Ashbridge's Bay and Leslie St. Spit, Chat and Owls

[Iain]

I relocated the Yellow-breasted Chat this morning at 8:45 at Ashbridge's Bay Park and then headed to the Spit and here's what I saw:

Hundreds of Long-tailed Ducks
Hundreds of Lesser Scaup
Many Common Goldeneye
Many Bufflehead
1 Horned Grebe
2 Great Black-backed Gulls
a large flock of American Pipits
Two seperate flocks of Common Redpolls
1 American Kestrel
1 Great-horned Owl
1 Barred Owl
1 Northern Goshawk flying low and straight at me (low enough that it went around me and not over me)

Here are a couple shots from the day:

Yellow-breasted Chat


American Kestrel


Barred Owl

[norman]

Very nice image of the Ashbridge's bird ... I'm assuming it's on the lake side (it's in a Russian olive) ... did you see it munching on the fruit? Dietary information is hard to come by in my library, although my guess is that it's not too fussy. It grabbed a few things from the ground Sunday afternoon (T - +3C), so perhaps it's supplementing its diet with arthropods while it can.

Please advise.

Cheers,

NB