Prompted by an e-mail from Lorena Campbell, I birded the north part of York Region this morning with Mike Van den Tillaart. Our first stop was at Lorena's feeders in Willow Beach where a flock of 35-40 EVENING GROBSBEAKS and 100+ PINE SISKINS showed up in her front yard Friday. Mike and I missed the main flock of grosbeaks when they showed up around 8:00 a.m. today, but we did get excellent looks at two males and a female in her silver maple around 10:30. This is a species that does not show up in York Region very often. Rarer still were two GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE that Mike picked out among the 1,000 or so Canadas swimming in a long line close to shore at Willow Beach minutes later. We pulled over and had excellent scope views of these two rare visitors; both were adult birds with the big white face patch at the base of the bill. When we left at 11:15 they were swimming east of McNeill Road, not far from where a lone willow tree stands on the beach, leaning out toward the water. Other good birds for the day were two WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS and four HORNED GREBES swimming in the company of about 30 Common Mergansers, six Common Loons, and five Buffleheads in the bay at Franklin Beach west of Mossington Point. Also present were several Bonaparte's Gulls, three Greater Black-backs, a female Belted Kingfisher, five Bufflehead, and, among the willows on the shore, approx. two dozen Ruby-crowned Kinglets and 20+ YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS. South of Keswick we had our first NORTHERN SHRIKE of the winter, sitting characteristically at the top of a small tree on the north side of Holborn Road about 2 kms west of Leslie Street. (I should point out that Ian Cannell had two N. Shrikes earlier this week in southwest Thornhill.) While we were up in the Keswick area, Keith Dunn (of Keswick) was birding in Holland Landing, where he had one WINTER WREN, two HERMIT THRUSHES, one FOX SPARROW, and an EASTERN PHOEBE along Hochreiter Road west of Bathurst. On Monday Al Johnson had a SNOW GOOSE fly over his property north of Stouffville, accompanied by several Canada Geese. Ron Fleming, Newmarket York Region is north of Toronto and south of Barrie. Willow Beach is northeast of Keswick and just west of Jackson's Point on the south shore of Lake Simcoe. Lake Drive is a very scenic road that traces the shore between those two towns. The GWF Geese were east of MacNeill Road and west of Kennedy; Lorena Campbell's front deck and feeder can be easily seen from the quiet roadside at 821 Montsell Avenue just south of Lake Drive. _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to ONTBIRDS mailing list [email protected] For instructions to join or leave ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/ontbirdshow.htm ONTBIRDS Guidelines may be viewed at http://www.ofo.ca/ontbirdsguide.htm
