The Pipits: Grimsby Wetlands and 40 Mile Creek

Hello Pipits!

Last Sunday nine Pipits met at Grimsby Wetlands at 8am. This area was previously an inactive sewage lagoon, and through the efforts of Bruce and Laurie MacKenzie, and the Hamilton Naturalist's Club, it has become a fabulous wetland, with trails, boardwalks, a viewing tower, and a fantastic collection of wildlife. For more information, please see the latest Newsletter about the Wetlands.

We had a wonderful walk, and found some great birds! Of note we saw a pair of Common Gallinules with 2 fluffy black babies! And a Least Bittern put on an excellent show briefly, perching on reeds only about 20 feet away from our group.

I didn't have a camera with me, but others did. Hopefully they will share their photos with us!

Here's a photo of the Least Bittern, courtesy Angela Eady! Thanks Angela!

After Grimsby Wetlands, a few of us stopped by 40 Mile Creek Park for a lovely walk along the creek bed. This location can be very good in spring migration, but was remarkably quiet for us. The warblers weren't singing or showing at all. I suspect that everyone who is going to nest has found a partner and they are working on incubating eggs and raising nestlings. I expected to still have singing birds defending territories but it seems that this behaviour has settled down already. If anyone has more information on this please share?

To see the list of birds we saw on our outing, please see the Trip Report, here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/386518

Thank you all for coming out, you made it a wonderful day!

Can't wait for the next outing!

Colleen