This week has been a bit of a pre-spring deep freeze and birding reports were few and far between. There are very few gulls along the ferry channels; numbers usually increase as the days get longer; the number of leads of open water off the south shore of Amherst Island has shrunk as has the variety and number of waterfowl. One of the larger leads off the south-west end contained about 150 Greater Scaup but other than a few Common Goldeneye and mergansers, puddle ducks, and 4 Mute Swans there wasn't much. To indicate that spring is really on the way there are certainly more Am. Crows and Horned Larks and singing Purple Finches, while not a dawn chorus, were indeed welcome. Northern Shrikes, Red-tailed and Rough-legged Hawks, and Northern Harriers are still abundant and the number of Short-eared Owls seems to be on the increase. These tend to be most active in the late afternoon and have been reported from many parts of Amherst. On the other hand Snowy and Long-eared Owl numbers are down with only one of each reported last Saturday. The Napanee dump still has large numbers of gulls; mostly adult Herring with a few Great Black-backed for variety. Ring-billed, Glaucous, and Iceland were not present on Thursday but this should change as some gull movement gets underway. With some mild weather in the forecast, I look forward to reporting some new species for the year next week. Cheers, Peter Good Kingston Field Naturalists 613 378-6605
