Good morning
Yesterday I met Margaret Liubavicius and I met and went over to the Toronto Islands to check out the migrants, etc. and below are some of the high lights and surprises we encountered despite the strong Northerly wind.
There are still Bufflehead and Long-tailed Ducks there and we found 2 Wood Ducks, 7 Lesser Scaup and 5 Canvasbacks. Later in the day we spied 7 Turkey Vultures heading east over The Islands. Usual no more than 1 or 2 Turkey Vultures are seen every couple of years down there. We also found a couple of Cooper's hawks, 2 Belted Kingfishers, a nice male (migrant) Red-bellied Woodpecker in The Sanctuary, 17 Northern Flickers thru-out, an early Least Flycatcher, 5 Swallow species, 2 singing Carolina and 1 singing Winter Wren, a Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, 7 Hermit Thrushes, 3 singing Brown Thrashers, 7 warbler species - Nashville, Yellow, 48 Yellow-rumped, Black-throated green, Pine, 4 Palms, and Black-and-white, a couple of Eastern Towhees, Field, Chipping and Savannah Sparrows and lots of White-throated Sparrows.
Our biggest surprise happened as we approached the Hanlans Point ferry dock when we heard a loudly singing bird. We looked at each other and then searched the tree in front of us and found a loudly singing male Bobolink. This bird was the earliest in Ontario for me by 5 days and in the GTA (Richmond Hill) by 7 days. A very good ending to a very nice day.
Better and fuller days ahead.
