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
Showing posts with label Sunnyside Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sunnyside Park. Show all posts
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Sunnyside Gulls
As I wrote in an earlier post, I have been taking a walk down to the waterfront along Sunnyside Park, Toronto every day before the TOC trip on Sunday. What I have discovered is that I wish I had been taking this walk more often because there is always the possibility of something good showing up. Thursday I had a Glaucous Gull, Friday a possible Iceland (more on this in a minute), and today a Great Black-backed Gull flyby (my first for Sunnyside Park).
In his blog, Blake Mann has quipped that gulls love ice and I do believe he's onto something. Today had the highest number of gulls I've seen yet along the waterfront; there was more ice, it was snowing, and the sky was overcast but the gulls seem to like it that way. Unfortunately, for all of the gulls that were present, I couldn't pick out anything out of the ordinary Ring-billed/Herring except for the Great Black-backed Gull I already mentioned. The same Redhead flock must be spending the evenings in the same location as around 200-300 birds are always present in a large group along with a spattering of dabblers and the rare Long-tailed Duck when they venture closer to shore.
After talking with Marianne, I'm confident that the bird I had on Friday was an Iceland Gull. When resting on the ice, this individual had limited white on its primaries and was about the same size as the surrounding Herring Gulls. It also had limited streaking on the head and neck. When it took flight, there seemed to be even less dark at the end of the wing and I knew I had a white-winged gull but I didn't see the bird long enough to convince myself it couldn't have been a Thayer's. My experience with studying gulls is pretty dismal at this point so I'm not sure I'm confident enough to start identifying gulls as if it's a simple task. Especially since I'm without scope in Toronto right now, so although the gulls are close enough for me to get a good idea with binoculars, I can't really put together enough different field marks to get the full picture.
Any tips for the next time I get a white-winged gull? What should I look for between Glaucous/Iceland, Iceland/Thayer's, etc.?
And although this has nothing to do with birding, a quick word about Heath Ledger, who was on the rise towards becoming one of our generation's great actors. I will remember him best for his role as Ennis in Brokeback Mountain. His passing is a great loss.
In his blog, Blake Mann has quipped that gulls love ice and I do believe he's onto something. Today had the highest number of gulls I've seen yet along the waterfront; there was more ice, it was snowing, and the sky was overcast but the gulls seem to like it that way. Unfortunately, for all of the gulls that were present, I couldn't pick out anything out of the ordinary Ring-billed/Herring except for the Great Black-backed Gull I already mentioned. The same Redhead flock must be spending the evenings in the same location as around 200-300 birds are always present in a large group along with a spattering of dabblers and the rare Long-tailed Duck when they venture closer to shore.
After talking with Marianne, I'm confident that the bird I had on Friday was an Iceland Gull. When resting on the ice, this individual had limited white on its primaries and was about the same size as the surrounding Herring Gulls. It also had limited streaking on the head and neck. When it took flight, there seemed to be even less dark at the end of the wing and I knew I had a white-winged gull but I didn't see the bird long enough to convince myself it couldn't have been a Thayer's. My experience with studying gulls is pretty dismal at this point so I'm not sure I'm confident enough to start identifying gulls as if it's a simple task. Especially since I'm without scope in Toronto right now, so although the gulls are close enough for me to get a good idea with binoculars, I can't really put together enough different field marks to get the full picture.
Any tips for the next time I get a white-winged gull? What should I look for between Glaucous/Iceland, Iceland/Thayer's, etc.?
And although this has nothing to do with birding, a quick word about Heath Ledger, who was on the rise towards becoming one of our generation's great actors. I will remember him best for his role as Ennis in Brokeback Mountain. His passing is a great loss.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
GTA Sightings
A short trip to the Toronto Harbourfront at Sunnyside Park produced some interesting birds today. I'm going to be going for a walk in this location every day now before the TOC trip on Sunday so that I can get a good idea of what is in the area to help the leader, Glenn Coady, out if I can (gulls are not my strong suite just yet but I've been studying them). There are still quite a few ducks along the shore, this time a group of about 250 Redheads, which had been ensconced in an area that wasn't frozen yet between the break wall and the beach. Also in this flock were Greater Scaup, Bufflehead, 1 Hooded Merganser, 1 Common Goldeneye, Red-breasted Merganser, and Canada Goose. Farther west, I had some dabbling ducks including Mallard and Gadwall (7) as well as a few Long-tailed Duck farther out in the lake past the break wall. Oddly, only 1 Mute Swan was in the vicinity.
I only found one group of gulls (hardly enough to be considered a galaxy) that included Ring-billed and Herring Gulls. I also had a nonbreeding adult Glaucous Gull, which ended up flying east from its respite on the ice. I'm hoping for an Iceland Gull sometime in the next while but of course a Glaucous on Sunday would be a good bird for the trip.
I'm also currently trying to figure out how the compilation of sightings works in Toronto. In the Pelee Birding Circle, Alan Wormington compiles all sightings and there are no set guidelines but rather the sending along of sightings you find notable. Toronto has a set of guidelines with cutoff #'s, which means that if you see more than that number of a certain species in one area, you should report it. The last guideline update was 2000 however, and also, there are some species that have very low cutoff #'s as I see it. More on this when I chat with the Toronto compiler, Roy Smith.
I only found one group of gulls (hardly enough to be considered a galaxy) that included Ring-billed and Herring Gulls. I also had a nonbreeding adult Glaucous Gull, which ended up flying east from its respite on the ice. I'm hoping for an Iceland Gull sometime in the next while but of course a Glaucous on Sunday would be a good bird for the trip.
I'm also currently trying to figure out how the compilation of sightings works in Toronto. In the Pelee Birding Circle, Alan Wormington compiles all sightings and there are no set guidelines but rather the sending along of sightings you find notable. Toronto has a set of guidelines with cutoff #'s, which means that if you see more than that number of a certain species in one area, you should report it. The last guideline update was 2000 however, and also, there are some species that have very low cutoff #'s as I see it. More on this when I chat with the Toronto compiler, Roy Smith.
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