Sometimes long odds pay off. Martin Mallet and I decided to take the 7:15 ferry from Kingston to Wolfe this (Wednesday) morning on a round-trip search for Brett Ewald's white adult Gyrfalcon before work, knowing full-well that we were likely to return very cold and Gyrfalcon-less. We did, however, find the bird! We picked it up from a long way off on the east side of the ferry channel, sitting on the ice just to the north of the land (Dawson's Point?) that you pass west of about 2/3 of the way across. The bird was well away from the ferry at first but obliged us by picking up and flying a short distance towards us, skimming the ice, to alight at a kill along the edge of some open water to feed. On the return trip (the 7:45 from Wolfe) we again sighted the bird on the same kill, while a couple of intrepid Common Goldeneye drakes swam by within 20 feet, apparently gambling that the Gyr was full and providing a test of the phrase 'pride cometh before a fall'. Luckily for them, if not for us, their gamble paid off. That means there is a certain limited amount of food for the bird to eat if it remains, in spite of the ferry channel being clogged with ice.
Directions: The Kingston-side ferry dock is at Barrack and Ontario Sts. in downtown Kingston. See http://www.wolfeisland.com/ferry.php for schedule. The timing of the Wolfe ferry is more idiosyncratic than the Amherst ferry is, so Willie D'Anna's 'half-hour from Kingston, on hour from Wolfe' guidelines from yesterday's post do not always apply! Good birding, Chris Kimber MSc Candidate Dept. of Biology Queen's University Kingston, ON [email protected] _______________________________________________ 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/
