My first post! Hello everyone!
It was a blustery, overcast day, but there were some great birds out. The Western Grebe was in the marina, and we got a great look at it. There were a great many Horned and Red-necked Grebes. We saw a vicious fight between two Red-necked Grebes from quite close. They carried their fight underwater and only one emerged. The other would've had to swim a long way if it survived, because we didn't see it come up.
There were a couple Ring-necked Ducks and the usual suspects: Buffleheads, Long-tailed Ducks, Scaups, etc. A darkly coloured Belted Kingfisher turned up, rattling away, as we left.
We also saw at least a dozen Brown Creepers, which was very strange. Everywhere we looked (up in the trees near the skating rink building) there were these little brown birds hopping up trees! There were many Golden-crowned Kinglets as well, a Hermit Thrush, an Eastern Phoebe, a Northern Flicker, and a juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Hundreds of Tree Swallows swirled around us, babbling.
Later on, we ended up at High Park, where we saw a couple PIed-billed Grebes close up in the reeds. The Golden-crowned Kinglets were hopping in the brush, so we got the best looks at them I'd ever had! Their crowns were not only visible but brilliant, from light yellow on some of them, to a deep, almost red gold on others. And finally a Great Horned Owl was feeding its large fledgling a mouse, and we got to watch them for a quarter of an hour or so as the rain fell down on us.
A great day!
JMA
