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Nancy and I joined the Toronto Ornithological Club today for its annual April jaunt to the Leslie Street Spit (aka Tommy Thompson Park) on the Toronto waterfront. A chilly day, but still lots of good sightings of birds headed up north for the 2010 breeding season. Among the crowds of cormorants, ring-billed gulls and red-wing blackbirds [...] The family visited the Beamer’s Point Hawk Watch in Grimsby today, on the Niagara Escarpment. This is the time of year that raptors start migrating back to Ontario and the north woods, and the Beamer’s Hawk Watch is a great place to see the grand parade repeated again, as it has for hundreds if not [...] Disney, in the movie Bambi, had a great word for it: Twitterpated (before the days of social media, of course). With melting snow and warm weather comes natural desires among many species to start the cycle of life over again. Among red squirrels in the trees above, formerly hostile male and female neighbours react to [...] I know it’s not exactly up north, but a recent drive by Pearson Airport on the 401 reminded me again of nature’s resilience. In addition to the red-tailed hawk posed majestically on the airport sign (the hawks are common along highway corridors), I was surprised to see a couple of white-tailed deer grazing on a [...] It’s not quite mating season yet, but even in mid-winter the birds are getting ready… listen for chickadees whistling their high, clear songs — often rendered as “fee-bee” or “fee-bee-ee”. They are establishing their territorial dominance within the winter flock. In the dead of winter, great horned owls begin hooting it up, with the year’s first avian mating calls of the north woods. Hairy woodpeckers soon join in, drumming the opening beats of another season’s symphony of bird song. |
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