Hello Ontbirders, Yesterday, forty six enthusiastic and friendly birders came out to the islands for a beautiful day. Weather conditions were perfect with sunny skies and very little wind, temperatures around 30C. The group as a whole counted up 78 species for the day. Among the passerines we encountered were 18 species of warbler. We had a couple of late Yellow Warblers, a few Canadas that were very difficult to see. We had 9 Wilson's Warblers which gave us good looks. Norm called out his "Cape May" tree and right on cue we found a nicely plumaged male. We had some good looks at the difference between Blackpolls and Bay-Breasted in their fall toggery. I was amused to hear someone say at one point "just another Bay-Breasted". It was nice to see a few of those birds as they are a little tougher to find in the spring. In the trap we had one Northern Waterthrush which only a few of us were lucky to get on. American Redstarts were by far the most numerous of the warblers. We had a fortunate day with Vireos as Warbling and Red-Eyed were easy finds and we all had good looks at 3 Philadelphia Vireos as well. Three lucky birders spotted an Olive-Sided Flycatcher on Algonquin Island. We had good looks at a few Eastern Wood Pewees, one Eastern Phoebe, an Eastern Kingbird, quite a few Great-Crested and a nice Yellow-Bellied. We had a Great Egret fly over and a few Great Blue Herons. Three Belted Kingfishers were present. We all saw a nice Budgie at Wards island as well, part of the small flock of escaped birds hanging around the area. One Caspian Tern, no Common. Bird song of course was relatively quiet but a few Carolina Wrens kept our ears engaged. We had 5 Mink on the mammal side as well. I am not cognizant of too many butterfly species but we did see quite a lot of Monarchs moving through but nothing out of the ordinary. It was quite birdy in some areas so we were kept interested and quite a few people actually stayed with us all the way to Hanlan's when we ended the day at 5pm. 8.5 hours of birding with great company and I enjoyed all the conversations. Thanks again to Norm Murr and Ian Cannell for all their help yesterday with such a large group and making sure as many people as possible got on the good birds that we had. We will see all of you hopefully in the spring again.
Thank you, Jay Peterson For more about the islands you can check out Norm's guide to the islands at http://www.ofo.ca/reportsandarticles/torontoislands.php Directions:The Toronto Ferry Docks are located at the foot of Bay Street in Toronto. Bay Street is on the east side of Union Station and from there it takes Only about 10 minutes to walk south on Bay to the ferry docks. The entrance to the ferry docks is on the south side of Queen's Quay, just west of the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel. Parking ($15, I believe) is available 1 block north of the docks on the west side of Bay, at Lakeshore. or, 1 block west of Bay, on the north side of Queens Quay. or, 1 block east of Bay, on the south side of Queen's Quay, opposite the Toronto Star building and adjacent to Captain John's Restaurant. _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/
