March 20 - Rondeau - lots of Fog, but still a good day, we hiked South Point Trail, walked out to the lake and saw the following: Swans - hundreds on the lake as well as in flight, Geese, hundreds as well, 2 Great Blue Herons, Scaup, Common Goldeneye, Red Breasted and Common Mergansers, back to the main trail heading east, we saw the following killdeer, mourning doves, downy woodpeckers, blue jay, chickadee, song sparrows, at the Interpretive Centre we saw the following: Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, Cardinal m/f, grackles, house finches, American Goldfinch, and while standing at the back of the interpretive centre watching the skunk that was feeding on the cast off seed the Eagle flew up into a tree across the road, we saw it again south of the interpretive centre on the lake road and then it was gone. As were heading back to the car at the beginning of the South Point Trail we heard the Pileated - typical ratatat with the tapering at the end!
Off to Erieau - Kestrel, Redhead, Canvasback, Scaup, Bufflehead, Hooded, Common and Red Breasted Mergansers, Herring Gulls, Ring billed gulls, lots of open water, hundreds of swans and geese out in the lake between the ice and shore line. St Clair Wildlife Area Monday March 21 - amazing number of swans in flight, few numbers in the fields, larger numbers of geese, we were lucky enough to see one Snow Goose winging in with the Canada's. Large number of mergansers, scaup etc., the ponds are still frozen over; the Red Winged Blackbirds were plentiful, one raccoon, and one weasel which scared up a relaxed flock of geese. A male Ring necked pheasant ran down the path ahead of us. All in all a great 2 days of birding, even with the foggy weather. Rondeau Provincial Park is located southeast of Chatham on the shore of Lake Erie. Access to the park from the 401 is obtained by exiting at Kent Road 15 (exit 101) and proceeding south 11 km to Kent Road 17. Turn right and continue 1 km to the park To Erieau - go back to #3 highway to Blenheim and follow the signs to Erieau - go to the shipping docks right at the very end of the road St Clair National Wildlife area - from the 401 take #77 north to county road #35, to the village of Stoney Point; to County Road #36 to Prairie Siding; take the River Road to West Townline Road (if anyone has better directions please forward them to me offline, we have the GPS coordinates if anyone is interested). An aside to Norm Murr's comments re the owl postings, I have witnessed this same treatment of the GGO's on Halls Road, we were very distressed to see a hoard of people within 15-20 feet, some walking right up under the poor bird. The bird didn't show signs of comfort till everyone left and then he changed branches and started to preen (usually a sign of comfort). It is very distressing to know that there are people out there that take advantage of these wondrous creatures while there are some of us that will forego the "perfect shot" or sighting of birds to preserve their sanctity.......... Sue & Dan Suess Mississauga, ON From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon Mar 21 22:26:39 2005 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from marlo.eagle.ca (marlo.eagle.ca [209.167.16.10]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E9A4264494 for <[email protected]>; Mon, 21 Mar 2005 22:26:38 -0500 (EST) Received: from bnlogan (dialin290.eagle.ca [209.167.59.113]) by marlo.eagle.ca (8.11.3/8.11.3) with SMTP id j2M3XXK88293 for <[email protected]>; Mon, 21 Mar 2005 22:33:33 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "Bill/Nancy Logan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 22:28:02 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Subject: [Ontbirds]Turkey Vutures X-BeenThere: [email protected] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 03:26:39 -0000 Today while driving west on the 401 there were two Turkey Vultures flying along the Niagara Escarpment at Halton Rd. 8. Bill Logan
