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Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Orono Weekly Times - 5 Birds of a Feather Birding by Markus Lise Migrating? Already?! Yes, migration time has set in. Some birds left a while ago. The Bobolinks are long gone and have emptied the meadows where they raised new families. And now the Shore Birds are on their way. They are making their return trip from the northern breeding grounds. They can be viewed in the Wetlands and Sewage lagoons where they are stopping over for about a week. Sewage lagoons are hot places where several Shore Birds can be sighted. Nonquon sewage lagoon ponds are excellent places to visit by Port Perry. The birds can be identified with their slender bills and boundless reserves of energy. Shore Birds are ideally suited to a life of foraging on a sun drenched beach or a muddy shoal, a marshy riverbank or an open field. Wandering over their chosen terrain, their bills incessantly probing the sand or poking beneath rocks in search of food, they are sprightly, tireless bundles of determination. From the methodical Sandpiper to the fast darting Plover, from the Oyster Catcher wedging its knifeblade beak into a mussel shell, to the Woodcock spiraling high in the spring above the treetops on a courtship flight at dusk, these birds are at once delightfully active and peacefully at home in their surroundings. This past week, I had the privilege of sighting 2 Lesser Yellowlegs, 1 Solitary Sandpiper and several Killdeer south of the large Sobey's storage building just south of the 401. They can be accessed and viewed by taking the highway #12 exit south of Whitby, turning west on Victoria St. till you get to the second traffic light on Gordon St., turning north away from the direction of the Whitby Mental Health Centre and Whitby Lakeridge, and turning west again until you come to a body of shallow pond water. You may have to get out of your car in order to look over top of the weeds. Except for a few southerly species, Shore birds appear to most of us merely as transients on their way south, part of a huge pulse of migration. Great hordes of Sandpipers and Plovers are scattered across mud flats and beaches, milling about in search of food or taking flight in mammoth flocks that almost seem to be a single organism as they turn synchronously through the air. They are a miracle. Following their parents, the chicks learn to wade in shallow water and to hunt aquatic animals of all sorts, from insects and crustaceans to tadpoles and even small frogs. They also learn to shake one foot rapidly under water, bringing creatures up out of the mud. Then plunging their heads into the water, they bob and peck with great alacrity to catch their wiggling meal as it scatters. Markus Lise lives in Newcastle. He is a retired minister who now spends his time as a "minister of Nature." Bryon Grundy of Orono is very pleased with the way the Municipality repaired his driveway. A heavy rain storm a year ago removed a big chunk of Bryon Grundy's driveway at his home on the 7th Concession. The culvert under the 7th Concession was half full during the storm, and according to Grundy, there's never been so much water through that culvert. The rushing water carried away a sec- tion of the bank under Grundy's driveway, causing part of his driveway to cave in. The muncipality put a metal plate over the washed out section of the driveway for the winter, and this spring - with technical assistance from the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority - cre- ated a permanent solution, with which Grundy is very pleased. The muncipality placed several concrete blocks at the base of Grundy's driveway to hold the slope in place and gabion stone on the slope to prevent future erosion. "They've done a nice job," Grundy told the Orono Times last week.