The beautiful sunny day we enjoyed on the Islands today was matched only by the nice group of birders who made it a pleasure to lead this outing.
As has been usual for the past three years a large group of birders showed up to practise their skills at identifying those "confusing fall warblers" and practise they had, in full. After 2 or 3 hours we had progressed no further than a few hundred metres from the Ward's Island ferry dock as wave after wave of warblers, vireos, flycatchers and other species flew into a few willows in front of us. A beautifully plumaged male Canada Warbler was a big favourite as was a cooperative male Black-throated Blue Warbler. Philadelphia Vireos and Yellow-bellied Flycatchers were other popular sightings. When we finally left the Ward's cottage area and headed west, we enjoyed seeing an Olive-sided Flycatcher from Snake Island, at the very top of the highest bare snag, as is typical for this species. Snake Island is a good place to find this species at this time of year. If you have an opportunity to get over to the Islands in the next few weeks, particularly after northerly winds overnight you can be pretty sure of a great day of birding. Two things: Be sure you have the correct ferry schedule; it's the summer schedule now, but will change to the fall schedule on Sept. 7th. New ferry ticket machines are now in place, just outside the entrance to the ferry dock. The good news is that they will now accept credit cards. The bad news is that they are far from intuitive to use. To use them: Use the two buttons at the left to scroll up or down to choose the kind of ticket you want (Adult, or Seniors, etc.). Then select the number of people for whom you want tickets on the number pad below. Then push the green "Print" button. The screen will then display the amount it expects from you. Either enter the correct change in the yellow slot below ($6.50 adult or $4.00 Seniors) or enter your credit card. Then push the green "Print" button again. Finally remove the ticket when it drops down into the slot at bottom right (note that multiple tickets will be printed if you paid for more than one person). I provide these details because I had to help most people to figure out how to use these new machines. Ian. _______________________________________________ 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/
