Today I spent three hours birding the rectangle from Tottenham Road west-east to 15 Side Road and south-north 9th to 12th LInes. The birding was slim until I found a large cluster of gulls and shorebirds on mostly stripped sodded field se of the intersection of 12th line and 15 sideroad. The GPS co-ordinates from the exact location are lat. 44.128872; lon. -79.776496. Some house number on 12th Line the general area I parked to initially scope the birds are 5919, 5862 and 5803. The sod-cutters had stopped cutting sod for few hours because of the heat, but one of workers who was leaving was kind enough to give a ride back into field so I could get within 100 m of group without flushing them. In total where about 250 Ring-billed Gulls, 30 Killdeer, 6 Black-bellied Plovers, 2 Buff-breasted Sandpipers and 1 American Golden-Plover. There were a few smaller shorebirds (ie. peeps) further to sw which I could not identified. This field had no standing water. I noticed David Pryor's posting for the shorebirds he saw in this general area (but not this specific location) yesterday morning: today there only 3 Killdeer in that field. A full list of birds recorded in three hours will be posted on e.bird. FYI it took me over 2.5 hrs of driving and scoping to find this cluster. There, shorebird habitats change overnight since these are active sod farms and with the dryness or wetness of the fields. Also please stay on road allowances or ask the owner or workers on the property, like I did, if you want to go further into the field(s) to get better ID's on the birds.
Directions: >From Toronto, north on Hwy. #400, take exit #64 past Holland Marsh to Hwy. #88 west to Hwy. #27 (ie. Bond Head); then north to 8th Line; then west to 15th Side north to 12th Line to any the house numbers I have listed above. Wayne Renaud ([email protected]). _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS including how to unsubscribe visit http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdssetup Posting guidelines can be found at http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdsguide
