Winter Birding the Niagara Falls Region by Martin Selzer

Mention Niagara Falls to most people and they think of a picturesque tourist location frequented by honeymooners. Mention Niagara Falls to a knowledgeable birder and they will think of the massive concentration of gulls that can be found there late autumn and into the winter. From November to March, with the peak time being mid-November to late-January, thousands and thousands of gulls congregate on the Niagara River.

The Niagara River runs north from Lake Eire approximately 35 miles to Lake Ontario. While it is most famously known for the falls, the river remains largely ice free in winter and therefore provides a source of food and shelter for gulls. Nine species of gulls regularly occur on the river at this time of year and 19 have been recorded over the years. The one-day record of fourteen species occurred during the peak fall-winter window.

Travel to the area is easily arranged on plane into the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport, on train on services provides by Via Rail in Canada or Amtrak in the United States or by car. Hotel accommodations are plentiful and easily arranged in Buffalo, New York or Niagara Falls, Ontario. You can bird the river from either the United States or Canada sides, although the access to the river is generally better from the Canadian side. The only areas on the American side of the river that a visiting birder should not miss are the American Falls and Goat Island. Fortunately, both of these scenic and birdy stops can be reached from the Canadian side of the river via the Rainbow Bridge.

Birding information is readily available to the adventuresome birder planning a visit to Niagara in winter. Numerous articles have been published in birding magazines over the years. On-line help is easy to come by and numerous hot lines and birding organizations are active on both sides of the border. Detailed information outlining a weekend foray to the Niagara is available in two of the ABA Birdfinding Guide Series publications. Individual chapters to this wonderful birding spectacle can be found in the Birdfinder: A Birder's Guide to Planning North American Trips and A Birder's Guide to Metropolitan Areas of North America. A third publication dedicated to the wonders of the Niagara River has been published in 1999 by the Minister of the Environment, Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada. Entitled The Niagara River: An Important Bird Area, this 32 page pamphlet provides a wonderful overview of the area, its importance to the gulls and what a visiting birder in likely to encounter. If you can find this publication, you should pick it up.

With our homework done and our winter gear packed, a group of 10 of us from the DVOC (Delaware Valley Ornithology Club) headed up to the Niagara the first weekend in December 2002. While some of us had visited the falls on non-birding adventures, this would be the first winter foray to into the area for all of us.

Friday morning, we assembled before dawn as Adrian picked up Bert, Karl and Frank at Bert's house before heading over to my house to pick up Lynn, Jane, Chris, Bill, Naomi and myself. We were on the road at 0615 heading north on the PA Turnpike. With his GPS plugged into a laptop computer Bert served as navigator. Thanks to technology, we were always going to know exactly where we were even if we didn't know where we wanted to be or how to get there! We made a one pit stop on the way before getting off the NY State Throughway to get petrol and stop at Montezuma NWR. We were filling up with petrol just outside of the refuge when an adult bald eagle soared overhead. Everyone saw this birds except for the few folks getting some chocolate or using the facilities. Our visit to Montezuma was very abbreviated as the autoroute was closed due to the wintry weather conditions.

We pressed on, made a stop for lunch and then headed straight to the American Falls in Buffalo. Although, the viewing is much better on the Canadian side of the river, we had to make a stop on our side. Viewing at the falls was rather difficult as the wind was blowing the spray from the falls in our faces. Given the amount of water going over the falls, this presented a significant problem although the ice forming over the landscape was quire scenic. We looked for birds from 1400-1500 before crossing the border and heading to the evening fly-by on Bonaparte's gulls at Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL).

The evening fly-by at NOTL is one of those birding spectacles not to be missed. The thousands of Bonaparte's that feed along the Niagara River during the day, roost on Lake Ontario at night. From just before dusk until dark, they fly by in small groups to their roosting sites. Because you can get right down to the river's edge and the birds get funneled along this narrower section, birders are privileged to quite a show. This is also the time and place to pick out little and common black-headed gulls as they fly-by with their much more abundant relatives.

We arrived a bit after 1530 and stayed for about an hour. Although we saw hundreds of Bonaparte's, we didn't see the thousands that we had heard of. What we did see that amazed us was hundreds of long-tailed ducks along the river. The next day we learned that the fly-by continues until dark and that around 1700 a black-headed gull was seen from the very boat landing we had been standing on not 20 minutes earlier. It had been a long day and by the time we checked into the Hampton Inn, we had had a four-gull day (great black-backed, herring, ring-billed and Bonaparte's). We knew we had some work to do but still had 2+ full days ahead of us. We all enjoyed a wonderful dinner at the Frontier Grillhouse before calling it a night.

We met downstairs for our complimentary continental breakfast and loaded up the van again at 0815. Our plan was to head down to Fort Erie and bird our way back along the river, ultimately ending up at NOTL again for the fly-by. Since it was Saturday, we expected to find other birders along the river and hoped to gain some current local knowledge as we went along. Using the van for shelter from the wind we scanned the Niagara River at Fort Erie and saw a virtual "sea of ducks". There was a huge, huge flock of long-tailed ducks, lesser and greater (predominantly) scaup, bufflehead, common goldeneye, canvasback and redhead. We had all noted smaller numbers of many of these species in our own area in recent winters so it was very comforting to see that they still could be found somewhere. We slowly worked our way back towards the falls, pulling off the road where we could. As we went we continued to find good size groups of waterfowl and Bonaparte's gulls.
We drove through the Legends of Niagara Golf Course in search of wintering raptors and we wonderfully rewarded with a show-stealing light-phase, rough-legged hawk. When we did a bird of the trip tally at our last dinner together, this buteo was the hands down winner! We also found a sharp-shinned hawk along the hedgerows on the backside of the course. It was now time for lunch and we made the first of what would be many stops at a Tim Horton's Donut Shoppe. For those worried that they might miss Wawa or Dunkin Donuts in the Niagara Falls area don't concern yourself. Tim Horton's can be found all over, have a decent menu selection and bathrooms. What more could a visiting birder want.

