My journey started early at Manchester Airport catching a flight to Heathrow before connecting onto a Toronto bound flight. I was off on my way to volunteer at Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory (www.peptbo.ca) for the spring migration to see how different it is from the UK.
I arrived at Toronto a little over 30 minutes late and made my way through customs relatively easily to the arrivals area where I met up with David Okines. Once all my gear was in the car we tackled the famous traffic of the city just about in peak rush hour as we headed east along with everyone heading home for the long Easter weekend! As we made steady progress the first birds spotted were Ring-billed Gull, Common Grackle, Starling, Red-tailed Hawk and a few others flying over. We finally arrived at Prince Edward Point in the dark being greeted by the calls of Wilson’s Snipe.
10th April
After a very long day yesterday I had a lie in getting up at 6:30 (11:30 UK time), Dave suggested that he would give me a tour of the area. First step out of the door produced some locals, mainly Song Sparrow, Brown-headed Cowbird, American Robin and Cedar Waxwings. Moving 100m we were on the shore of Lake Ontario admiring all the numerous wildfowl. Starting with Common and Red-breasted Mergansers then 10 White-winged Scoters but the most numerous reaching over a hundred each were both Long-tailed Duck and Buffleheads. Moving around to the old lighthouse as the sun continued to rise resulted in Tree and Barn Swallow, Eastern Pheobe, Fox Sparrow, Brown Creeper, Eastern Towhee, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and a pair of Wood Duck. Pottering back to the obs we picked up the rest of the common birds such as Golden-crowned Kinglet, Mourning Dove, Black-capped Chickadee, Red-winged Blackbird and Slate-colored Junco all recently arrived back for the summer.
Over the next few hours we erected 19 mist nets ready for the banding season that starts tomorrow. All the nets are positioned along the edge of a wood running away from the obs. Mid afternoon and Dave took me on a trip to see some ducks, on route we saw American Kestrel, Blue Jay, Eastern Meadowlark and an Osprey. Arriving at Kaiser Cross there were some flooded fields covered with migrant Canada Geese. Moving over to the next field yielded American Black Duck, Blue-winged Teal, American Wigeon, Green-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck as well as Shoveler, Pintail and Gadwall. The visit finished with a pair of Northern Harriers quartering the fields at the back.
Trip Total – 53 (4 lifers)
11th April
Banding started bright and early at sunrise (06:30) as the nets were opened flushing an American Woodcock from the path in the process. The weather was clear with a northerly wind making migrant numbers low. As the morning progressed a Sharp-shinned Hawk passed over head followed by a Caspian Tern, Belted Kingfisher and a Bonaparte’s Gull. The six hour banding session came to a close with a tally of 5 Black-capped Chickadees, 4 Brown Creeper, 7 Golden-crowned Kinglets, 5 American Robin, 2 Song Sparrow, 3 Slate-colored Junco, 6 Brown-headed Cowbird, a Cedar Waxwing and a female Northern Cardinal.
A lazy afternoon produced a Common Loon offshore along with a thousand Long-tailed Ducks. Other sightings of interest were Red Squirrel, Chipmunk and the abundant Garter Snake with easily over 50 noted.
Trip Total – 61 (6 lifers)
12th April
Yet another clear frosty start to the day as the fresh northerly wind remained. The bird feeders attracted a House Finch and four American Goldfinch just starting to moult into their summer splendour. The nets were extremely quiet with only 3 new birds being caught so we closed early. Luckily the ground traps boosted the day’s catch with 43 Brown-headed Cowbirds being banded.
Hearing news that up to six Snowy Owls were still on Amherst Island we made an afternoon trip hoping to get some of the islands winter specialities before they all headed off north. Two ferries later and we arrived on the Island just after midday and were immediately greeted by our first Rough-legged Hawk within the first kilometre. It was soon very noticeable that Rough-legged Hawks and Northern Harriers were very abundant on the isle with its large rough fields. We crossed the island passing a wet area with a Lesser and 8 Greater Yellowlegs in attendance before taking a dead end coastal road scanning every field, tree, building, fence, etc. for a white blob. There was a strong heat haze making scanning distant objects hard as we started noting a few Red-tailed Hawks.
It wasn’t long though before we were stopped in our tracks as a white blob appeared over a hill, which surely enough turned out to be a distant male Snowy Owl. Good scope views were had as the impressive owl rested in a field. We continued up the road for less than a kilometre when a large white bird flew from behind the roadside fence, yes it was another Snowy Owl. This immature female bird proved very obliging as she landed closely in a field before flying back towards the fence, WOW.
Feeling very happy with ourselves we felt very confident that we could find the remaining 4 birds as they definitely lacked camouflage this late on in the year. We headed for the east end of the island picking up another bird followed by two more in quick succession reaching the northeast corner. We now had a plan to check every road on the island to see if there were in fact more than six birds after we had already seen 5 with just covering a fraction of the island all from the car. Next find however was a Northern Shrike followed by an Eastern Bluebird and a fly by Peregrine. We now had our eye in on the owls and soon were spotting them regularly mostly either sitting along the base of fences, behind grass tufts or rocks trying to shelter from the wind in open fields with rough grass. As we continued along the roads our tally increased steadily (is this really April?) with mostly distant birds. Our thoughts turned to thinking how many voles must their be to sustain this number of birds! Approaching the central road we stopped scanning a promising area with many hawks and harriers in view when Dave said quietly “look up”, there on the telegraph just 10m away sat another Snowy looking down on us (Shit!!!!).
As evening approached we headed for a wood for a casual walk and rest from all those owls finding some very inquisitive Black-capped Chickadees unhappy with our lack of food. Retracing our steps we headed back for the 8 o’clock ferry along a road previously checked. Straight away we encountered a Short-eared Owl then just 3km away from the ferry white figures started to appear on fences, first 2 then 3 and then over the next hill the next field astonishingly had five birds all sat out in full view!!! Earlier we had only seen three birds on this stretch of road, just how many have we missed?
Finally rushing back to the ferry we finally had time to reflect on an amazing days birding. Our totals were 80-100 Rough-legged Hawks (including 16+ dark morphs) with similar numbers of Northern Harrier seen but most incredible we had found 21 Snowy Owls (including 5 males).
13th April
Was another clear day with a cool northerly wind and banding was slow but the variety was good with a Sharp-shinned Hawk, Fox Sparrow, Purple Finch, Pine Siskin and American Goldfinch all new for the seasons list.
An afternoon stroll to Point Traverse yielded 80 White-winged Scoter, 6 Common Loon, 280 Bonaparte’s and a Great Black-backed Gull on the lake. The wood seemed very quiet with just a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Brown Creepers and Golden-crowned Kinglets.
14th April
As the mornings were getting warmer more birds started to arrive with a Hermit Thrush and Swamp Sparrow being banded. Best bird of the session though goes to the male Yellow-shafted Flicker, very smart indeed!!!!!!!!!! A Ruffed Grouse skulked in the undergrowth whilst a Vesper Sparrow ran along the road.
It was time for the weekly shop so off to Picton we headed but no sooner had we left the wildlife area a large white bird flew from the roadside fence off over rough land scattered with bushes and out of sight. You guessed it a Snowy Owl! After recovering from the shock surprisingly we carried on and did the shopping. On our return there was no sign but then a kilometre down the road there sat a familiar figure on a fence. In fact it was the wildlife area boundary fence making it the only second record for Prince Edward Point. Across the road was also a pair of Horned Grebes on the Lake.
