Last night Claude Radley, Kory Renaud, Claire Sanders, Clive Hodder and I spent from 600-900 PM counting the egrets coming into the woodlot roost at the Holiday Breach C.A., just to the SW of the Hawk Observation Tower. We tallied 719 Great Egrets. The number of egrets using this roost has been fairly constant (from 600+ to 721) since mid-July. The egret roost at Luther Marsh, on the other hand, has increased from less than 100 to330+ during the same time frame. This could suggest that those birds roosting at Holiday Beach come solely from the breedin g colonies nearby in western Lake Erie, including the colony of 800+/- pairs on the US West Sister Island, and no migrants or birds from more distant breeding sites have arrived there yet. It may also suggest that the roost at Luther is made up entirely of egrets that are on the move with numbers building up as dispersing birds from more distant colonies arrive there. The interesting question will be "Do any of the wing-tagged egrets from the Collingwood and Southampton colonies show up at Holiday Beach later in the season. We did not see any there last night but did see 9 of the at Luther 2 days ago. Comments?? Cheers, Chip Directions: Holiday Beach C.A.: From Malden Centre, SW of Amhurstburg, Ontario, go south on Hwy 50 for about 1 km and enter the CA and follow the signs to the Hawk Watch Tower.
D.V. Chip Weseloh, PhD. Senior Population Assessment Biologist Canadian Wildlife Service ON Environmental Stewardship Branch Environment Canada 4905 Dufferin St. Toronto (Ontario) M3H 5T4 [email protected] Telephone 416-739-5846 Facsimilie 416-739-5845 Government of Canada Website www.ec.gc.ca D.V. Chip Weseloh, PhD. Biologist Evaluation des populations Conservation des Populations Service canadien de la faune ON Direction générale de l'intendance environnementale Environnement Canada 4905 rue Dufferin Toronto (Ontario) M3H 5T4 [email protected] Téléphone 416-739-5846 Télécopieur 416-739-5845 Gouvernement du Canada Site Web www.ec.gc.ca _______________________________________________ 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/
