The original plan for this trip was to search for migrating geese, ducks, Sandhill Cranes, raptors and other early spring migrants. Spring is struggling to arrive in Ottawa, we continue to have well below average temperatures. At 8 am the temperature was -9 with a windchill of -16.
Since there is virtually no open water and no flooded fields there are very few migrating ducks, extremely few geese and no Sandhill Cranes that I know of so we abandoned the plan to search east of Ottawa for those species. We birded the limited open water of the Ottawa River from Bate Island and Parc Brebeuf. Along with the expected over wintering ducks and expected recently arrived gulls were a pair of Hooded Merganser, 4 Bufflehead and a few dozen Canada Geese. At the Hilda Rd feeders the only spring arrivals were a few Red-winged Blackbirds. March Valley Rd was a little more productive with one of the resident adult Bald Eagles, a single Cedar Waxwing with a small flock of Bohemian Waxwings, single Red-tailed Hawk and Turkey Vulture and a couple of American Robins. Along 6th Line Rd we saw a Northern Goshawk and a sub adult Bald Eagle. With the birders at the Greenland Rd hawk watch we saw a number of distant raptor species including a female Northern Harrier and a Red-shouldered Hawk soaring high overhead. An outing that was not exactly as advertised but 12 birders enjoyed the 34 species we found. Good birding, Bob _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS including how to unsubscribe visit http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdssetup Posting guidelines can be found at http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdsguide
