Good evening
Today Alfred Adamo and I motored on down to Rock Point Provincial Park and areas between there and Niagara Falls. On the way just east of County Rd 32 on County Rd 17 (the road to Dunnville) we spotted 11 Wild Turkeys beside the road and along Downey Rd (on the east side of Rock Point Provincial Park) Alfred spotted another Wild Turkey and with her were 2 chicks about 12" tall. Rock Point Park was disappointing as most of the Shorebirds had moved on. 3 Ruddy Turnstones, 9 Sanderlings, 13 Semi-palmated Plovers and a dozen or so Semi-palmated and Least Sandpipers were there though along with 8 or so Warbler species.
We then left the park and drove some of the side roads north of the park and on a sod farm along Bird Road north of Canal Bank Road (east of Stromness, which is south of Dunnville) we found 1 Golden Plover, 11 Black-bellied Plovers and 3 Buff-breasted sandpipers.
We then continued north on Bird Rd and did some right hand turns to the next road over (Poth Road) and at sod farms here we found 41 Killdeer and 35+ Horned Larks.
From here it was off via some more side roads to Fort Erie and on down the river to Niagara falls where we were again disappointed in finding that the Control dam had opened it's gates and the water was very high, flooding all the rocks along the shore and most of them out on the river and there being no where for them the Tri-colored Herons were no where to be found.
This coming Gull season at Niagara will hold some surprising changes. The parking area above the Control Dam is gone, buried under construction material and equipment and the area just south of Dufferin Island (where the Herons were) also is partly cut off because of construction. You can no longer view the rocks, etc below the barge from here.
