by Rachelle Lapensee with photos by Sandra Dashney and Arlene Harold
Virgina Rail photographed by Sandra Dashney
This park includes the largest wetlands in the Ottawa area, and the trip was timed to coincide with the end of spring waterfowl migration.
What a fantastic and successful birding trip to PARC NATIONAL DE PLAISANCE today [Sunday, 26 April]! I was so happy and honoured to have had the opportunity to co-lead our group with Mark Gawn! We saw a great variety of birds; our tally came to 48 species found during our 4-hour trip. Here’s the list. A + beside the count number means we saw more but stopped counting.
| Rock Pigeon: 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk: 2 Common Goldeneye: 4 Ring-billed Gull: 13+ Belted Kingfisher: 2 Common Grackle: 4 White-breasted Nuthatch: 1 Hooded Merganser: 14+ Eastern Phoebe: 3 Blue Jay: 2 Red-tailed Hawk: 1 Green-winged Teal: 2 American Wigeon: 2 Sandhill Crane: 4 American Robin: 3+ Double-crested Cormorant: 1 Wilson’s Snipe: 1 Pied-billed Grebe: 6+ Canada Goose: 1000+ Mallard: 20+ American Crow: 10+ European Starling: 9+ Great Blue Heron: 1 |
Northern Harrier: 3 Ring-necked Duck: 9+ Wood Duck: 6+ Brown-headed Cowbird: 1 Tree Swallow: 16+ Bufflehead: 16+ Virginia Rail: 1 (came extremely close to the group) Blue-winged Teal: 3 American Goldfinch: 3+ Hairy Woodpecker: 2+ Song Sparrow: 6+ Red-winged Blackbird: 30+ Yellow-rumped Warbler: 2 Swamp Sparrow: 5 (visuals) and way more were heard. Turkey Vulture: 7 Ruby-crowned Kinglet: 4 Black-capped Chickadee: 2+ Downy Woodpecker: 4 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker: 3 Northern Flicker: 1 Common Merganser: 25+ Bald Eagle: 4 Osprey: 1 (noticed 3 separate times) |
Wow, what a great day! Thanks to all who came out, it was a pleasure to meet and bird with all of you! 🙂
