I could have sworn that when I left the house this morning the forecast for today was supposed to be partly cloudy with sunny breaks. It turned out to be about 99% heavy cloud cover with only one short sunny break mid-afternoon. The overcast sky and the threat of rain put a chill in the air and made me feel cold much of the day. To add to it, there was little bird movement, only one or two squirrels, a quick rabbit sighting, less then a handful of butterflies, very few park walkers, and only a couple of visitors to the Hawk Watch. Several wedding parties late in the afternoon helped bring back some of the 'usual' Saturday busyness.
Our raptor count for the day was not great with an average of only 1 bird per hour but I'm happy with the fact that we added another 4 Osprey. Identification today was solely done by shape as the birds were silhouetted against the sky.
Today:
Osprey - 4
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 3
American Kestrel - 1
Merlin - 1
Total - 9
To Date:
Osprey - 25
Bald Eagle - 5
Northern Harrier - 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 13
Cooper's Hawk - 1
Broad-winged Hawk - 8
American Kestrel - 6
Merlin - 5
Total -64
Yet another Giant Swallowtail butterfly flew through the park heading westward during the sunny period. We've now had 9 'Giants' since August 11th. Not bad for a butterfly that just a couple of years ago was considered a 'migrant' and mostly only seen in southern Ontario.
My thanks to Manny, John, Carol, Betty, Peter, Cori, and Hugh for your help and friendship today.
Sunnier skies tomorrow!
Walter
2 comments:
we were there late Saturday, admist lots of wedding party photo takers. We were lucky to see a humming bird come to feed at the purple trumpet like flowers. I got not great shots, but a couple - think it was a female ruby throated.
Hi Jocelyn, That would be correct Ruby-throated Hummingbird. It the only Hummer we have in Ontario. Walter
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