Long weekend birding update - Friday

I was able to take Friday off this week so I decided to head down to southern Ontario and do some serious birding for the weekend. I didn't really have any target species in mind - mainly I wanted to check out a bunch of shorebird locations and do some fall warblering at Point Pelee!

Some highlights from Friday:

My goal of being at the Hamilton lakeshore by sunrise failed due to a "faulty" alarm clock....nonetheless by mid-morning I was looking at shorebirds.

North shore islands in Burlington:
-1 Baird's Sandpiper

Windermere Basin:
-only Black-bellied Plover of the day
-3 Short-billed Dowitcher
-nothing else interesting!

Mines Road sodfarm near Mt. Hope:
-16 American Golden-plovers (3 had been reported here by others in previous days)
-1 Buff-breasted Sandpiper! My first for the "Hamilton Study Area" were less-than-ideal looks, as is often the case with this species. Eventually it flew to the east, though apparently it returned since it was seen by birders an hour later. Some of the Goldens were a little more confiding...

American Golden-plover

American Golden-Plovers

Townsend lagoons:
-Lots of great shorebird habitat in the nearest pond!
-1 Red-necked Phalarope in the northwest pond
-2 adult American Golden-Plovers
-4 Stilt Sandpipers
-a good variety of ducks for August - Northern Pintail, Ring-necked Duck, Northern Shoveler, Ruddy, both teals, etc

Silver Lake in Port Dover
-lots of habitat, but not much variety of shorebirds! This is a spot worth checking in the future.

Port Rowan lagoons:
-I "dipped" on the recently reported Wilson's Phalarope, but still had a ton of shorebirds (about 130 individuals of 11 species). 4 juv Baird's were nice

Aylmer WMA (by the police college)
-the only Wilson's Snipe of the day!
-a couple of Bald Eagles keeping an eye on things.

Bald Eagle - Aylmer lagoons

Aylmer lagoons:
-lots of wind and not much else

Port Stanley lagoons:
-lots of habitat, but again, not a whole lot of variety! A couple of juv Short-billed Dowitchers were the only thing moderately interesting (and even that is a stretch!)

I finished with 17 shorebird species so it was a pretty good day.