Waterfowl Inventory 2009

Some members of the Toronto Ornithological Club who were kind enough to offer me a ride to the waterfront this morning picked me up at 8am to start our group's section of the waterfowl inventory. It's a count done each winter to get an estimate of waterfowl populations on Lake Ontario along the GTA waterfront from the east to west end.

We had a great section to cover from Humber Bay East all the way to the Keating Channel (east of Ontario Place) and including High Park (for Mallards that overwinter on Grenadier Pond where it doesn't freeze over in the north end). I used to live within walking distance of this section of the Toronto waterfront and it's a wonderful place to birdwatch. There are good numbers of duck rafts, many Mute Swans, and a chance for a some uncommon gull species (Glaucous, Iceland in particular). A breakwall along the shore creates shifting ice patches that almost always have good numbers of gulls to look at.

Weather: the temperature, though frigid, was not as bad as it could have been due to very low winds. Had there been winds, it would have been a miserable day. Fortunately, the sun shone bright, there was no fog and little haze, and visibility was high.

Our team consisted of Margaret Kelch, Doug Woods, Celia Harte, Mark Field, Harvey, Josh, and Zoe (I didn't get the last 3 members' last names). What we would often do when we encountered a large group of ducks (the Keating Channel proved the most difficult), would be to assign a species to each birder to count. It made the task much quicker and much easier. I was the official Redhead counter, which was fun but also a challenge...of all the waterfowl we tallied, Redhead had the highest numbers! There was also the issue of distant birds looking superficially similar to Scaups, which were also present in fair numbers. We had one scope in the group so Doug would often be our official distant-raft tallier and just count each species himself while we tallied the closer birds.

Obviously, as birders do, we also looked for other species as well. Some species of note include 3 Common Redpoll at Sunnyside Park, a single Iceland Gull at Keating Channel (LIFER), and an adult Bald Eagle that flew directly over our heads at Ontario Place. Yes, yes, I know...it took me this long to see an Iceland Gull?! Interesting, too, that I got Thayer's before Iceland. It was one of those species that always just seemed to be out of reach for me. I tried hard last year but was unsuccessful (got 2 Glaucous though) so it was a pleasure to get one so close and easily identifiable on this trip (it flew next to a Herring Gull for size comparison and Glaucous Gull was immediately eliminated).

Our numbers for the day were as follows:

Mallard .................. 229
American Black Duck ...... 2
Redhead .................. 1017
Gadwall .................. 16
American Widgeon ......... 8
Greater scaup ............ 576
Lesser scaup ............. 11
Ring-necked Duck ......... 1
Common Goldeneye ......... 128
Bufflehead ............... 49
LongTail ................. 932
Common Merganser ......... 40
Red-breasted Merganser ... 37
Hooded Merganser ......... 11
Mute Swan ................ 23
Tundra Swan .............. 4
Canada Goose ............. 115

The count for American Black Duck is an error. We had more than 2 birds at our first location so I don't know what happened to the final tally. We had closer to 10 birds for the day. Four species that were expected but missed include Trumpeter Swan, Harlequin Duck, Northern Shoveler, and American Coot (more likely in the interior of Humber Bay where we didn't cover).

Day list:

Canada Goose
Mute Swan
Tundra Swan
Gadwall
American Wigeon
American Black Duck
Mallard
Redhead
Greater Scaup
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup
Long-tailed Duck
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Bald Eagle
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Iceland Gull *lifer
Great Black-backed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Blue Jay
Black-capped Chickadee
American Robin
European Starling
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Common Redpoll - 3
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Total Species: 33
Duration: 8:30am-12:30pm

Spotted Towhee pics

As promised, here are the 3 pictures I got of the Spotted Towhee.







This is the spot where I first saw the bird amidst the tangles in the center of the photo.



The bird has been hanging out behind the 42nd Parallel sign and around the washrooms.