Twenty people joined Bernie Ladouceur and myself on a search for migrant spring
waterfowl east of Ottawa this past Sunday. We saw a total of 49 species
including 4 geese, 12 ducks, 3 hawks and 2 falcons. There was virtually no
remaining spring flooding and the lagoon (Casselman and Embrun) water level was
extremely high and hence not very favourable for the duck species.
The highlight of the trip was a flock of 20000+ Snow Geese in the corn stubble
on the east side of Dunning Road just north of Colonial Road. Unfortunately
they were tightly packed together so it wasn't really possible to conduct a
detailed search for Ross's Goose. The birds did take to the air but we still
couldn't see a Ross's Goose. I estimate there were at least 25000 Snow Geese,
which were at least 20% blue phase, in the Dunning and Colonial area. On Milton
Road we had excellent scope looks at 28 Sandhill Cranes and 3 Cackling Geese.
East of Bourget Cobb's Lake (the flood plain) was pretty much reduced to only
Cobb's Creek. We had about 100 Snow Geese there and when they took to the air
we had distant looks at 1 Ross's Goose in that flock. As hard as we tried we
were not able to find a Greater White-fronted in with the 10's of thousands of
Canada Geese that we saw that day. The lagoons were disappointing with just the
usual and expected ducks including a few Northern Shovelers. Surprisingly we
did not see any Wigeon and only saw a grand total of 2 Northern Pintails. One
of our best stops was on Frank Kenny Road just south of Innis Road. We stopped
to look at a small flock of about 10 Wild Turkeys and had a Merlin fly in right
beside us to catch a small bird, probably a Song Sparrow. As we scanned the
area we also found a male Northern Harrier and a light phase Rough-legged Hawk.
At the east end of the Clarence Cambridge road we had 1 Evening Grosbeak and a
probable distant Rusty Blackbird. An American Kestrel was seen by a few people
on the way back to Ottawa.
Thanks to all who attended and contributed to an enjoyable day.
Bob
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