CCFEW Walk Today

[angieinto]

Enjoyed a great morning walk with some fellow "bird nerds" down at Humber Bay East. I had a great time seeing a few water birds for the first time, including;
Long-tailed Ducks, Ruddy Ducks, Scaups, Red Breasted Mergansers, and ending the day with a pair of American Black Ducks, and a gorgeous male Northern Pintail was just awesome! Saw more then this list, but these were "firsts" for me.  Looking forward to the March walk. Great outing with a great group of people. Next time we'll partake in the coffee back at "Birds and Beans".

 

[Rob'in'To]

Ya, coffee after would have been great...  stupid head cold wore me out.

The Great Black-backed Gull was awesome (a first for me)!  And to end it off with the Pintail (another first).  

Thanks to everyone who participated in this walk and shared their knowledge along with scopes to help see some of these.  Perhaps next time I will catch a few more names of the others who were present.  I recognized a few faces from other walks and events from last year.

[birdstitcher]

Nice to meet you Angie and Rob! And Dave too! Bummer I missed the pintail!!! Where did you see it? Maybe I will wander over tomorrow. Sorry I had to take off without saying bye, but, when a ride home is offered and you are tired from working all night, you take up the offer.

Kerri-Ann

[Rob'in'To]

Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.  Good for you on coming out despite working all night!  I worked nights for too many years myself (never was a fan...  :x ).  Anyways, nice to meet you as well and thanks again for pointing out some other waterfowl to us.

The Pintail was in a mostly frozen pond area just north of the parking lot.  There is a walkway bridge at the far end of the lot (north/east).  It was mixed in with a lot of Mallards and one pair of American Black Ducks.  The Pintail is one stunning species and was getting a lot of attention from on-lookers and very well behaved photographers.  Here's one of my shots...

[Brian Bailey]

I think we should make Birds & Beans the official last stop on these walks!  I walked down to the shore at Amos Waites Park (beside the coffee shop) before going in for coffee.  Out on the ice was this Glaucous Gull:

(I included the Ring-bills in this crop for scale.)
Also seen there but not at Humber Bay were American Wigeon, Red-Tailed Hawk and last (and least) Starlings.

BB

[birdstitcher]

Thanks for the photo of the pintail! Great shot!

Went back to Humber Bay today with no luck finding the pintail. I also went to Sam Smith to look for the northern shrike. Was just going to head back off the westernmost point when I spotted it. And then it took off! Lucky for me though, I was able to find it again. It had flown to a tree right by the path. Watched it for 10 minutes before it flew off again. A lifer for me.

Kerri

[angieinto]

What time were you there? (Sam Smith) We were there from 9-11am and no luck. Rob's jumping up and down with envy that you saw it!   :lol:  It would be a lifer for us too.
We'll try again.

[stvgarrett]

It's a big park! but here's where I saw the shrike on Saturday Feb 5 at 4:00:
43.5897894, -79.516106
(open google maps and copy and paste those coordinates into the "search maps" input, you will see a green arrow on the map corresponding to those coordinates)
You can see that it was on the far west side, past the yacht club, on the point heading south into the lake.

[birdstitcher]

I must have just missed you! I arrived just after 11am. The shrike was out on the westernmost point when I first spotted him. It may have flown away as there were a lot of people and off leash dogs heading out to the point while I was there, but who really knows. Anyhow, it flew to a quieter area on the path heading out to the same point. Was at the top of the tree, but I still had great views. There was a person out sail snowboarding (?correct term) on the frozen marina as well. Looked like a fun thing to do. Hope you are able to find the shrike!

Kerri

PS I was on the point across the gap into the marina from stvgarrett's google map coordinates, the outer point, along the finger of land protecting the marina. So when I first saw the shrike it was in a tree by the gap and then it flew back to a tree on the base of that finger of land. This makes sense if you look at his map

[Rob'in'To]

We went to almost that point, and that was probably about 10:30am...  we probably stopped about 300 ft from the tip as it looked like nothing around.  Oh well, another day I hope.

[Brian Bailey]

I just unfurled my Feb 10 copy of the Etobicoke Guardian (South Edition) and Angie's picture is on the front!  There's a larger one on page 11.  Funny, I don't remember listing any owls. :wink:

It doesn't appear to be on their website, so I can't link to it.  (I searched for Ian Kelso photos.)

BB

[angieinto]

I'm a new species!  :wink:
A couple of friends who get that paper (we don't) had let us know about the picture.

It was a good day, see you at the next walk.

[Rob'in'To]

I am holding back my Hooters comment.  Tee hee hee.  

Looking forward to next walk and a coffee at Birds and Beans.