While birding the Minnesing wetlands today my birding friend Bill Richardson & I found 12+ Great Egrets roosting in a tree on the Concession Rd 2 Sunnidale just west of Mckinnon Rd. The birds were mostly in trees with a few on the ground about half way between Mckinnon Rd & the little bridge to the west by the viewing platform on the north side of the road perhaps 100 feet in. As far as we could tell 3 of the birds had blue wing tags. One bird had #40D with only one tag on the right wing. Another looked like 32F with tags on both wings, the third we could not read but tags were visible on both wings. We saw the birds from a distance while travelling slowly north on Mckinnon Rd around 12:00 noon & observed them until around 1:30 PM when we left the area. Bill got some good photos of the birds if you are interested in them. The other birds did not appear to have tags & some of them flew into the marsh while we were there. There is still standing water north of Concession Rd 2 beyond the bulrushes by the road supporting mainly Manitoba Maples which the birds fly down into.
It was a good birding day with quite a variety but we covered a lot of territory & with migration one could expect most of the birds we saw. Of particular note we saw only one flock of Rock Pigeons plus another two individuals at a different location. What a visible decline in a once very common bird. Concession Rd 2 Sunnidale is north of HWY 90 & Angus running west from Mckinnon Rd or East from County Rd 10 Essa in Brentwood. Good birding, Susan Menzies _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to birdalert@ontbirds.ca For information about ONTBIRDS including how to unsubscribe visit http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdssetup
