The last week of March

This past week has really started to feel like spring! I had my firsts of several species including Snow Goose, Ruddy Duck, Wood Duck, Sandhill Crane, Killdeer, Green-winged Teal, Bonaparte's Gull, American Woodcock, and Great Blue Heron. Part of that list was because I've been down at Long Point but I think many of those species have spread north into much of southern Ontario now.

What do you think of this "white" goose?

"I came all the way for this?"

I think basically this past week served to "catch up" for alot of species, check out the eBird figures for our old friends RWBL and COGR:

We're pretty much bang on with last year at this time

That being said, it doesn't look like winter is ready to release us quite yet and we're getting a reminder of that for the first half of the week. For the birds that are "scheduled" to arrive this week, looking at the list I'm not too optimistic that we'll end March on schedule. Most of the birds that normally arrive this week are passerines and I'm not going to hold my breath that we'll see the first "mass arrival" of Eastern Phoebes. Anyways, here's the list of species that normally arrive this week (for methodology and full spring list click here):

22 March -	American Kestrel
25 March -	Northern Flicker
	Eastern Phoebe
	Brown Creeper
	Winter Wren
	Fox Sparrow
27 March -	Blue-winged Teal
28 March -	Pectoral Sandpiper
	Belted Kingfisher
30 March -	Dark-eyed Junco
31 March -	Wilson's Snipe