Good evening all. Today Ian Cannell and I went up to the Holland Landing Sewage lagoons to check out the shore birds and following is a list some of the birds we found there.
Green-winged Teal, many Mallards, 34 Wood Ducks, 1 Northern Harrier, 75 plus Killdeer, 9 Semipalmated Plovers, 75 plus Lesser Yellowlegs, 1 Greater Yellowlegs, 8 Solitary Sandpipers, 6 Spotted Sandpipers, 1 Semipalmated Sandpiper, 32 Least Sandpipers, 1 Baird's Sandpiper, 7 Pectoral Sandpipers, 2 Stilt Sandpipers, 1 Short-billed Dowitcher, and 50 plus Bonaparte's Gulls. Before we went to the sewage lagoons we went up to Hochreiter Road just north of the lagoons on Bathurst Street and following is a list of some of the birds we found there. 2 American and 1 Least Bittern, 2 Green and 6 Black-crowned night-Herons, Wood Ducks, Virginia Rail, 12 Common Moorhens, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Belted Kingfishers, Eastern Phoebes, and Marsh Wrens and at the end of Bathurst Street we saw 500 plus Bank Swallows on hydro wires along with 12 Purple Martins. As usual, Ian was not finished after the sewage lagoons and we headed up to Tiny Marsh Northwest of Barrie and again we did alright as far as the birding went despite the fact that a lot of the breeding birds have departed to bunch up somewhere else before heading south. At the marsh we found a family of Common Loons including the adult and 2 juveniles, 12 Pied-billed Grebes, adults and juveniles, Least Bittern, Trumpeter and Mute Swan families, lots of Canada Geese and Wood Ducks, 2 juvenile and 1 adult Osprey, Merlin, American Kestrels, Common Moorhen, Sandhill Crane, 41 Lesser Yellowlegs migrating past, 1 Solitary Sandpiper, Black and Caspian Terns, Belted Kingfishers, Alder Flycatchers, Eastern Phoebes, Eastern Wood Pewees, Marsh Wrens, Blue-headed and Red-eyed Vireos, Indigo Buntings and 5 Purple Finches. Another great day to be out with the bonus of good company and interesting birds. DIRECTIONS:- HOLLAND LANDING SEWAGE LAGOONS >From Yonge Street North of Newmarket and North of Regional Road 19 (Green Lane >East) turn right onto Regional Road 83 (Holland Landing Road) and drive down >the hill and then veer right onto Regional Road 51 (Yonge Street, yes Yonge >Street) and then drive north past Doane Road to Cedar Street. Turn right (East) on Cedar Street and drive to the and of the Street and park at the nice new silver gate. Do Not Climb the gate or fence but walk along the path on the left to the first orange stake. Turn right onto the path at the stake and this path will take you the very short distance to the road to the sewage lagoons. HOCHREITER ROAD >From Yonge Street North of Newmarket and North of Regional Road 19 (Green Lane >East) turn right onto Regional Road 83 (Holland Landing Road). Drive Northwest along Holland Landing Road to where it becomes Bathurst Street and veer right up Bathurst Street (Regional Road 38) at Toll Road and then drive North past Queensville Sideroad West and watch for Hochreiter Road on the left or west side of Bathurst Street. The road runs from Bathurst Street to the Holland River. TINY MARSH PROVINCIAL WILDLIFE AREA Exit Hwy 400 at Exit #98 in Barrie and drive northwest on Hwy 26 to Midhurst (Hwy 26 veers left or west here). Continue straight ahead on County Rd 27 (Yonge St. Rd) thru Elmvale to a Y intersection. Take the left hand road at the Y (County Rd 6) and drive north to 1st Concession Rd (Tiny Flos Rd). Turn left (west) here (there is a Tiny Marsh sign here) and drive about 2 km to the Tiny Marsh parking area on your right. Alternate Direction to Tiny Marsh Exit Hwy 400 at Exit #121 and drive northwest on Hwy 93 to Waverly. Turn left (west) here and drive along County Rd 27 to county Rd 6 where it becomes 1st Concession Rd (Tiny Flos Rd) and drive the approx. 2 km to the parking area. From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sat Aug 4 20:33:48 2007 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net (tomts22.bellnexxia.net [209.226.175.184]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 44B1963893 for <[email protected]>; Sat, 4 Aug 2007 20:33:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from gascoignexp ([74.15.3.159]) by tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net (InterMail vM.5.01.06.13 201-253-122-130-113-20050324) with SMTP id <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> for <[email protected]>; Sat, 4 Aug 2007 20:33:48 -0400 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "David Gascoigne and Miriam Bauman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 20:33:46 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3138 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3138 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.1 Subject: [Ontbirds]Mitchell Seage Lagoons X-BeenThere: [email protected] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 00:33:48 -0000 We birded Mitchell Sewage Lagoons this afternoon; once again we were the only birders present. Plans to upgrade this facility to a wetland have now been completed and there are information boards posted stating that work will begin immediately and should be completed by the fall. The ponds will be dug out and remediated and water levels will ultimately be controlled to ensure habitat for waterfowl and shorebirds at appropriate times of the year. At present the water level in all the lagoons is very low, hence there is a lot of shorebird habitat. Conversely there is little waterfowl habitat and we saw only Mallard and Canada Geese; quite a contrast from the many families of Wood Duck present there just a couple of weeks ago. Here are the shorbirds seen today: Killdeer - abundant Semipalmated Plover - 3 Lesser Yellowlegs - abundant Greater Yellowlegs - 2 Stilt Sandpiper - 1 Least Sandpiper - abundant, including many juveniles in crisp, bright plumage. Semipalmated Sandpiper - 11 Pectoral Sandpiper - 7 Solitary Sandpiper - 2 Spotted Sandpiper - 6 In addition to a field guide (e.g. National Geographic, Sibley) we take the following reference books with us. Advanced Birding by Kenn Kaufman Shorebirds by Peter Hayman et al Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest by Dennis Paulson We consult the Paulson book more than any other. It really is a terrific shorebird reference. Directions: Take Highway 8 from Stratford (there are ways to avoid going through Stratford if you know the area) right into Mitchell. Pass the Tim Horton's on the right and go to the first traffic lights. This is Wellington Street. Turn left and drive right down as far as you can go into the small parking lot. The lagoons are right there. David Gascoigne and Miriam Bauman
