Birding the Toronto Islands

 I've just come back from a 2 1/2 week trip to Eastern Canada, centred on Toronto then Nova Scotia. As well as doing the touristy things in Toronto (CN tower, Niagara falls) I birded the island in the harbour. Although often described as the islands they are really one large island, about 5km long, divided into three areas based on where the ferry lands: Ward Island on the east, centre island in the middle (!) and Hanlon point in the west next to the airport. The ferry rides only take 15-20 minutes and are frequent in season but get less so when the fall schedule kicks in. 

I had three trips out, catching the early ferry on Saturday and Sunday and the later fall-scheduled one on Wednesday. Two were to Hanlon point and one to Ward Island. On each trip I spent about three or four hours and went from landing to at least Centre or a bit further then back. The weather was kind to me though it was quite busy over the weekend with lots of boat-trippers picnicking around the shoreline. It is a very easy island to bird, with mainly hard paths and a very open aspect. 

I leant heavily on Norm Muirs superb and comprehensive guide (link below) to find my way around though you can't really get lost! In email conversation with him, he did say the island was under-birded and I can only agree with him. In over 12 hours I didn't meet another birder!!!

Guide to Toronto Islands

Being very much a rookie where North American warblers and the like are concerned I missed a lot of small stuff, spent too long identifying (re-identifying) the common stuff when mixed flocks came through and failed to photograph many of the small birds while I was concentrating on working out what they were. Even so, it was a really great place and highly recommended for anyone visiting.

So, what did I see? I got a positive ID on 57 different species including 10 warblers. Some of the birds were widespread and very obvious. The northern Cardinals look so exotic and were very vocal, often from deep in cover. They were very used to being fed by the locals and came to seed.

The same was true for the blue jays. They were all over the island, again very vocal with their harsh calls. There were also many large flocks flying through, often numbering 50 or more. They didn't hang on long and many were just flying through without stopping.

When they did come down you get to see the beauty of their plumage with multiple shades  of blue and psychedelic patterning on their wings. 

The iconic bird of the flat lawn areas was the American robin. Not all of them were as scruffy as this individual!

With so many trees around the island its not surprising that it attracts a good number of woodpeckers. Within 30 minutes of landing on the first day I got hairy, downy and northern flicker. Hairy and downy are superficially quite similar but can be separated with good views. Downy woodpeckers are smaller with a shorter bill and have dark patches on their whiter outer-tail feathers as seen below.

Hairy woodpeckers are larger with a stout bill and pure-white outer tail feathers.

Closely related to them were the two nuthatch species -red- and white-breasted, pretty easy to tell apart.

The real stars of the show though were the warblers. Most of them I failed entirely to get shots of as they were high in the trees or moving through in large mixed flocks. I did manage a few when they came out into the open, some of which I left to later to worry about ID anyway!

A lot of them were superficially similar in size, habit and coloration, especially when moving rapidly through the canopy and not in full breeding finery. Some of the ID's I checked with the Toronto birding FB group who were really helpful!

This is a 1st winter bay-breasted warbler. Its bright-green neck, prominent wing-bars

and buffy colouration on its under tail coverts are key points to look out for.

Black-throated green-warblers are a bit easier. They stood out in the mixed  flocks, with their strong yellow faces set off by the black makings on their neck. I think these are both adult males due to the strong black markings on the neck.

Chestnut-sided warblers are stunning if they are breeding males. The 1st winter females are a bit drabber but key points to notice are the olive-green back extending to a cap with grey undersides, the white eye ring and pronounced double wing-bars.

Palm warblers were one of the most numerous and showy of the warblers. All these are non-breeding adults. The yellow tail coverts probably are the easiest field mark, together with the pronounced eye-stripe and the brown back.

A superficially similar warbler is the yellow-rumped warbler. Here though the yellow is above the tail not underneath it! There are two races  - myrtle and Audobons. This is myrtle, told partly by where it is and also by some field makes such as the extent of the white throat patch and very streaky breast.

As well as these I also saw but failed to get decent photographs of Nashville, blackpoll, magnolia, black-throated blue and black-and-white warblers as well as American redstart. 

I was hoping to see a few vireos whilst I was on the island but the only one I managed to conclusively identify was this Philadelphia vireo, told by its prominent eye-stripe, yellow-throat (separating it from warbling vireo with a whiter throat) and its darker wing-feathers - at least I hope it is anyway!!!

There were some other really smart smaller birds around as well. One I found particularly pleasing was the grey (gray?) catbirds. A few years ago I drove to Cornwall to twitch one of those neat the lizard. Here they were all over place with their characteristic cat-like call. They are really smart birds.

Near where I was seeing the catbirds I caught sight of a brownish, thrush-like bird darting in and out of cover to feed on seeds put down on a concrete pad. I hid myself behind a bush and waited until it showed itself - a brown thrasher!! It is in the same family as the catbirds and mockingbirds and as a useful piece of trivia is the state bird of Georgia!

I also had less good view of American goldfinch,

Eastern wood peewee ( a flycatching bird),

least flycatcher,

rose breasted grosbeak(this one is a female),

song sparrow,

and white-throated sparrow.

Of the larger birds I got good views of some of the raptors on the island including a very confiding red-tailed hawk

an overflying sharp-shinned hawk,

a peregrine scoping out potential targets from a man-made perch,

and one of a few turkey vultures mooching around in the trees.

Water bird were not represented in great numbers apart from the hundreds of double-crested cormorants

and lots of ring-billed and herring gulls.

I also found a couple of trumpeter swans having a bit of a rest on one of the beaches on the north side of the island,

and a belted kingfisher was being very vocal around one of the ponds in the middle of the island.

All in all it was a really interesting and challenging three trips out onto the island. It's alway hard to pick up the pace with a new set of birds but I was gradually getting used to them by the rime I had to leave! It is certainly something I would recommend to any visiting birders with a few hours to spare in Toronto.