[NatureNS] White Point Birds

From: Marg Millard <mmillard@eastlink.ca>
To: naturens <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2010 10:33:47 -0400
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Original-Recipient: rfc822;"| (cd /csuite/info/Environment/FNSN/MList; /csuite/lib/arch2html)"

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The past few days has a few soggy birds coming to the grapevine feeders. A 
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher is making trips in staying quite awhile each time then 
disappearing once again. I have seen it in the big maple on the town side of 
the property then it works its way along the trees and border garden to the 
grapevine. This is day 5. I am unable to say it is a solitary bird. At times 
there are a number of small birds about. There seem to be Juncos, American 
Goldfinches, the gnatcatcher, a couple kinglets, (they showed up Friday and 
all were in the grapevine at the same time) a few warblers, an oven bird and 
I don't know what else. they were flitting all over the place. I did try to 
get some photos and will check them to see did I get any images that might 
be usable. It was all very exciting! Like Christmas when I was a little kid! 
There were three Grackles that seemed to be travelling together. One was 
damaged and being fed by another.
Thursday we went to walk the beaches at Port Joli. The changes there in the 
past year are astounding! We tried to get down to Goose Haven Beach but the 
ocean has broken into the big pond caused by the Jollimore's causeway and 
limited how far one can walk toward the creek by forming a drain near the 
causeway. If I had boots I might have been able to get further. From Durham 
Lane, we walked toward Goose Haven and the ocean has really torn the 
shoreline up. There was sign of goose but I think the hunters had put the 
birds up. We were just away from the migratory bird sign, walked to the 
creek and even with the tide being way out we didn't ford the stream. Tide 
low as it was we would have had to wade through a fair bit of water to get 
to the "bgu rocks".  While we were there we heard lots of Yellow rumped 
warblers and crows. Gulls were way off at the waterline. We were just coming 
back to the truck when we heard geese and two strings eventually landed, the 
first about 70 - 80 and the second a few less. They settled just into the 
sanctuary just along the waters edge. I was planning to go over for the 
count Saturday but the rain was just a bit much. We only saw a solitary set 
of deer tracks leading along the creek at Goose haven. How sad.
From Port Joli we went along to see what was happening at Carters, pre 
storm. It was very, very quiet. Cranberry Brook was cutting way back into 
the merrim grass along the far shore but curved back to drain the Carters 
side of the "Island". We walked over to the back beach which was looking 
very stagnant and scummy, loaded with eel grass and startled a large heron 
which flew back into the bushy part of the stream. Lots of yellow rumped 
warblers in the trees as well as White Throat sparrows along that old rain 
fence in front of the cottage with the paintings. Also lots of squirrels and 
crows. At Summerville behind Alice Verge's (the old Garage property) there 
was a Heron in there and also one in at the Meadow Pond just as you head 
outside of Liverpool.
We came home to see the gnat catcher and kinglets! and a neighbouring cat 
sitting high up on the support post pretending to be an owl. A pot of water 
persuaded the cat to move on but it is a friendly confident that although I 
may act like a maniac in its presence, I am probably harmless. There are now 
5 cats using our yard as latrine and play station. I was considering live 
trapping these animals but heard a coyote last night so maybe they will once 
again be cleaned out as most of the foxes are for now. I am a cat lover. My 
cats stay inside. Oh we have a mink appearing in our yard. Also a chipmunk 
or two.  A bit late for them no? I expect their store are real wet now. 
We've had more than 61/2 inches of rain, starting Thursday night to early 
this am.
Yesterday, mid afternoon, we watched 3 mallards slurping worms like pasta at 
the Marina park while we enjoyed our tea, watching the mill shake chips from 
a truck
Marg Millard, White Point, Queens
http://MargMillard.ca 


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