About 9:45 this morning, Dinah Hoyle and I found a Pileated Woodpecker in the western Baselands on the Spit. The bird flew past us to a stand of trees by Unwin Ave. and about 100 meters west of the parking lot. A couple of minutes later it flew north towards the allotment gardens on Leslie St. This is the first time in several years of birding that I've seen a Pileated on the Spit. A few minutes before it showed up, a Common Loon flew overhead uttering its mournful cry, and there were many Northern Flickers in the Baselands but not much else that we could find beyond a single juvenile Cooper's Hawk, Red-winged Blackbirds, Starlings, Robins, and Song Sparrows.
