On Thursday afternoon I hit the road, pointing my car southwest to Essex County. Two good friends of mine, Josh Mandell and David Szmyr, were heading down from Barrie to Point Pelee for their annual trip. They were a few hours ahead of me, but we had all day Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday to bird together. Previous days in the park had seen an epic migration out of the park one morning, and a ridiculous reverse migration at the tip during another morning, along with a nice sprinkling of rarities like Kirtland's Warblers, Yellow-throated Warblers, a Eurasian Collared-Dove, LeConte's Sparrow, Yellow-headed Blackbird and more appearing in the park. Needless to say we had high hopes for the weekend!
My first stop of the trip occurred before I even left Niagara. A Summer Tanager had been seen for a couple of days along 40 Mile Creek in Grimsby, feeding regularly in a backyard feeder along the edge of the ravine. Summer Tanagers are a regular spring overshoot in southern Ontario, but in Niagara there are often several years between records. I had never viewed one in Niagara so it was a priority.
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| Summer Tanager - 40 Mile Creek, Grimsby, Niagara Region |
I put on my rubber boots (the parking lot and part of the pathway was flooded) and hiked over to the area where it was reported. I hardly waited five minutes before the Red-winged Redbird appeared and began feeding. Success! With the clock ticking, I enjoyed the views, snapped a couple of photos, and hiked back out, stopping to chat with Rich Poort for a few minutes on my way out.
The long drive passed by and I was soon in the Rondeau area, where I made a couple of quick stops. At Keith McLean Conservation Area the Glossy Ibis did not show, but it was great to walk around with Greg Stroud who I had never met in person before. I also made a brief stop at the Blenheim lagoons as a band of rain passed through and enjoyed viewing the Eared Grebe in the northwest cell. That evening we went for dinner/drinks at Armando's Pizza in Leamington with some friends and went to bed.
By all accounts, Friday was a spectacular day of birding at Point Pelee. Josh, Dave and I birded together, sometimes meeting up with others, and walked the trails in the south end of the park for the entire day. The birding was just that good! The insane birding day from Thursday was over, but many of Thursday's birds lingered, augmented by new arrivals from the south. The temperatures were a bit chilly and many songbirds were foraging on the ground.
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| Bay-breasted Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Rose-breasted Grosbeak - Point Pelee National Park |
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| American Redstart - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Philadelphia Vireo - Point Pelee National Park |
One of the stars of the day was a Kentucky Warbler that had been found in Tilden's Woods about 3 days previously. It was still around this morning, entertaining birders and photographers alike (and even "muggles" walking by). In the mid-morning Josh, Dave, Rick Mayos and I ventured over there for our fill! Rick had seen the bird several times previously but was happy to check it out once more.
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| Kentucky Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
This one is probably my favorite image I took of the Kentucky. We kept having to back up because the bird was too close!
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| Kentucky Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
While viewing the warbler, an alert went out to the Point Pelee Whatsapp group about a Swallow-tailed Kite flying over the Ander's footpath area, immediately to the north. I think Dwayne Murphy had the bird first, then the Rileys over Cactus Field. All down the peninsula, people's phones pinged and they rushed to open areas with good sight-lines. Because I have the app muted on my phone (I hate getting 50+ notifications a day from the group, having to pull out my phone constantly all day), I did not notice the alert; however Dave immediately received a text from Jeremy Hatt that said "look up!" and we quickly figured out what was happening. We rushed over to the Visitor's Center, hoping that the kite would fly over, but it was already over the Tip, and a few minutes later it flew out over the lake to the south, never to be seen again. Can't get them all!
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| Kentucky Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
After the kite "dip", we decided to walk back south through the park. This was an excellent choice as the Post Woods trail was quite birdy. First we twitched a Prairie Warbler that Geof Burbridge's group reported at the south end of the Woodland Nature Trail, before continuing down the Post Woods Trail.
