Ottawa Area Birding: Amherst Island with JC Birding

January 30, 2024

Birding Report by Jane Burgess

Since the weather forecast for Thursday, Feb 1 did not look promising, we decided to take a trip down to Amherst Island. Ken, Bill and Barbara met at my place for 7 a.m. and 10 minutes later we were headed to the ferry. Driving down Fallowfield we saw a pair of coyotes on the old experimental farm property. Driving to the 401, we saw some American Crow and 1 Common Raven. Finally we saw our first Red-tailed HAwk on the 401, we totaled 3 by the time we reached the ferry.

We reached the ferry around 9:15 and loaded shortly thereafter. I remarked to Bill that I had never been on the ferry with so few vehicles, I think there were 5. From the ferry we saw 5 Mute Swans, (4 adults and 1 juvenile) and a small flock of Mallards. While Mute Swans are pretty to look at they are introduced and considered invasive. Why you might wonder because foraging Mute Swans uproot entire plants which reduce food for other native waterfowl. One bird can eat up to 4 kg of submerged aquatic plants a day. There are approximately 3000 Mute Swans residing in Ontario's lower Great Lakes (consuming about 36,000KG of plants a year).

Bill and I were at the bow of the boat and I thought we had seen Bufflehead, but no and I am so glad I was wrong, the birds were Long-tailed Ducks, beautiful birds. We also saw Ring-necked Ducks, Common Mergansers, Herring Gulls, Canada Geese and Red-breasted Mergansers.

We took Front Street and, The Back Kitchen was open! Never in all the years I have gone to the island have I seen the restaurant open and it was still open when we left the island at 5:00. We drove, not far, when we saw our first Northern Harrier, a beautiful male. Far back we saw a huge flock of Wild Turkeys. In total we saw just 5 Northern Harriers during the day.

We continued on and saw our first Rough-legged Hawk, we got to see 28 of them during the day. We saw I think 5 dark phase Roughies, but the one that stood out the most was the juvenile dark phase (it was kind of chocolate brown). We saw 15 Red-tailed Hawks in total during the day. We knew we would be having a hawk day and we certainly did.

While we were looking at the first Northern Harrier, we saw a robin sized bird at the top of a tree, our first and only Northern Shrike. Too bad it was so far away. A bit further down the road we saw a small flock of Common Goldeneye.

While we were on Lower 40 foot Roadm we were amazed at how many Bluebird boxes that had been put up and at the end of the road there were several Purple Martin apartments. Checking the fields for hawks and maybe just maybe a Snowy Owl, Bill was looking the other way and spotted a Red Fox. We turned onto South Shore Road and saw a small flock of Snow Bunting, I went to get out of the vehicle and they flew never to be seen again by us. At some point on this road Barbara spotted a very healthy looking Red Fox. We all saw it, but I think it felt our presence because it ran away from the road.

We continued to the end of South Shore Road and found a feeder that actually had birds around it -- American Goldfinch, Mourning Dove, House Finch and Northern Cardinal.

We stopped many on Third Concession looking at the hawks, but one of our best finds was not a bird or an animal, it was a Port a Potty at Sand Beach Wetlands just off the third concession. It is the first time we have found facilities on the south side of the island, we have always had to use the only public facilities near the ferry. I am happy to see that Amherst Island recognized there was this need. Thank you to whoever is responsible for installing it. You probably are thinking why is she making such a big deal over a port a potty, because we have had to waste time going back to the ferry, wasting very valuable birding time. The time on Amherst goes so quickly we don't need to waste time!

On Concession 2 we saw a single European Starling. Strangely, just one starling, we saw a bushful of birds, thinking they had to be starlings, but no Mourning Doves.

Time to go check the Short-eared Owl site. We drove around asking ourselves if we passed the normal site, we double backed and we were beside the site. We all had our binoculars up looking, looking. Time to have a snack maybe. Perhaps we are a bit too early. After a little while, Bill says I got one, perched on a fence post. Sure enough, there it was. Bill, Barbara and Ken got out of the car to take photographs. It was a dull day and my camera is not that great at far away birds, so I sat in the vehicle.

When they all got back into the car I suggested we go and check the KFN property for Snowy Owl and Short-eared Owls. We did and there were none. Driving back we saw a huge flock of European Starlings. Wonder where they were hiding all day. Back at the Short-eared Owls site, we again checked the fields for more owls - nope. The single Short-eared Owl was still perched on the fence post.

It is 4:45, time to get to the ferry. We made it to the ferry, last one, again maybe 5 vehicles. Ken had time to put his camera and stuff into the back of his vehicle. One stop on the way home, arriving at my home, was about 7:45. A long, very satisfying day of birding.