A Wild Smew Chase

This morning while I was contemplating what to, an ONTbirds post immediately made the decision easy for me. A Smew was reported in Whitby harbour, presumably the same bird that was present last December (see here). I immediately booked it down there with Reuven and we showed up around 11:00 AM. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be seen, and all the birders had missed it as well, including some that had shown up right after it was posted to the listserv. Reuven and I still spent several hours around the harbour area searching for it, but no luck. With several other birders we did view an adult Thayer's Gull and an adult Kumlien's Gull next to each other on the breakwall! There were several more Kumlien's around as well as a 2nd/3rd cycle Glaucous Gull.

We decided to check out nearby Lynde shores to see if there were any interesting waterfowl there. No rare geese among the hundreds of Canada Geese, but we did see a nice Red-shouldered Hawk overhead and several migrant ducks (Ringneck Duck, Gadwall, etc) at Lynde Shores.

We saw on the WELLbirds listservs that Fred Urie had found a Snow Goose in Aberfoyle. This would be a life bird for Reuven (his biggest hole on his Ontario list) so we stopped there on the way back. Fortunately it was there when we arrived and we were able to view it from quite close. It appeared to have an injured leg but was still active and wary.

Snow Goose - Aberfoyle, Wellington Co.

The Snow Goose was year bird 141 for me. Since arriving in Canada, I picked up Common Grackle on March 4 and Rusty Blackbird with a mixed flock of blackbirds near Cambridge last night. The Red-shouldered Hawk was #140.

Snow Goose - Aberfoyle, Wellington Co.

No Smew, but that's how it goes sometimes! It was cold and windy for much of the day and very few blackbirds were around compared to yesterday. The forecast is improving, fortunately!