Betsy and I had a few birds on Saturday that might interest some folks. After missing the Spotted Towhee in Port Colborne (at least we had good company in this), we headed to the river, starting at the ice-boom. The ice-boom is the cable that holds back the Lake Erie ice each winter and which is located a mile or two south of the Peace Bridge. This area has multi-thousands of ducks every winter, especially after the lake begins to get mostly frozen as it already has this winter. The most common ducks, in decreasing order of abundance, were RED-BREASTED MERGANSER, GREATER SCAUP, COMMON MERGANSER, COMMON GOLDENEYE, BUFFLEHEAD, LONG-TAILED DUCK with a few REDHEAD, LESSER SCAUP, WHITE-WINGED SCOTER, and MALLARD. Birds of interest here were 4 RED-THROATED LOONS and 1 RED-NECKED GREBE.
Further downriver, north of the Peace Bridge, in the section north of the last building and south of the International RR Bridge, we had 1 female SURF SCOTER, 1 female RUDDY DUCK, 3 HORNED GREBES, 1 AMERICAN COOT, and 1 adult PEREGRINE FALCON. Between there and Niagara Falls, we rounded out our waterfowl list by adding RING-NECKED DUCK, HOODED MERGANSER, MUTE SWAN, several TUNDRA SWANS, and lots of CANVASBACK. Blayne Farnan reported another RED-NECKED GREBE on the river near Service Road 9 - this is closer to Niagara Falls than Fort Erie. All of these birds are accessed by driving along the Niagara River Parkway/Boulevard in Ontario, although the road name changes to Lakeshore Road when you are south of the Peace Bridge. Good birding! Willie ---------- Willie D'Anna Betsy Potter Wilson, NY dannapotterATroadrunner.com http://www.betsypottersart.com _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to ONTBIRDS mailing list [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/
