Nature Services P.O. Box 3010 Brighton, Ontario Canada K0K 1H0 613-475-5014 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Directions: Presqu'ile is located south of Brighton, on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Take the Brighton exit from Hwy. 401 and go south into town then follow the signs to the park. Owen Pt. is the southern end of the Presqu'ile beach.
