Originally I was going to write a whole post about my last 4 days in Ottawa, which were spent searching for the Pink-footed Goose with Ezra... But I took practically no photos, and also missed the goose... So I feel like it would be a rather boring read! There were highlights in Ottawa though, including Greater White-fronted and Ross's Geese, Tundra Swans (rare in Ottawa) 100 thousand Snow Geese in a field! The Skevingtons generously put us up during our time in Ottawa, and even made us great home cooked meals! I added two yearbirds during the trip, Eastern Phoebe and American Bittern.
Today started off similar to the past few days, driving east through Ottawa and searching through goose flocks along the river. We noticed that the number of geese had dropped since the weekend, and we were just debating if we should stay for a few more days when a Discord alert came in.. Luc Fazio had found a Western Grebe at J.C. Saddington Park in Mississauga. A Western Grebe has been seen at this location for the past 6 years, so we were expecting/hoping it would show up again this year. Needless to say, this made the decision to leave Ottawa pretty easy! We left Ottawa around noon and shot back to Mississauga, arriving just after 5pm. On route we spotted two Ospreys, my first ones this year. A lot of birders were out looking for the grebe, but it hadn't been reported since the early afternoon. I still felt fairly optimistic though, as these birds tend to stick around for at least a day when they're found. After half an hour of grebeless searching, a birder on a bike raced up and informed me that he had just refound the grebe a bit further down from where I was scanning. I jogged back to the spot he saw it, getting a few strange looks along the way for other park goers, as apparently most joggers don't carry binoculars, a camera and a scope (at one point I overtook several joggers, which was funny). The birder turned out to be Brian Bailey... thanks for coming to find me after you saw the bird Brian!
It was still in the same spot when I arrived, diving constantly and swimming along the shore. This was a lifer for me, and also the first OBRC rarity I have seen since January! I enjoyed close views for a few minutes before it swam farther out on the water and disappeared behind some rocks.
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| - Western Grebe |
After that we headed back to Ezra's in Hamilton, making a quick stop along the way to see the Willet that had been found a few days ago near the Lift Bridge in Burlington. I will see more Willets this year, but since it was only a 10 minute detour it was hard to pass up! The views were amazing, as it calmly fed along the shore, seemingly obviously to its small crowd of admirers. This was another Ontario lifer for me, one of the easiest birds I still needed. I have had lots of chances to see them, but before this year I didn't really chase any semi expected birds in the province as I figured I would eventually find one myself. Apparently this is the earliest Ontario record for Willet too...
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| - Willet |
Ontario Yearlist @ April 5th - 173
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