Birding not Banding

We have been doing some banding but not so much due to travelling, etc. We've managed to get some birding in though and I thought I'd share two recent birds we have seen here.

Yesterday we saw the Yellow Breasted Chat that was reported in ONTbirds at Ashbridges Bay







It looks like a first year male and he was quite enjoying the berries on the
European euonymus-
they seem to be his
favourite!



He posed quite nicely for me too-I just got this new camera and have now quite figured it out yet-not sure why the shots aren't sharper but you get the idea!


and earlier in the Fall we got wonderful views of a Virginia Rail at Colonel Sam Smith Park-the bird came out repeatedly from the reeds and was quite tolerant. We managed to share this sighting with a birding group that was passing through.




While still
trying to identify him
I got quite the good look
at his beak as you can
see when he managed to
just stick it out

making i.d.ing just
a little bit easier :D

















In news from San Francisco they have released some of the birds from the oil spill-you can again read a wonderful posting about it in How's Robb Blog How fabulous there were wonderful volunteers to help-I only wish I could have been one of them!

Disasters and what you can do

How sad is it to read again about oil spills threatening our wildlife? Two spills this week-one in the Black Sea and one in San Francisco Bay. Both in important bird migration routes.

Here is a link with some information on the SanFran one and the Russian story here

Save our Shores -has some great info on which species are at risk and how you can help-what to do if you find an oiled bird and where you can donate!

There is a great Blog from someone who is out volunteering right now at the Wildlife Centre handling the birds in San Francisco it is full of information and some stunning photos!

It has been 18 years since The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, which occurred on March 24, 1989 and as can be seen from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Assoication's Ocean Service site "In summer 2001, roughly 10,000 pits were excavated as part of a shoreline survey of Prince William Sound. Oil was found at 58 percent of the 91 sites surveyed, which is approximately equivalent to 5.8 km of contaminated shoreline (Short et al., 2001). (Photo credit: NMFS, NOAA"

Here's a link to a petition against bunker fuel like that spilled in San Franciso.

Finch Alert!

Running a fowl....
Originally uploaded by makeupanid

Just a quick post to show you this House Finch the first one banded by TBO in recent years that we know of I'm sure there have been others but we haven't been around for them!

The reason I'm posting this is because of the Finch Alert I just saw in ONTBIRDS-I'm going to copy and paste it here

We are experiencing the biggest winter finch irruption since the "superflight" of 1997-1998, when many boreal finches went well beyond their normal ranges. The cause is the largest tree seed crop failure in a decade across more than 3200 km (2000 mi) of boreal forest from Saskatchewan into Quebec. Today in Toronto, I had a Pine Grosbeak, Evening Grosbeaks, Common Redpolls, Pine Siskins and Purple Finches migrating along the shoreline of Lake Ontario. Boreal winter finches are being reported in many areas of southern Ontario and the United States, where some species such as Pine and Evening Grosbeaks haven't been seen in years. There is no telling how far south this "superflight" will go and how many finches will remain in Ontario this winter. Stock your feeders.

Winter Finch Forecast 2007-2008 is stored at two sites.

http://www.ofo.ca/reports%20and%20articles/winterfinches.php

http://ca.geocities.com/larry.neily@rogers.com/pittaway-new.htm