We drove west from Port Rowan through Port Royal Friday afternoon all the way down to Norfolk County Road 28.
At that point we went north to the Jackson Gunn Forest to see if we could relocate the Red Headed Woodpeckers we'd seen last Sunday March 16th.
We did, without a lot of effort. I think at least four of them are present in these woods. (Here is one of Graham's photos from Friday.) We headed back seeing hundreds of Tundra Swans and a dozen or so Sandhill Cranes along Lakeshore Road and the Causeway.
The presence of these woodpeckers is interesting as this bird is listed as threatened in Canada and of special concern in Ontario.
There is a good piece by Barbara Frei in the latest Ontario Nature (http://www.vdocshop.com/doc/on-nature-magazine/spring2014/2014031201/#22) that talks about some of the reasons this woodpecker, which was once quite common, is now not doing so well.
Ms. Frei cites a population decline in Ontario of more than 60 percent in a twenty year period from the 1980's.
Today (Sunday) we looked at large numbers of Tundra Swans from the Causeway. The Ontario Field Ornithologists who had a field trip here on Saturday put their numbers at about 4,000.
