Today I met up with the TOC at Humber Bay Park east. My friends Noah Enkin and Adam Capparelli were there. We explored Humber Bay Park east and west for a while. The birds worth noticing were a Great Black-Backed Gull, a couple Common Mergansers, four (or possibly one) Pied-Billed Grebe, a giant raft of ducks (mostly Greater Scaup), a couple hybrid Mallard x Black Duck, a luesistic Mallard, and a muskrat that was very cooperative. Unfortunately only Adam and I saw the muskrat and the weird mallards because Noah had to leave early.
The group then drove over to Colonel Samuel Smith Park to continue the trip. Even before we could park, I noticed two very large birds in a tree at the side of the road, so I got out while my mom parked the car. It turned out that it was two Red Tailed Hawks! They only stayed for a couple minutes then flew off. The Harlequin Duck was still around Rotary Park so some birders got some good looks at a Harlequin Duck through a scope. We then travelled to the end of Colonel Samuel Smith Park and saw a group of 5 Trumpeter Swans and a Horned Grebe. On the way back someone thought they saw a Northern Shrike on the other side of the park, so we walked over to check it out. On the way there, Adam and I noticed a fairly large white gull flying over us. It was a Glaucous Gull! Lifer! So we called it out to our group and I hope everyone saw it but who knows. We went to check the area with the "Northern Shrike" and looked for a while until I noticed a grey Robin-sized bird on the top of a tree. It was a Northern Mockingbird. I knew right away that this bird was the "Northern Shrike". So we headed back.
Overall it was a pretty good day. Tomorrow I will be heading down to Niagara Falls on the OFO trip to look for gulls.
This is my first blog post and I will post more, hopefully you enjoyed.
