by finding a beautiful pintail duck sitting in a pond very close to the side of the road.

The hunt continues. This time with a specific goal in mind. Neither Roberta nor I had a Swamp Sparrow on our life lists and Ray knew where to find one. I guess they knew we were coming for there were none to be found. The side trip was not a waste. A Swainson's Thrush made a special appearance just to keep us from being disappointed. The day is wearing on and it is time to change our style. Our list is fairly full. We must now look for only the birds we haven't got instead of enjoying all the birds. We are approaching the P.E.I. National Park, a kingfisher is high on our priority list and we have all seen kingfishers at Campbell's Pond. Wouldn't you know, there is no kingfisher to be found at Campbell's Pond on this day. We did manage to find in the area cowbirds and a House Sparrow which up to this point had alluded us. Dusk is approaching and we have a few more stops yet. The first being Bubbling Brook Trail. A good choice indeed for the sought after Swamp Sparrow was there waiting. Adrenalin flowing and time running out, we know there are still some species to get. Covehead Bridge was the next stop. The terns were busy and the gulls increased our numbers very quickly and, thanks to parks and their protection cage, a Piping Plover was added to our list. Easy you think, Ray thinks he has an Arctic Tern flying around up there. The sound is different. After some discussion we find the particular bird making that funny noise , and sure enough the colouring is a little different as well, an Arctic Tern. I'm thinking, there can't be anything else. We are stopped having another look at some peeps. Suddenly all the peeps start to fly. What scared them? Well, what ever it was is sitting in a tree. The discussion begins again, Kestrel or Merlin. Finally located in the scope, he was co-operative, it was a Merlin. A drive through to Rustico Island hoping for an owl is futile, so we make our way home. What we discover while looking at our list is we have missed a lot of should-be-easy birds, the Mallard for instance. The Great Cormorant is another. Roberta assures us the Killdeer we missed is nesting in her back yard. It as the kingfisher had, has chosen this particular moment to disappear.

The total is impressive, 99 species, the day was rewarding, a great day in fact. Watch out P.E.I. Next year we will make it over one hundred.

:§. 27 53\ 37' .S‘ .77 =‘ 27

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Piping Plover tracks are 1/2" in length _ 4 _