t was a gloomy but quite mild morning when 14 jolly souls met at the Dow People Place to look for whatever on the river. We had 5 Bluewater Audubon birders with us this year. We followed Alf to the frozen Sarnia Bay where quite a few ice fishermen were set up with their huts. In the distance there was open water & with the help of scopes we spotted the following. a mute swan, redheads, common mergansers, red-breasted mergansers, canvasbacks, buffleheads, ring-necked, mallards, blacks, goldeneyes, a black-backed gull & Canada geese.

On down the river, which was almost free of ice, we saw a greater scaup, a farmyard goose & plenty of what we had seen in the bay. A very keen fisherman was standing thigh deep out in the river. Brrr!

A welcome stop in Corunna at Tim Horton's for coffee. Larry had joined us now. Carrying on we had a close-up view of 2 male hooded mergansers & females. (Carole's favourite) Tony spotted our first red-tailed hawk. At Willow Park the river was popping with hundreds of shad. Alf pointed out the large black cloud of them in the river. About a dozen fishermen were here enjoying the ice-free river. Greater scaup were spotted here & some goldfinches in the trees on the bank. Driving on the shoulder of the road got pretty hazardous at times especially when the car ahead decides to stop suddenly. Let's give thanks for American lungs, STOP! (eh Carole!) Someone spotted a redhead with a fish in its mouth & we got a better look at a ring-necked duck. Alf pointed out the difference between the female common merganser & the female red-breasted merganser. The common has white all around the base of the neck.

At Cathcart Park we were treated to a wonderful courtship display by 3 male buffleheads trying to attract one female & we spotted 4 tundra swans. Blake joined us here to tell us about a red-necked grebe he'd seen just north of Port Lambton so off we went & thanks to all the scopes set up we all got a good look at it. We also found a white- winged scoter & a long-tailed duck. (formerly oldsquaw).

Back to Sombra & lunch at the Wee Village Cafe. Charles ordered his yearly pancakes which were much admired & there were some mutterings of bloody arm stubs if anyone ventured near. Back to Sarnia north on 40 we saw 11 red-tailed hawks & 7 kestrels. Alf saw a Harrier eating a mouse on a fence post, we saw it take off giving us a lovely view of its white rump.

A very good outing with many thanks to Alf & Tony & all the other expert birders from both sides of the river.

Submitted by Mary Harman

Index

Only two LWI'ers and one Auduboner joined Paul on this fun adventure to the Niagara area to search for unusual winter birds - could the 5:00 AM start have anything to do with that? Or was it the chilly temperatures? And I thought birders were a hardy lot! Never mind, "the early bird catches the worm", as they say.

Our first few stops were along the south shore of Lake Ontario to try and spot the reported King Eider. We were not lucky in this quest, but we had a fabulous display of hundreds of White-winged Scoters flying around and on the water with the other two Scoters (Black and Surf), Long-tailed Ducks (formerly Oldsquaw), and thousands of Common Goldeneye. After several tries, we decided to give up on the eider and go for the Black-headed Gull which had been around Queenston all winter.The Black-headed Gull is a European bird, so fairly unusual in Ontario. Just as I was saying, "I should have checked the field guide for marks to look for on the Black-headed Gull"; Diane said, "Doesn't it have a red bill?"; and I said, "Yes it does, and I'm looking at it!!" A lifer for Gail!!!

Leaving Queenston, Paul had a lucky sighting of a Northern Mocking. Working up the Niagara River, we stopped at Adam Beck Power Station where sharp-eyed Diane spotted an Iceland Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull amongst the hundreds soaring around this area. Here we had an impressive sight of a couple of hundred American Robins crossing our path, and a little later we got not one, but two Northern Flickers. Our list grew a little more at the Falls with a lovely sighting of a young Pied-billed Grebe and a little group of Gadwall.

We continued up the river to Fort Erie with the target bird being the difficult-to-find Harlequin Duck. On the way we saw Redheads, Greater and Lesser Scaup, and a few huge rafts of Canvasback. (Does anyone know why there are always many more males than females of this last duck?) On arriving at the reported spot in Fort Erie, we heard a birders most dreaded eight words, "You should have been here five minutes ago!" Our Harlequin had just flown down the river. Oh well, we'd go and have a look for the possible Little Gulls, and hope he'd come back - and guess what? He did! And what a beautiful little duck floating right past us in the brilliant sunshine!

By now it was getting time for the traditional fly-past and we had a bit of a drive back to Niagara-on-the-Lake. One quick stop enroute by Paul brought us a surprising Northern Shrike - a nice find. We especially wanted to see the fly-past this trip as Gail had never witnessed it before. For the uninitiated (those who don't get up at 4:00 AM!), the fly-past occurs shortly before sunset and describes the phenomena of all of the Bonaparte's Gulls in the river flying out to Lake Ontario to roost for the night in greater safety. Long-tailed Ducks also seem to do this, but other species not so much. What you are hoping for in these groups of dozens of Boney's is a Little Gull. And once again we were successful! Not only that, we also caught the Black-headed Gull again on it's way out, and got three bonus birds while we were waiting: A Belted Kingfisher, a Carolian Wren, and two Great Blue Herons, bringing our total for the day to 53 species, including two species of swans, seventeen species of ducks plus a coot, four species of raptors (including a pair of Bald Eagles), and eight species of gulls. Oh yes, and I almost forgot Paul's VERY rare Knobby-kneed Gull!!! .

Reporter: Carole Buck