Huron Fringe Birding Festival 2023

May 25 - Travelling to MacGregor Point Provincial Park

Our route to the festival goes via Bancroft and Orillia. This avoids most busy roads and allows us to visit the Carden Alvar on the way. We took Hwy 17 to Renfrew, then Hwy 132, Hwy 41 and on to Hwy 28. A brief stop at the Tooey’s Lake picnic area produced Ring-necked Ducks again this year.

The outfitter at the Madawaska bridge has bluebird boxes. This year the owner came out and chatted for several minutes.





At Cardiff, we took Hwy 118 , then stopped for a break at Tory Hill. A Rose-breasted Grosbeak was singing and there were many Yellow Warblers.





Then it was on to Carden. There were many Bluebirds and Tree Swallows. A House Wren and Baltimore Oriole were singing loudly. Once again, we saw no Shrikes. But on Shrike Road, we saw some Solitary Sandpipers at a large puddle and an Upland Sandpiper and Cliff Swallow on a wire.





We stopped for Ice Cream at Kawartha Dairy in Orillia and gassed up. Our route then went across to a brief stint on Hwy 400. But our exit was closed, and we were forced to go north and through busy Wasaga Beach and Collingwood.

We finally got back on track and stopped at the Saugeen River bridge to look at the Cliff Swallow nests.





We were a little late arriving at MacGregor Provincial Park, but the park registration was still open, and so was the Huron Fringe tent. This saved us time the following morning.
We found our campsite and erected our ancient 40+ yeras-old canvas tent. We were surpised to find that Norah Toth, the festival chair, was our next door neighbour. It was extremely cold at night, so we were thankful for our Big Agnes double sleeping bag.

We were ready for our festival birding adventures.