Outdoor Ontario

Birding Reports => Toronto Reports => Topic started by: Anonymous on October 10, 2009, 07:29:47 PM

Title: Toronto Islands Migration - Western Kingbird, etc.
Post by: Anonymous on October 10, 2009, 07:29:47 PM

Good evening folks.

 Today Ian Cannell, Margaret Liubavicius and I spent most of the day just birding Hanlans Point.We figured that with the rainy and windy weather the past couple of days that many birds would decide to move last night and this seems to be what happened as the number of Sparrows and Phoebes seemed to have drastically increased since we were there on Thursday.

 The best bird by a long shot was a Western Kingbird at the south end of the airfield fence at 11:45am. Ian and I were standing talking about how nice a day it had been ( bird and weather wise ) up to this time when a bird flew in from behind us and landed on the tip of a Lilac bush right in front of us. The bird of course was the Western Kingbird. About 10 minutes later Margaret rejoined us and we refound the bird as it seemed to have disapperaed right after we found it the first time.

 This bird was a life Ontario / Canada bird for both Margaret and Ian and a life Island bird for me. We could have headed home right then and been happy but we continued on birding Hanlans and following are some of the birds we found.

 Great Blue Herons, Canvasbacks, Greater Scaup, N. Harrier, lots of Sharp-shinned Hawks, Cooper's Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks, Merlins, Peregrine Falcon, Y-B Sapsuckers, Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, 71 E. Phoebes, Red-breasted and White-breasted Nuthatches, Brown Creepers, Winter Wrens, both Kinglets in good numbers, 36 Hermit Thrushes, migrating Robins, Gray Catbirds, American Pipits overhead, Blue-headed and Red-eyed Vireos, 2 Orange-crowned Warblers ( same on Thursday ), Nashville Warblers, Magnolia Warbler, many Yellow-rumped Warblers, Black-throated Green Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, 2 very nice male Pine Warblers, 42 Palm Warblers, Chipping, Field, Fox, Lincoln's, and Swamp Sparrows, 350 plus White-throated and 100 plus White-crowned Sparrows, many Dark-eyed Juncos, 125 plus A. Goldfinch migrating past, several hundred migrating Red-winged Blackbirds high overhead, 4 Rusty Blackbirds and 4 Eastern Meadowlarks.

 Thursday we had about the same mix but with far different totals for some species plus we also found the following birds :- American Bittern, Wood Ducks, Gadwall, Turkey Vultures, Belted Kingfishers, Swainson's Thrushes, and Eastern Towhee.

 Directions:-

TORONTO ISLANDS ( Ward

Title:
Post by: Moira on October 10, 2009, 07:41:41 PM

What an incredible day Norm.  I'd be thrilled to see half of your list (or maybe even less)!