Ten PBCers met early and headed east to Oshawa’s Second Marsh to find some interesting spring migrants. The best birds (Y-Headed and Brewer’s Blackbirds) had apparently moved on but we had a nice visit there anyway. From the north platform we could see Little Gull, Caspian Tern, Green Heron (a very close flyby), Common Moorhen, Palm Warbler, Swamp Sparrow, and a Mink carrying a fish! We also had Yellow and Yellow-rumped Warblers before we moved east to the border with Darlington Prov. Park. It was a bit soggy here to no one’s surprise but we got Eastern Meadowlark, Brown Thrasher, and Rough-winged Swallow before we went into the woods where the willows had already leafed out, thus providing a good foraging substrate for any early migrant insectivores. Here we found more of the same but also had a singing Black-and-White Warbler, good views of Hermit Thrush and Blue-headed Vireo, and numerous White-thr. Sparrows. We also had a nice look at a Painted Lady (good call Wilma!) before heading west to Thickson’s Woods.
At Thickson’s we heard a Least Flycatcher singing almost as soon as we walked into the woods. White-thr. Sparrows were everywhere digging in the leaf litter but sharp-eyed Bill found a gem among them, a Wood Thrush! Nearly everyone got good looks at this beauty, too bad it wasn’t singing up a storm as well. We finally got in a good position to see an adult Great Horned Owl and its fluffy young in a tall pine from the general vicinity of the registry/sightings box. We also found some nice warblers here and while admiring them Donna spotted an early Blackburnian Warbler! What a treat! Other warblers found in this little wave of birds included Pine, Palm, Black-thr. Green, and Yellow-rumped Warblers, and a Blue-headed Vireo as well. While searching in vain to get a good look at a distant singing Nashville Warbler we also had good views of a pair of Eastern Phoebes, a Winter Wren, and several displaying Northern Flickers. We picked up a few souvenir Flicker feathers from the ground of an apparently unlucky local bird. We finally tore ourselves away from Thickson’s at around noon and headed for lunch.
After lunch we moved on to Corner Marsh where we found both Common and Caspian Terns and the water levels were very high and the marsh itself seemed to be fairly healthy. Waterfowl seen here included Bufflehead, Lesser Scaup, Common Merganser, and a solitary Ruddy Duck. There were even several very large carp futilely trying to get past the control gate to spawn further upstream in the marsh. We hoped an Osprey would fly over and dive down and catch one but the only thing that showed was an anxious fisherman who chased off a territorial pair of Canada Geese to get closer to this good fishing spot. This seemed to answer my question as to whether or not people would eat carp. A late afternoon return trip to Second Marsh yielded FOY Eastern Kingbirds and Pied-billed Grebe. It was indeed a very good, early spring birding day with several nice surprises! Next weekend should also be a local trip(less than 1 hour drive) as the rest of the weekends in May will be much longer trips. Bring on the birds, have a good week all, Brete
P.S. IMBD (May 10th) is coming, more on this very soon!
