Sharon and Jacques’ Excellent Blog

The following Google map gives the location of the harlequin duck and tufted titmouse. Keep reading for pictures of the tufted titmouse, long-tailed ducks landing and a red-bellied woodpecker.

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Today was a perfect winter birding day. Very little wind, not too cold. I headed out along the Oakville waterfront. At this time of the year, Lake Ontario is full of ducks that are spending the winter in warmer areas. Apparently Lake Ontario counts as one of those areas and there are tens of thousand of ducks towards the south west end of the lake in enormous rafts.

I found an extremely large raft just off Coronation Park in Oakville and started scanning the flock. I immediately noticed a smaller duck, and, much to my delight it turned out to be a mature male harlequin duck. Harlequin ducks are one of my favourite. The male is a dark blue colour with a distinctive white swirl on its head. Unfortunately I didn’t have a camera with me so couldn’t get any pictures.

 Click on the picture for a larger view of the mixed raft of ducks. The raft spanned about 120 degrees and likely numbered 10,000 birds. In this flock, I saw long-tailed duck, greater scaup, common goldeneye, redhead, bufflehead and white-winged scoter. I’m sure if I checked each bird, I could find a few other species as well.

Here’s a few pictures of long-tailed ducks landing coloured by the rising sun.

Current Album: 0110 Tufted Titmouse and other birds in Oakville
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A little further down Lakeshore Rd at Paletta Park, another birder showed me the location of a tufted titmouse. These birds are quite rare and it was a treat to see and photograph one. It was actively feeding with a flock of black-capped chickadees, woodpeckers (down, hairy and red-bellied), cardinals and house finches. The red-bellied woodpecker was also a nice treat, pictures are after the titmouse.

Current Album: 0110 Tufted Titmouse and other birds in Oakville
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The tufted titmouse has been around for a few weeks. It can found by walking down towards the lake, go left across the bridge and walk back towards the road on the trail until you come to a small clearing and can see the grass sloping up towards the road. Climb up towards the road (you should see a sign that says private property, its to the right). The bird is frequenting feeders on the 1st house closest to the lake. The owner appears to be birder friendly and invited me onto his property to take photographs.

 Good birding!