As soon as I pulled into the driveway this afternoon after work, I called Sylvain to see if he was interested in grabbing our binoculars and heading out to look for migrants. We both subscribe to Ontbirds listserv and have been reading with envy as birders all over southern Ontario file reports of huge warbler fallouts over the past two to three days.
We began the circuit at the wooden bridge and lookout point at the edge of the pond. Is the signage new? I don’t remember the pretty laminated informational signs telling what species you can expect to see here and there. I had just read about the two types of turtles and Green Heron and had said, “Green Heron? I’ve never seen a Green Heron out here before.” Then I raised my binoculars to check out a crow-sized bird in a tree only to realize it was a Green Heron. Sylvain got a picture of it.
Other species we saw in that vicinity were American Robin, House Finch, House Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Turkey Vulture, White-throated Sparrow (also singing), Northern Cardinal.
At first we couldn’t find any warblers. As we entered a particular stretch of woods, Sylvain said, “This area should be dripping with warblers.” That’s when we looked up and saw them. There were mostly Yellow-rumped Warblers, but we had Blue-headed Vireo and Blue-grey Gnatcatcher, as well.
An American Crow passed overhead. A single Golden-crowned Kinglet was flitting about way overhead.
The yarrow is coming up (yummy smell!) and I saw one baby sensitive fern poking up through last year’s dead leaves. As we came round the back side of the trail system, we heard then spotted a gorgeous male Red-bellied Woodpecker. In the final stretch we had a group of Rusty Blackbirds walking around in the large puddles of standing water on the forest floor. Our last two sightings before packing it in were Mourning Dove and Brown Creeper.
We also saw a little Red Bat hanging from a clump of dead leaves that was stuck in a bush. I thought it was dead and touched it with a stick. We took some pictures and then thought we saw it breathing, so we let it be. Neither of us knows enough about bats to know if this animal was in distress, in need of attention or in need of being left the heck alone. We wanted to alert the Nature Centre staff, but they had already gone home for the night by the time we finished our hike.
These are GREAT shots. Thank you.