Some local birding

Here is a copy of my Wellbirds post (our local Wellington County listserv) from this afternoon.

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Birders,

Some highlights from this afternoon. I finished with 21 waterfowl species.

Neibaur's Marsh (2:10 PM)
-179 Ring-necked Duck
-5 Redhead
-various other common waterfowl

Puslinch (2:30 - 4:00 PM)
-18 total waterfowl sp.
-2 Trumpeter Swan
-1 Horned Grebe
-2 Ruddy Duck
-5 Canvasback
-112 Redhead
-7 Greater Scaup
-6 Lesser Scaup
-1 Red-breasted Merganser
-1 Glaucous Gull
-1 Kumlien's Iceland Gull

Quarries: (4:20 - 4:40 PM)
-only thing of interest was 1 Glaucous Gull

Mountsburg (4:50 - 5:20 PM)
-highlight here was 1 drake Blue-winged Teal, my earliest for Wellington County by a long shot
-lots of the usual waterfowl, including 65+ American Wigeon - I think we are due for a Eurasian
-8 Green-winged Teal

HWY 6 just south of Morriston (5:30 PM)
-two Tree Swallows were flying around in a field on the east side of the road, between Leslie and Badenoch. This is my earliest for Ontario by 14 days, let alone Wellington County!

Many other spring migrants (Killdeer, Turkey Vulture, Eastern meadowlark, etc) were seen today.

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So yeah, a pretty good day! I have no idea how to find out, but perhaps the BW Teal and Tree Swallows were record early for the county? It felt good to get out for a few hours with this spring weather - a nice break from studying for sure.

There are currently no rare birds on the radar so I'll be taking it easy the next little while and focusing on school. Additionally, it is salamander season starting possibly tomorrow night in this part of Ontario so that will be fun :) Check out my post from last year...  http://joshvandermeulen.blogspot.com/2011/05/salamanders-in-spring.html

With this crazy early spring we'll be probably be getting some record early spring migrants - get out there and look!