Sparrows, Kinglets and Early Warblers - Ottawa West with Tony Beck

Thursday Apr 30, 7:30am:


We met at Jack Pine Trail parking lot off Moodie Drive, south of Hunt Club Road. There were ten of us today, with some new faces. It was nice to bird with Heather again – it’s been a long time. There was quite a bit of cloud, so not ideal for photography.
We hiked down to the now-empty feeders and saw Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers cleaning up the scraps of suet.
There were many White-throated Sparrows around, both the bright and dull morphs. A couple of Pine Siskin were around the feeders too. Heather spotted two Black-throated Blue Warblers – FOS.
We hiked on down to the boardwalk and pond. We could hear, then spotted a Northern Flicker. Things were fairly quiet except for some Tree Swallows and Cedar Waxwings.
We carried on the far side of the trail where we saw several Ruby-Crowned Kinglets and American Goldfinches.
A Great-Blue Heron flew past, likely heading for the heronry nearby. We Saw many Swamp Sparrows, getting good looks at a couple. Song Sparrows were also all around, along with a few Dark-eyed Juncos.
Once past the boardwalk, we turned left and saw a couple of Pine Warblers (FOS), then heard and saw some Yellow-rumped Warblers too. We saw both Nuthatches too.
In the distance, we saw an adult Coopers Hawk and a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Then we saw our fourth warbler, a Nashville.
At the back end of the trail, we encountered a singing Field Sparrow at the traditional place.
At the pond we saw a Wilson’s Snipe skulking in the weeds. Heather spotted some rather large Green Frogs.
As it was still early, we decided to hike the trail to the heronry. I led the way as no one else had ever been there. It was farther than expected, so some were getting tired. But we were rewarded with at least 4 adults on nests and heard some Northern Leopard Frogs calling at the pond.
We returned to the vehicles and car-pooled down to Burnside pit.
Here is a list of our sightings: Spotted Sandpiper, Brown-headed Cowbird, Eastern Kingbird, Ruddy Duck, Snow Goose, Horned Grebe, Pied-billed Grebe, Ring-necked Duck, Bufflehead, Common Merganser, Lesser Scaup, Green-winged Teal., Iceland Gull, Savannah Sparrow.