After lunch, we checked out the local feeders. We didn't find anything we wouldn't have expected to see at our own feeders but landbird opportunities were few and far between on this trip see we welcomed the diversity. A stop at the "Control Gates" area above the falls yielded our first little and lesser black-backed gulls of the trip. From here we stopped at the Horseshoe Falls. At the pumping station above the falls we found another little gulls and while looking for the juvenile black-legged kittiwake that had been at the base of the American Falls the previous week, we ran into another group of birders who put us onto a young Iceland gull. We never found the kittiwake and from reports we heard all weekend, no one else did either.

Our next stop was the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Generating Station overlook. This turned out to be one of our favorite spots along the entire route. Firstly, the overlook provides you a great vantage point to scan the river below. Second it is a favorite spot historically for California and Thayer's gulls. While we didn't see either on this visit, we did see several more Iceland gulls and lesser black-backs in addition to a huge concentration of herring, ring-bills, great black-backs and Bonaparte's. We then headed back to the fly-by at NOTL. Having talked to other birders during the day, we knew we didn't need to get there as early as we did the day before but we might have to stay later. While the day before we had a common loon to watch and keep us company, today we had a red-throated loon to observe. There were significantly fewer long-tailed ducks along the river this day, although the Bonaparte's were flying by in larger numbers, as it grew darker. We were joined by a group of birders from Ohio and two local birders. As it was truly getting dark, one of these local guys spied a black-headed gull streaming by. Landmarks are difficult to point out especially in the harsh twilight conditions, but fortunately the bird banked in front of a light along the far bank of the river and we were all able to get on him at that point. Once you found him, he was readily identifiable but with some help that local birder, I think we were all in agreement that we would have missed him. With an eight-gull day behind us (GBBG, LBBG, Iceland, ring-billed, herring, Bonaparte's, little, black-headed) we headed back to the hotel before having dinner at the Capri Restaurant. The Capri is along Ferry Street, which is the main drag in Niagara Falls.

Sunday morning called for a repeat of breakfast at the Hampton Inn with a 0815 departure. Today we were going to stop at Sir Adam Beck overlook before heading off to Brantford in hopes of gray partridge and waterfowl in the Hamilton Harbor. At Sir Adam Beck we again found the several Iceland gulls we had seen the day before when Frank and Karl found a likely candidate for the California gull. Unfortunately, it decided to take a fly around but after a few minutes that must have seemed like hours to Frank and Karl the bird returned to its perch. We all were able to study this bird and much debate followed. The discussion continued as we drove to Brantford and made a pit stop; at you guessed it, Tim Horton's. While most of us got coffee and donuts, Chris started a new tradition by getting a bowl of soup for his mid-morning pick-me-up. To each his own! It should be stated that Frank made a very strong defense of this being a California gull and looking at Karl's picture after the trip also provided convincing evidence.

At the Brantford Airport we had hoped to stumble across the partridges. Even after getting permission to walk the perimeter of the airfield and braving a snow squawl, we were left partridge-less. For Bert, Karl, Jane, Lynn and myself, I think this re-enforced how lucky we had been in March 2001 when we had found them here by the airport office. After lunch at Tim Horton's and yes Chris had more soup, we stopped at LaSalle Park along the Hamilton Harbor. Here a group of 30 Trumpeter Swans could be found. The swans are part of the reintroduction project at Wye Marsh but they still are stately birds. We stopped at several other vantage points along the harbor but we only rewarded with distant looks at the huge numbers of long-tailed ducks out in Lake Ontario. Finally at Green Street Condominiums, we had birds close enough to appreciate. Besides the ever-present long-tailed ducks and scaup, we had a fair number of white-winged and surf scoters and a few black scoters. Another snow squawl enveloped us for a few minutes before passing but that didn't prevent us from enjoying the ducks and a wonderful peregrine falcon that cruised by. We then returned to Sir Adam Beck where we couldn't re-find the California gull but we were able to find an adult Thayer's gull. This too took some effort to make sure everyone was able to see it, but we watched this bird for at least 15 minutes leaving no doubt as to its identity. It was another great gull day bringing our trip total to 10 with hopes of glaucous (observed earlier in the day by some birders we ran into) to come. Dinner was at Kelsey's and we then took a quick drive to enjoy the holiday light festival at the falls.

Our last morning before heading home started off the same as the previous two days had and we loaded up the van. We headed straight to the Control Gates in search of the glaucous gulls we had heard were they yesterday. Shortly after arriving and setting up our scopes, I found an adult bird on the gravel bar in the river and Adrian found a juvenile bird on the control structure itself. It was a good thing we did because a car backfired in the chill of this Monday morning and all the gulls took off and scattered. We went back to Fort Erie and scanned the river one last time. Before heading for home, we drove through the Legends of Niagara golf course again. We found the rough-legged hawk again, several red-tailed hawks and a perched adult American Bald Eagle. It was then time to head for home. Before crossing the border again, we stopped at the duty free shop to "use up our Canadian currency" at least that was what Adrian suggested we do. Anyway, at 1030 we were back on the road for home. The glaucous gulls had been our 11th species of gulls and our total trip list was 72 species. The gulls and waterfowl make this a must do trip for any birder who wants to see large concentrations of birds. It was an avian spectacle that lived up to its advanced billing!