Black Necked Stilts and Ontario's Endangered Species Act

Birding has been slow with the lingering low pressure system to the south of us and the gorgeous weather we've been getting but its still been pretty interesting. Saturday this past weekend, it was slow but some cool birds were seen. One was a Least Flycatcher (Empidonax Minimus) that I was able to hear calling (It makes a scratchy Che Bec sound) and watch flycatch from just one or two feet above the forest floor. This is the first time I've seen this species on its northbound migration, (a small victory for me as a birder... ) and a great way to learn its call. Woodland Nature trail gave some nice looks at Veery, Yellow throated Vireo, Blackburnian Warbler, Blue winged, Yellow and Nashville. The Vireo and Blackburnian were FOS and very exciting to see.

Sunday afternoon, Todd Pepper ontbirded an extremely rare (locally) shorebird, Black necked Stilts, and I couldn't help but go see it. I actually took my 3 year old son with me to see these birds, but at the time we were present, they were very distant. Still, with my new scope in tow, I had pretty satisfying looks at the birds. Later on Sunday night, the Stilts moved back to the shorebird cell giving front-lit, fetal-position-inducing views of these mega rare, mega giant shorebirds. Funny thing that happened was that I had set up my scope, found the birds, and person after person walked by wanting to see the birds, I graciously invited people to look, when one lady was like ... "Oh... they just took off... they're long gone". Note to self, don't be so friendly with scope :-)

 What's your impression of Chris Hadfield's recent photo of Southern Ontario? https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield . One thing I noticed was the lack of forest cover. Its pathetic no? You can actually see the Pinery, Point Pelee, Rondeau and Cedar Creek amounst the farm fields. The most damning thing as well is to compare Michigan to Ontario along the Sarnia River. Wow.

 

A concluding link for any Ontario Nature lovers that are reading this blog: Please check out David Suzuki's link and campaign to raise awareness of new laws that will undo any laws that were made six years ago regarding endangered species protection. I have personally visited the link and signed the petition, I encourage any other bloggers to re-tweet this, and perhaps even start to follow David Suzuki's Facebook page.  Funny how the media never mentioned anything about dismantling the Endangered Species Act!?!?!?

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/panther-lounge/2013/05/last-change-to-salvage/

https://www.facebook.com/DavidSuzuki

Good birding,
Dwaynejava

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