Good Evening This morning Ian Cannell and I headed down to the Hagersville area ( South of Hamilton along Hwy 6 ) for some early morning birding and it looks as if there is Spring in the air despite the snow covered fields and some of the unpaved roads that are starting to get quite soft and muddy so watch out for the soft shoulders if you decide to bird the areas.
The weather was not too cool but a little windy but we did come up with some fair numbers of birds which (the resident Owls aside) seem to indicate an increase in bird numbers compared to some of the latest posts. We did find 18 Eastern Screech Owls, dipped on Short-eared Owls but did well on Raptors. We found only 1 Northern Harrier but did find 2 Cooper's Hawks, 47 Red-tailed Hawks, 20 Rough-legged Hawks, 7 American Kestrels and 1 Merlin. We also found 175 American Crows, 223 Horned Larks, 250 Snow Buntings, 16 Lapland Longspurs (with Horned Larks) and 176 American Tree Sparrows. We started for home around noon along the QEW and Hwys 403 and 407 and along the way we added 45 more Red-tailed Hawks (for a days total of 92). 3 more American Kestrels (for a days total of 10), 1 Peregrine Falcon on the Burlington Skyway Bridge, 37 Wild Turkeys at Hwy 407 and Walker's Line and a Northern Shrike. Other birds seen were a singing Carolina Wren at Peacock Point, a Red-bellied Woodpecker on Concession 9 Walpole and many more common birds Norm Murr Richmond Hill, ON "Sils mordent, mords les" _______________________________________________ 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/
