Ottawa Area Birding: Little Froggy Marsh and Plaisance Park with JC Birding

May 2, 2024

Birding Report by Jane Burgess

We met Louise at the parking lot near the Champlain Bridge at 7:30. She decided she wanted to drive and told us she would stick like glue behind Bill and she did just that. We arrived at the Little Froggy Marsh as Ken was driving down the 'road'. The 'road' is just as we remembered it, full of potholes. We stopped at a small stream and checked out the Blue-wing Teal and the Northern Shoveler. Bill said to us, watch for Northern Harriers, I once saw one here and just then one beautiful male Harrier flew by.

We walked to the water and I said Phoebe, Ken and Bill said Tree Swallow, it turned out we were looking at two different birds and I was wrong about the initial identification, it was an Eastern Kingbird. Not too far from us, a beaver was crossing the water, he heard us, slapped his tail and dove into the water, but he came back and grabbed a branch and swam to the side of the water. As we were leaving Bill saw an American Bittern fly across the water.

We walked to what used to be a path, but now is a rough road to the marsh, we saw no frogs at all. As well the cat tails were cut down, or maybe they just have not grown back from winter. On the woods side we heard then saw a Palm Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet and heard many White-throated Sparrows. Bill called Black Tern, fortunately for him he saw one, the rest of us were not so lucky. There were American Widgeon, Bufflehead, Scaup and lots of Great Blue Herons in and around the marsh. Something new at the marsh -- a look out area. We walked to almost the Ottawa River's edge and I started to walk west and Bill said the ducks will just keep swimming away from us. We started back.

We stayed for about 3 hours and then drove to Laiche Marsh (it's west of Little Froggie Marsh). Bill indicated we would be birding from the parking lot. As we arrived, a Brown Thrasher flew in, but did not stay for photos. We saw a man with a scope, who was out near the water, so we walked over to him. He had heard an American Bittern and we should keep our voices down. He asked Bill if he wanted to see two Sandhill Crane, yes was the response. We were certainly not expecting Sandhill Cranes. We saw them flying so we walked over to where one had landed, but it flew again. We had two American Bitterns fly overhead as well. Bill joined us and told us he had heard a Sora, we walked back to the place he had heard it and we heard it as well. We played the Sora song and we called in two Virginia Rail, one made a couple very brief appearances. Ken left us at this point.

Onto Plaisance Park. I have never been there. Several times Connie and I attempted to get there, we could never find the park, yes I know now why, we did not drive far enough. We paid our individual entrance fees and then decided we would have lunch before exploring the park. The park building has a very comfortable warm dining area, so we decided to eat inside. The forecast was for 19 and frankly it was wrong. We all were a bit chilled so eating inside was the right thing to do. Bill read to us the different areas to go to, one was a short walk with a suspension bridge, thank you, don't want to go there. We chose the walk with metal boardwalks (see photos) over the water. We thought we saw ducks on the water that turned out to be vegetation. There were a couple of places where we saw painted turtles. At one place you could go right or left, Bill and I went right, Louise and Barbara sat down and rested a while. We noted there were some people on land looking up at something so we hastened our step to see what they were looking at. We think they were watching House Wrens, well that is what we saw. A lot of the ash tree had been cut down and left. I assume they were cut down because of the emerald ash borer, I am not at all sure what it does to kill the emerald ash borer - maybe the tree is dead and there is no food for the borer. While we were looking at the House Wren, we also saw a White-breasted Nuthatch and a bit later a Downy Woodpecker. We heard a Warbling Vireo but could not find it.

We crossed the road and walked the boardwalk, best look of the day at an American Bittern, almost out in the open. Bill and I took many photos. We returned to the original boardwalk where I saw an Orange-crowned Warbler, I had no idea what warbler it was but I described it to Bill and he said Orange-crowned, I checked Sibley's Guide and yes that was it. Bill found the Warbling Vireo. We walked to the road area going to the car and only new birds were White-crowned Sparrows. We saw Barbara and Louise sitting on a bench close to the vehicle, Barbara told us they were sitting there an hour wondering where we were. .

We got into the vehicle and drove down to where Bill and I saw the American Bittern, there were lots of Yellow Rump Warblers around. Down another road and we ended up at a blind that as far as blinds or hides go, sucked. Aesthetically it must have been pleasing to the designer but Bill could not take photos until he took off his len's hood. I will try and explain what it looked like, imagine a wooden wall with say 8 foot panels and the wood is on the diagonal. One of the boards from each panel is removed and that makes up the spot where photographers can use to take photos from. The diagonal hole ran from one side of the panel to the other, so useless at the low end, no one is that short and for most people only a small part of each panel was somewhat useful. Feedback there would be to design a proper blind, and get rid of the existing one.

Time to go home, while driving on the highway we saw a hawk perched on the hydro line, we stopped and turned around, it flew, but not far, more photos. I thought it was Sharp-shined, Bill said it was not an accipiter, the tail is too short, it's a buteo. (around here that means red-tailed, rough-legged and broad winged). Bill says his best guess is a Broad-winged. Barbara was the only one to take a decent photo. Bill ran the photo through Merlin, sure enough Bill was 100% correct.

58 species seen, some really good birds on the list. We had a great day, back at Bill and Barbara's around 6:00.