Our First New Year’s Day Bird Walk

We had a white Christmas only because of the fog. All week, the temperature remained steadfastly above freezing. There was so much rain that the river overflowed its banks and then receded gradually over the past few days. Apparently, our mild winter so far is due to an El Niño weather pattern.

We signed up for a New Year’s Day walk in a local park. That put Glenn in mind of our first New Year’s Day bird walk.

In May of 2016, we got very interested in birding. By the end of the year, we had been birding in Prince Edward County, Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Toronto, and Cozumel. Our “life list” was over 140 bird species, all of which Glenn had photographed.

New Year’s Day, 2017, we found that our bird species count on eBird had been set to zero for the new year. It was a sunny day and we decided to take advantage of the great weather and light highway traffic to drive across Toronto to Ashbridges Bay Park. This waterfront park soon became one of our favourite parks to visit on Sundays.

Hundreds of gulls would roost on the docks in winter. Avid birders would scan the flocks of birds with powerful telescopes searching for any gull that was not the very common Ring-billed Gull. I had some success getting photos of other gulls as long as they were much larger or much smaller. We have yet to join a “gull watching weekend” in Niagara Falls where about 10 gull species can be seen on the same day.

In winter, Toronto’s inland parks host a few dozen bird species that stay all year. We learned of a few birds that breed in the north and migrate farther south to find the open waters of the lower Great Lakes. They stay as long as there is open water and food below.

The first treat was to see Long-tailed Ducks. When in flocks, they make distinctive comical sounds. It is appropriate that they look just a bit clown-like. The adult males have pink on their bills. Sometimes we get a good look at their long tails.

In Ontario, the Harlequin Duck is a scarce bird. While we were still close to where we saw it, a teenager on a bicycle asked if we knew where he could see it. He saw my camera and Susan’s binoculars and assumed we were there for the same reason. He spotted the bird, said thanks, and was off to see as many other species as possible for the start of the year.

We saw this domestic Mallard swimming near other much smaller Mallards in the same area all year.