There have been no reports from Amherst or Wolfe Island this week; I suspect nothing much has changed over there except that the snowbanks are probably so high that to bird from a vehicle would be very difficult. Everything is pretty much frozen up so small areas of open water tend to attract those waterfowl that insist on hanging around. The ferry channel to Amherst has both Hooded and Common Mergansers and sometimes an excellent concentration of gulls. Further to the west, there is open water at the Lennox Generating Station with scaup, mergansers, Common Goldeneye and Redheads. Continuing out the Bath Road towards Adolphustown there are lots of Canada Geese and 4 Mute Swans.
The Violet dump had 3 Glaucous and an Iceland Gull on Wednesday and the Napanee dump, not that productive this year as they are dumping the garbage behind the "mountain" so the gulls are out of sight, did have a Common Raven last Friday and a Peregrine Falcon on Wednesday. There were 2 more ravens reported from Bedford Mills on Thursday. There must be some berries on a few of the Red Cedars because there are still waxwings and robins around; a singleton Am. Robin at Bedford Mills, 20 more on the Butternut Creek Rd. along with 3 Cedar Waxwings and 50 Bohemian Waxwings in Amherstview; all seen on Wednesday. There were 4 Rusty Blackbirds at Sillsville (these were first seen back in January) and 2 Golden-crowned Kinglets at Bath on Tuesday, a Red-breasted Nuthatch at Bedford Mills on Thursday and the first reported migrant Horned Lark ( a few overwinter on the islands) was seen near Violet on Wednesday. Finches are still mainly represented by redpolls; there were 3 Hoaries reported this week all in large flocks of Common Redpolls; at Elginburg, out Montreal St. and on the Butternut Creek Road. The Bedford Mills feeder also had a visit from 18 Evening Grosbeaks last Sunday. Cheers, Peter Good Kingston Field Naturalists 613 378-6605 _______________________________________________ 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/information/ontbirdssetup.php ONTBIRDS Guidelines may be viewed at http://www.ofo.ca/information/ontbirdsguide.php
