After a rather wet morning banding (and not banding) at Tommy Thompson Park Bird Research Station I decided to check the small flock of gulls feeding and bathing on the sandbar at the mouth of Embayment D. Mostly Ring-bills, various ages, but one 1st year Laughing Gull made itself nice and obvious. The bird bathed at the far west end of tst small sand-bar and then flew back round and settled - by itself, away from the main flock - on the small sandy beach at the north-eats corner of the embayment. The gull was still there when I left at about 2.00pm (in rather heavy rain). Hope it will hang around until the weekend, but if not it will be worth checking RBGUs along the Toronto waterfront.
Incidentally, in the wake of Hurricane Earl about a month ago, there were large numbers of Laughing Gulls (I guess I must have seen at least a hundred over the course of my week's visit) spread all along the Nova Scotian coastline, no doubt further north and into the St. Lawrence as well, so .... Good birding. Paul Prior Note: Embayment D is the bay on the north side of the Spit just before the gravel road down to the Sailing Club and Bird Research Station. The embayment is well scoped from the look-out by the port-a-pottie, just off the main road a hundred metres west of the main fork. Directions to Tommy Thompson Park (copied from Brett Tryon's post of a week ago - thanks Brett!): Tommy Thompson Park (TTP) is open to the public on weekends and holidays from 9am-6pm April through October and 9am-4:30pm November through March. TTP is located at the foot of Leslie Street where it meets Unwin Avenue, south of Lake Shore Boulevard East. >From the West: Take the Gardiner Expressway east and exit at Lakeshore Blvd. OR take Lakeshore Blvd. east to Leslie St. Turn right at Leslie St. and continue to the end where you will see the park gates. >From the East: Take Lakeshore Blvd. west to Leslie St. Turn left at Leslie St. and continue to the end where you will see the park gates. >From the North: Take the Don Valley Parkway south and exit at Lakeshore Blvd. Go east on Lakeshore Blvd. to Leslie St. Turn right at Leslie St. and continue to the end where you will see the park gates. TTC: Take the 501 streetcar along Queen St. to Leslie St. It is 1300m south on Leslie St. to the gate. (or) Take the 83 Jones S. bus south from Donlands station to Commissioners St. and walk 500m to south to the gate. * Directions to the Tommy Thompson Park Bird Research Station (TTPBRS)* TTPBRS is located on Peninsula D of the park. Continue 3 km from the base of the spit and turn right at the first road, which has a sign for the sailing club. The banding station is the little shack with solar panels beside the parking lot. From May 1 through Thanksgiving weekend, a shuttle van runs from 9:00 - 4:00 and can drop you off right at TTPBRS. *TTPBRS Hours* We conduct migration monitoring from April 1 - June 9 and August 5 - November 12, and are open to the public during weekends and holidays. Our hours vary, as we open nets 30 minutes before sunrise and operate the nets for 6 hours. If you would like to see banding demos, get there early! For more information and a park map, visit www.ttpbrs.ca _______________________________________________ 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/
