Now that hunting season has begun we are starting to get concentrations of waterfowl within the city limits. Last Saturday the Cataraqui River contained a few Horned and 21 Pied-billed Grebes along with an excellent selection of ducks that included 8 Wood Ducks, 130 Am. Wigeon, and 20 Ring-necked Ducks. On Sunday there were 11 types of shorebird and 12 species of duck on Amherst Island. The highlights were 2 Am. Golden Plover, 3 Sanderling, 4 Baird's Sandpipers, a Redhead and a Canvasback. There was also a noticeable movement of passerines on Amherst; 30 E. Phoebes, 25 Palm Warblers, 100 Am. Pipits were tallied. There were significant night flights of thousands of Swainson's and hundreds of Grey-cheeked Thrushes on both Sept. 20/21 and Sept. 22/23. Raptors of note this week included both Peregrine Falcon and Merlin on Amherst, another Merlin near Bedford Mills, and a Red-shouldered Hawk over the sewage lagoons last Sunday and an immature Sharp-shinned Hawk that buzzed some feeders near Camden East on Wednesday, then reappeared as an adult Cooper's Hawk to pull the same stunt today. Some lingering migrants included both a Whip-poor-will at Bedford Mills and a Common Nighthawk near Elginburg last Friday, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, again at Bedford Mills, and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo on Amherst last Sunday. New arrivals this week were Lincoln's, White-throated, and White-crowned Sparrows as well as both kinglets and Dark-eyed Juncos.
Cheers, Peter Good Kingston Field Naturalists 613 378-6605 _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to ONTBIRDS mailing list [email protected] For instructions to join or leave ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/ontbirdshow.htm ONTBIRDS Guidelines may be viewed at http://www.ofo.ca/ontbirdsguide.htm
