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Nature Link

With Blake Mann

A FEW NATURE NOTES

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

With the cool weather this past week, things slowed down a bit. That warm spell on the second week of March brought in quite a few birds, as I reported on last week. Tundra swans have come and gone by the thousands. There could have been about 12,000 around Rondeau just over a week ago. A week ago Tuesday was rather nice. I walked out marsh trail at Rondeau. There was open water off the viewing tower, and I noted 19 species of ducks.

The ice sure moved out fast in the Sydenham. One day it was all solid, the next day it was all broken up and moving downstream quite quickly. There was still quite a bit of ice along the Lake Erie shoreline this past weekend. The attached photo shows the shoreline south of Morpeth looking towards "Broken Scope" Point.
A couple of good birds were sighted this past weekend. A Henslow's Sparrow was found at Point Pelee. This was a provincial early record by a longshot. They usually do not show up before the middle of April at the earliest. The Henslow's Sparrow is on the endangered list of Canada. A few, however, are seen every year but their habitat is severely declining. They are sometimes difficult to see, as they move around in the grass and weeds like a mouse.

Ironically, the Henslow's is in the same genus as the Le Conte's Sparrow. I found a Le Conte's at Erieau the previous weekend, another provincial early record by a longshot. One wonders what is going on with these Ammodramus sparrows this year!

Also on Saturday, a Black Vulture was sighted just north of Wheatley along CK Road 1. Only a couple or so of these birds are seen in Ontario each year. (Or so I am told, since I have never seen one!).

With some warm south winds, we should be seeing lots of new birds in the next few weeks.