Ottawa Area Birding: Wolfe Island with JC Birding

March 12, 2024

Birding Report by Jane Burgess

Guy had an early start to this outing. He showed up at Barb C. door at 6:15 and then phoned her at 6:30 wondering if she was going birding. Her story was she heard what she thought was the alarm clock but realized it was the phone. I texted her later, laughing, asking about the call at 6:30, her response was "so it wasn't a dream". Guy showed up Thursday, March 7 not Tuesday March 12. Talk about a keener!!!!!!

Bill texted me March 11 evening to indicate the ferry left Kingston at 9:00 and if we were meeting at 7 a.m. we would have to hustle. I then texted everyone to say it was imperative that we leave at 7 a.m. and I believe we did. We were two cars - Eleanor, Barb, Guy and Jane in one car and Bill and Barbara in another. Eleanor took the lead and we made it to the ferry by 8:40, yes we travelled a bit over the speed limit but never over 10K.

Once on Wolfe Island, we thought the first place to find was a washroom. Barb said there was in town, sure when we got there Barb found a padlock on the bathroom doors. She went into the building and asked and was told only public bathrooms were at the ferry landing, other bathrooms do not open until the summer. But we were six people, nope they were not opening them for us, so we went back to the ferry landing.

We had a simply wonderful day with 42 species seen over the course of the day. The only 'good bird' on the way up to Kingston was Trumpeter Swan, on the ferry Long Tail Ducks, just maybe 8, BUT we saw at least 100+ over the day. Love those ducks, wish we could see them on a regular basis in Ottawa. Mute Swans numbered 20 around the island, but many more on our drive home along the St Lawrence. Common Mergansers numbered 25 and just 4 Red-breasted Mergansers.

When we were in Maryville, we noticed among the ducks a strange looking Mallard, must have been a Mallard / domestic duck or some other duck, but not a pure Mallard. (see photos).

Once we arrived on the 'country roads' (not paved) we saw a good number of Rough Legged Hawks (8) and Northern Harriers (9). It could have been a higher number, but we did not want to double count. Oh but the treat of the day were the Eastern Meadowlarks, by far the best bird of the day. We saw 6 of them and they were sooo yellow and singing their song spring of the year. Such a wonderful sign of spring. While we were looking at the first 2 meadowlarks the Bowlands were looking at our first Killdeer (6 seen).

We drove down the Simcoe Island ferry road, to check out the water. The ferry came over, I think they thought we wanted to go onto the island, we moved the cars to let them know, we were just parked. We decided to have lunch there and while we did, a Red-bellied Woodpecker flew in.

We drove around the west side of the island, after no doubt going on some of the roads already, we decided to do the east side. We stopped and checked out some birds on the water -- goodness gracious we saw at least a 1000 Redheads with maybe 20 Greater Scaup in the mix. A dog joined us, then some children then a man. He asked if we were looking at the Redheads and the Blue Bills ( I thought he said Blue Bells and I wondered why he was calling birds flower names. The others in the car said no Bluebills enunciating the word so clearly, got it). I have never heard of Blue Bills and I told him as such, he said Greater Scaup. Just a bit down the road we had a Bald Eagle perched in a tree. Bill and Barbara went on ahead of us to see if there was anything at the border crossing. Eleanor's car was a bit slower, because we were checking out the birds, never got to the border crossing as Bill said there was nothing to see.

We saw at least 4 Red-tail Hawks on the east side of the island, strangely none of the west side.

Around 4ish, Bill was wanting to get to the 4:30 ferry, he was the lead car and he was driving faster than birding speed. We kind of poked along, yes faster than usual, but if we saw birds we stopped. Bill texted us to say they were in line, then on the ferry.