Although Friday's 5 SHOVELER drakes and 2 CANVASBACKs were gone from the fields north of Hochreiter Road by Saturday morning, a few other species had taken their place: two pair of GADWALL, a pair of AMERICAN WIGEON, and at least 3 Trumpeter Swans (tagged). When I checked the same area Sunday evening the 3 Trumpeters were still there but the 40+ TUNDRA SWANS that had been present from Wednesday to Saturday were gone. NORTHERN PINTAIL numbers had risen to 300+ while WOOD DUCK (20), RING-NECKED DUCK (4), GW TEAL (12) and BLACK DUCK (12) were roughly the same. Hochreiter Rd. runs west from the north end of Bathurst (the part of Bathurst that resumes north of Newmarket and southeast of Bradford). (NOTE: Hochreiter is sometimes too muddy to drive, but you can walk the long dike that runs west from Bathurst about a km north of this.) On Friday, Bruce Brydon observed the first AMERICAN WOODCOCK of the spring at the "other" top end of Bathurst (where it dead ends north of Morning Sdrd.) in NW Newmarket. Keith Dunn and I were treated to a fine display by these "night partridges" at dusk yesterday in north Holland Landing: a least 4 American Woodcock were doing their aerial dances, fluttering toward the half moon like needle-nosed bats, then zig-zagging downward with their distinctive "zip zup" wing-sounds. A bemused local porcupine joined us for the vigil and a GREAT BLUE HERON passed by like a misplaced pterodactyl. This experience - witnessing the "dance of the timberdoodle" - is truly one of the most enjoyable rites of spring. Also yesterday, Neil Baker observed the first EASTERN MEADOWLARK of the season just west of Hwy. 400 in the vegetable fields south of Bradford. While hiking at the Cawthra Mulock reserve after work today I observed two more of these early field-marshals. There was also an EASTERN PHOEBE and a PILEATED WOODPECKER. A balmy southwest wind was blowing a decent selection of raptors over "Bobolink Ridge": I stopped for 20 minutes and observed TURKEY VULTURE (12), RED-TAILED HAWK (4), RED-SHOULDERED HAWK (1), ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK (1 light morph), and NORTHERN HARRIER (2). An interesting "departing" species was the 200+ SNOW BUNTINGS observed by Keith Dunn today near the western terminus of Ravenshoe Road in south Keswick, likely the last showing by these northerners until next winter. Ron Fleming, Newmarket York Region is north of Toronto and south of Lake Simcoe. From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon Mar 26 23:43:45 2007 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from smtp102.rog.mail.re2.yahoo.com (smtp102.rog.mail.re2.yahoo.com [206.190.36.80]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 2E0BE6348D for <[email protected]>; Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:43:45 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 90064 invoked from network); 27 Mar 2007 03:43:46 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=rogers.com; h=Received:X-YMail-OSG:Message-ID:From:To:Subject:Date:MIME-Version:Content-Type:X-Priority:X-MSMail-Priority:X-Mailer:X-MimeOLE; b=N34dAP7uEwOHODspA1FIEjWijRjYVpH19Uz9eL6Thv9VhdTVU+8usCxfsKRO6it4iQzvVx8sJmkq57ls5gjT8t2HYr/WEDH8IcvjE6kHz0uCd9ahRaiEuNsvdoUKO5MRkTZ+WrQCV1ceJM6suhrONNOOGLlVe9LgAc0t+PIb8+s= ; Received: from unknown (HELO DFS8YG91) ([EMAIL PROTECTED]@74.118.116.153 with login) by smtp102.rog.mail.re2.yahoo.com with SMTP; 27 Mar 2007 03:43:45 -0000 X-YMail-OSG: OS0zu4kVM1mS.Tv5BW.ka0RUt0x6PdkbMWq01piHTtvR57kOTtTYV7oYUegDriVgxQ-- Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "Geoff - Birds" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "OntBirds" <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 23:43:49 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3028 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3028 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.1 Subject: [Ontbirds]Fw: Beamer March 26th X-BeenThere: [email protected] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:43:46 -0000
Despite a miserable start to the day with severe thunder and lightning = directly overhead and rain and wind and ... Terrie Smith and I managed = to salvage a respectable total of hawks But first other highlights included Eastern Bluebird, Y.B. Sapsucker, = Tree Swallows, Fox Sparrow, Eastern Phoebe. We also had Northern = Shovelers, Tundra Swans, Great Black-backed Gulls and Common Mergansers = [they must have thought they were hawks!] - all at the hawk watch. Now the hawks/vultures: Red-shouldered 64 Red-tailed 72 Turkey Vulture 101 Northern Harrier 4 Sharp-shinned 77 Cooper's 4 + 3 resident birds Bald Eagle 1 adult Kestrel 14=20 Rough-legged 2 and the best of all Osprey 1 !!! We did have one very unusual Red-tailed - grey back and upper wings = except primaries that had dark streaks running the length of the shaft = of the primaries; underwing - white along the leading half and darker at = the trailing half [like a Swainson's - but it wasn't one]; belly was = unmarked and white. No "wrist" mark was noted. Tail was pale. Strange = bird but clearly a Red-tailed by body and wing shape, size, and flight. The closest I can come is an immature "Krider's" Red-tailed Hawk, but it = still wasn't perfect as the back colour looked too uniformly coloured = and too light, the primary pattern was indicative but not exact, the = lack of a wrist mark is puzzling and the strong underwing contrast = could work but again it was not as expected. The tail matched an = immature Krider's. Directions: Beamer is on the escarpment directly above Grimsby - exit = Ontario St and go up the hill, turn right at first road and then right = again at the Beamer sign. Geoff Carpentier Ajax, Ontario
