Today I again took a trip to The Leslie Street Spit and on the way Margaret Liubavicius joined me and off we went on an all day bird filled trip as well as a surprise filled trip. It started out nicely with 8 Rusty Blackbirds on The Base and went uphill from there despite the again cloud covered morning.
As we walked along out along the Causeway then the Outer Arm to Pipit Point, across the Flats to the Lighthouse and to the end of the main road area, onto Peninsula B and The Peninsula D we came up with the following birds and though we had only 79 species of birds we did have quality.
Pied-billed Grebes, N. Shovelers, Canvasback, Redheads, Greater Scaup, Bufflehead, all 3 Mergansers, Great Egret, N. Harriers, Sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks, 3 Merlins, Black-bellied Plovers, Caspian Tern, Common Loon, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Belted Kingfishers, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Eastern Wood Pewees (1 Calling), 4 Vireos including Philadelphia and Blue-headed, 5 Thrushes including 2 male Eastern Bluebirds (a surprise), Swainson's and Grey-cheeked Thrushes ( 1 Gray-cheeked on The Flats, a surprising area), Brown Creepers, Winter and House Wrens, American Pipits, only 16 Warbler species but they included a real Orange-crowned Warbler and the subject Yellow-throated Warbler, Lincoln's Sparrows and 14 Rusty Blackbirds.
The Orange-crowned Warbler was well seen as it fed in low shrubs and brush on Pipit Point and the Yellow-throated Warbler was an adult bird well seen as it fed in the tops of the Cottonwoods on Peninsula D. It was feeding and travelling with Yellow-rumped, Blackpoll and Bay-breasted Warblers.
A couple of other surprises involved non birds. Along the outer arm we found a dead 22" long Eastern Milk Snake (Lampropetis trianguleum triangleum) with V shaped patch on nape (collected and frozen). It had apparently been killed by a bicycle. We also observed a Mink crossing the main road onto the base of Peninsula D. The Milk Snake may be the first for The Spit, I really don't know. If anyone has any other info on this species or would like to have the specimen (I will keep it for awhile) then contact me in private.