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| Prairie Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
A Grasshopper Sparrow popped up for us and even sat pretty on a low branch for a minute.
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| Grasshopper Sparrow - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Grasshopper Sparrow - Point Pelee National Park |
A few minutes later I found a male Prairie Warbler that eventually worked its way over to us and provided incredible views. We managed to get quite a few nearby birders on it before continuing on.
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| Prairie Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Prairie Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
We birded the Tip area for quite a while and watched as waves of birds made their way south. As I mentioned earlier, many species were foraging on the sand making photography too easy. A unique look at many species which otherwise are only seen up in the treetops.
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| Bay-breasted Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Blackburnian Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Great Crested Flycatcher - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Blue-headed Vireo - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Yellow-bellied Flycatcher - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Yellow-bellied Flycatcher - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Bay-breasted Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Black-throated Green Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
This Scarlet Tanager provided a nice study as it foraged for bugs on the warm sand on the east side of the Tip.
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| Scarlet Tanager - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Scarlet Tanager - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Scarlet Tanager - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Scarlet Tanager - Point Pelee National Park |
Our warbler list was quite strong, well over 20 species at this point. We found four separate Hooded Warblers throughout the course of the morning, added an Orange-crowned Warbler foraging on the ground near the Tip and saw one of the Prothonotary Warblers in a slough along the Woodland Nature Trail. Hopefully with the excessive wet conditions, habitat will remain suitable for a good number of Prothons to nest at Pelee this year.
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| Prothonotary Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
Our 25th warbler species of the day was a male Pine Warbler that we noticed in Tilden's Woods. Given the late spring, quite a few early migrant species were still being seen irregularly, including Winter Wren, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Pine Warbler and Brown Creeper.
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| Pine Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
The day just kept getting better. Josh, Dave and I had just arrived at Sleepy Hollow in the mid afternoon to have a nap in our respective vehicles, when the alert went out. Josh had just fallen asleep when we woke him to drop the news. A Yellow-throated Warbler had just been found at the east end of the Shuster Trail, likely the same bird photographed there by someone earlier that day. We raced over there and the bird cooperated. It was quite the scene - birders and photographers lined up along the path, all straining for a view. The Yellow-throated Warbler was quite accommodating, moving up and down the trail, ensuring that everyone had good views from a few feet away! Obviously the bird was just foraging in an optimum area and was likely so hungry that it did not care about the cameras pointed its way, but it was a pretty special moment.
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| Yellow-throated Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
Yellow-throated Warbler is a rare but regular spring overshoot in Ontario, and each year usually sees between 2 and 8 spring records. It is one species that I had not much luck with and this was only my 6th for Ontario (and by far the best views). It was great to vastly improve my photo catalog of this species as well.
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| Yellow-throated Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
This individual exhibited just a little bit of yellow in the lores and a short bill, making it look very similar to the Yellow-throated Warblers found just to the south of us in Ohio (formerly the 'albilora' subspecies). Yellow-throated Warblers are considered by some to have several subspecies, but recent work demonstrated that characters including relative amount of yellow in the lores and bill length are clinal, increasing from west to east, and the subspecies are genetically indistinguishable ((McKay, B.D. 2008. Phenotypic variation is clinal in the Yellow-throated Warbler. Condor 110:569-574).
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| Yellow-throated Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Yellow-throated Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
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| Yellow-throated Warbler - Point Pelee National Park |
While we watched the warbler, I also spotted a nice male Blackpoll Warbler in the shrubs to the south, which was our 27th warbler species of the day. That evening Nancy McPherson pointed out a Blue-winged Warbler to us, our 28th and last warbler species of the day. Ontario has 36 annual warbler species, meaning we only missed 8 on the day (Kirtland's, Worm-eating, Cerulean, Canada, Mourning, Connecticut, Golden-winged and Louisiana Waterthrush).
Our Point Pelee weekend was going great and we still had two days left - that will be the subject of my next post.
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