Yesterday I spent the day birding Amherst Island with my parents, Mike and Sue Kimber, who were up visiting me from Toronto. Despite being well-aware of the lower numbers and diversity of raptors on the island, as is not terribly unusual for mid-February, we were still optimistic about finding some interesting birds and that proved to be the case.
The number 1 target was the 'regular' Northern Hawk Owl along South Shore Road, which I had missed the day after its discovery. Around 1030 AM, Immediately upon passing house #4455, where the bird was initially discovered and at the west end of its apparent hunting circle, my dad picked up the bird dashing past us in flight, after which it obligingly alighted on a power pole and allowed us prolonged scope views along the road. We gave it a fair bit of space and while it did not hunt in our presence (to our disappointment!) it was actively looking about almost everywhere but at us, apparently intent on locating its next vole. As a side note, we did not see this bird while driving through the area again around 430 PM, and there are many places in the trees around the houses in the area where it could hide. We were also treated to a banner display of Short-eared Owls. One was found between Stella Road and the Hawk Owl along South Shore at 10AM, when my dad stopped the car to investigate what proved to be a House Sparrow atop a dogwood, only to have the owl burst out of the grass at its base and post up on a tree in the stiff breeze and give great scope views. The second was found on an unsuccessful hike to the bar at the east end KFN property, where it was actively hunting in front of us for some time between the wetland cell and the bar around noon. The third was hunting on Marshall 40 Foot Road south of the Owl Woods at 4PM, the fourth hunted right in front of us and eventually posed on a fence post right beside our car just before 5PM between Stella and Marshall 40 Foot Rd along the north shore, and the fifth was at the north end of the latter road at the same time, and may have been the bird we saw near Owl Woods earlier. These can be easy birds to miss on the island and I had the best looks at this species in 15 years birding in the province yesterday, which was a real highlight! In addition to the aforementioned Snowy Owl dip, numbers of other raptors were relatively low as well. Single light and dark-morph Rough-legged Hawks were seen along with about 5 Red-tailed Hawks and 1 male American Kestrel was at the south end of Stella Road. A scope was essential to ID a Northern Shrike nearly over the horizon west of Marshall 40 Foot Road. In the odds and ends category, 2+ Common Ravens were at the east end of the island. ~100 Snow Buntings were at the usual spot at the south end of the road to Owl Woods and another 150+ were in a couple of flocks at the east end property, but all the careful searching in the world yielded a big fat 0 larks or longspurs. A Ring-necked Pheasant was calling from the south end of the road to Owl Woods, and a vocal and invisible Red-bellied Woodpecker and silent but visible Brown Creeper were near the Owl Woods feeders. There were no waterfowl nor gulls along the ferry channel, but the open water along South Shore Road held 6 drake Redhead with the scaup and goldeneye, and 4 Trumpeter Swans were sleeping on the ice there in the evening. The area around Kingston itself produced a few interesting birds on the drive to and fro. In the morning, both Peregrine Falcons were hawking pigeons near their nest site downtown and a young Sharp-shinned Hawk flew over Bath Road. In the evening a Belted Kingfisher was along the road at the east end of Collins Bay where they often attempt to winter, and a dark-morph Rough-legged Hawk was over the fields north of Elevator Bay. DIRECTIONS: Amherst Island can be reached by taking exit 593 off of the 401, following Highway 7 south to Millhaven. The ferry to Amherst is located 100m to the right of the intersection of Highway 7 and Bath Road. Good birding! Chris Kimber PhD Candidate Dept. of Biology Queen's University Kingston, ON [email protected] _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/
