Larose Forest & Open Fields - Ottawa East with Tony Beck

Thursday Apr 28, 7:30am

A small group today – Tony, Heather, Peter and me, with Michael coming later.

Back at Petrie Island again.  We have many Wood Ducks and Green-winged Teal.  We saw a Great Blue Heron.  There were large flocks of mostly Rusty Blackbirds passing through on migration.  Once again there were three kinds of swallows.  A pair of Lesser Scaup and some Common Mergansers showed up as Yellow-rumped Warblers flew overhead.  Tony played the magic machine and some Black-capped Chickadees and American Goldfinch came in. first, followed by a White-breasted Nuthatch, Downy Woodpecker, Blue-headed Vireo, Brown Creeper and Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  Once again, we saw a pair of Brown-headed Cowbirds.  We heard a Northern Flicker and a Killdeer as three Brown Creepers were chasing each other.  A Black and White Warbler came in too.

We could hear a Song Sparrow, a Northern Flicker, Blue Jay and both Kinglets.  Heather saw a Palm Warbler.  At first we thought it was a yellow Palm, but no, it was a regular one.

We carpooled to Larose Forest via Frank Kenny, where we saw 6000 Greater Snow Geese still there.  After lots of photos, we turned onto Russell, where we saw a couple of Turkey Vultures, including one on the ground.

We saw an American Kestrel sitting on a wire, then four or five Broad-winged Hawks in migration. 

At Clarence-Cambridge Road, we had another Broad-winged Hawk, another Turkey Vulture, and another American Kestrel.  Tony could hear Evening Grosbeaks, but we were unable to track them down.  We wandered up and down the road looking for the grosbeaks.  There were lots of Blue Jays that were riled up by a Merlin.

We made a few stops along Clarence-Cambridge Road.  We got a nice male Pine Warbler to respond to Tony’s tape and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet came in too.  A female Pine Warbler stayed in the background. 

Finally we saw some Evening Grosbeaks do a rapid fly past.  We also got a male and female Yellow-rumped Warbler.  We stopped at the feeder at the same place as lat time, and saw a Northern Flicker on the lawn and a White-throated Sparrow under the feeder.