Despite the prognostications of famous groundhogs, there are some encouraging signs of spring out there. The Hartleys' post about Horned Larks near Lindsay prompted me to look for some in the Holland Marsh this morning. Sure enough, along Strawberry Lane west of Keele, two of them were making their tinkly calls from the field on the north side of the road. This is the earliest record I have of Horned Larks in York region. Also encouraging lately has been the sound of Black-capped Chickadees making their spring calls. A winter flock that was doing this at the Cawthra Mulock reserve today suddenly changed vocalizations while I was standing by the homestead ruins. I checked the commotion in time to see an immature Northern Shrike half-hopping, half-flying downward through a bush in pursuit of one of the chickadees. His efforts were unsuccessful so he flew to the top of a nearby tree and glared down at the chickadees while they chattered back at him. A West Humber Naturalists' hike yesterday started off slowly in Kleinburg. We dipped on a Swamp Sparrow and a Red-bellied Woodpecker that have been spending the winter in and around Joan Love's property along a still rural section of Major Mackenzie Drive but when we travelled north of Kleinburg we got good looks at an American Kestrel west of Hwy. 27, near the end of King-Vaughan Line. At Cold Creek CA northwest of Bolton we had great looks at the visiting Varied Thrush; it was a life bird for two of the group. After lunching in Schomberg we had two Snowy Owls in the Holland Marsh before the last of few field trip participants headed home. I decided to carry on solo for a bit longer and ended up finding six more Snowies between 2:30-4:30 p.m. One was at the very northern end of Bathurst Street across from the little marina there (Holland Landing area); four were on the north side of Ravenshoe Road (south Keswick) and the last was on the east side of Yonge Street (also south Keswick). Of the eight only two were close to the roadside; the others were pretty far away - "scope birds". Many thanks to Joan Love for hosting yesterday morning's trail hike, to the WHN members who came out for the field trip, to the birders I met along Ravenshoe Road yesterday (Sue, Charles, and Sigi) and to Chris Dunn (Keith's nephew) for his tips about Snowies. Ron Fleming, Newmarket York Region is north of Toronto and south of Barrie. For more specific directions e-mail me privately. _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to ONTBIRDS mailing list [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/
