Tuesday 10 September 2013

Long weekend birding update - Monday

On Monday, September 2, I spend the morning paddling in the Pelee marsh with Jeremy Bensette before heading back home to Cambridge. No rarities this time around, though we did have some interesting sightings:

-1 female Northern Harrier eating a dead cormorant! I am assuming the cormie was already dead when the harrier found it...

- 1 Least Bittern seen flying low over us and landing in some reeds... we couldn`t relocate it for photos. My second Least Bittern for the weekend!

-2 Stilt Sandpipers (my first for Point Pelee National Park)

Stilt Sandpiper - Point Pelee NP

Lesserlegs and Stilt Sandpiper - Point Pelee NP

- an adult Least Sandpiper in basic plumage, something that I don`t see too often in Ontario. It had me fooled for a while since it seemed much paler than I had expected an adult Least to be.

adult Least Sandpiper - Point Pelee NP

Here is a selection of a few other species I photographed out on the mudflats from the kayak.

Lesser Yellowlegs - Point Pelee NP
Least Sandpiper - Point Pelee NP

Semipalmated Plover - Point Pelee NP

This Greater Yellowlegs was sitting down and resting in some grasses near the water`s edge. I went into "stealth mode" to get this shot.

Greater Yellowlegs - Point Pelee NP

And to finish it up, a Great Blue Heron with an identity crisis. It didn't read the memo on "typical perching locations for birds in the family Ardeidae".

Great Blue Heron - Leamington onion fields