A wild Smew chase, part 3 (a.k.a.: third time's the charm)

The title pretty much sums it up! After the Varied Thrush and Eurasian Wigeon success yesterday I raced back to Guelph last night. Since I had had a combined 7 hours of sleep during the previous 2 nights, I squashed my original plan of driving straight to Long Point and sleeping in my car once I got there, since I'm pretty sure I would fallen asleep en route.
Five hours after arriving in Guelph, I was on the road again to Long Point. As opposed to Friday, with sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds as well as snow, today was sunny and calm.

I arrived at my preferred destination - the marina along the causeway - and set up shop hoping the Smew would come by. I was hopeful since it had been seen at this time the last 2 mornings. At 8:03 AM something scared all the ducks out of the bay. I scanned them with my binoculars and picked out one that looked exactly like my target bird! It had a white head with a small amount of black on the face, a white neck, a striking white and black back, and black wings with a large white window - the adult male Smew! It was flying with 5 or 6 Common Mergansers, which eventually joined up with the large swirling mass of scaup, Canvasback, wigeon, Redhead, and Bufflehead. The birds turned and headed away from me. It appeared that the Smew had landed way out in the middle of the bay, on the east side of a large cattail "island". Excitedly I called Brett and a few others - apparently no one else saw the bird in the swirling mass of ducks. I spent the next little while scanning the ducks with Barb Charlton, Rob Dobos, and Ron Ridout to no avail. We did get a flyby Snowy Owl (just about took out Brett, Dave, and Reuven!) and Eastern Meadowlark, a singing Eastern Towhee, as well as a White-winged Scoter, rare for this part of Long Point.

After that excitement and being thoroughly sick of ducks and waterfowl in general, I decided to take it easy and go for a stroll through the provincial park.

It was pretty quiet (except for the thousands of blackbirds) but I did come across a few flocks of American Tree and Song Sparrows with my first-of-year Fox Sparrows mixed in. 2 Common Redpolls flew over and close to 10 Killdeers were making a racket.

Common Grackle - Long Point

Song Sparrow - Long Point

I also photographed a few other common species that I had neglected to so far, giving me 86 total species photographed this year in Ontario. If I'm lucky I may reach 300. As you can see from the next photo, it doesn't have to be good quality to count!

Fox Sparrow - Long Point (take my word for it)

 Red-winged Blackbirds may be common, but they sure as heck are a good-looking bird and it takes me most of the spring before I'm sick of them. :)

Singing male Red-winged Blackbird - Long Point

After I was done in the park I sauntered over to Big Creek to spend a bit of time. The ducks were quite numerous - I counted over 800 Northern Pintails and 1200 Mallards, among other species.

Big Creek - Norfolk Co.

Northern Pintails - Big Creek

A meadowlark was flying around and I was happy to see my first Savannah Sparrow for the year here as well. Extremely early migrant? It was my earliest Sav for Ontario by nearly 3 weeks.

Savannah Sparrow - Big Creek

What's a trip to Long Point in the spring without Sandhill Cranes? Their bugling call is one of my favorite sounds of the early spring and Sandhill Crane is one of my favorite species that can be found in Ontario.

Sandhill Cranes - Long Point

Sandhill Cranes - Long Point

Sandhill Cranes - Long Point

It was a beautiful day in the field and I added 5 more year birds including my first code 6 of the year - the Smew. The other four year birds were Eastern Meadowlark, Eastern Towhee, Fox Sparrow, and Savannah Sparrow. Time to go to bed!

Northern trip stuff and another owl for the list

I had a number of target species to get on the northern trip. The following is that list and how successful I was at seeing them.

Varied Thrush

Spotted Towhee

Harris’s Sparrow

Gray-crowned Rosy-finch

These were the four rarities that we hoped to see and the Gray-crowned Rosy-finch (code 5) and Spotted Towhee (code 4) were the main reason for this trip! Fortunately we saw both of them, immediately making the trip worthwhile. The Harris's Sparrow (code 3) was nice to get early on. I will probably see Harris's Sparrows when I go north in the fall (they migrate through in small numbers), but even still I don't want to have to worry about this bird later in the year! We missed the Varied Thrush (code 3) in Ottawa which was really depressing since it was my second unsuccessful try for that individual. Two days after passing through Sault Ste. Marie we heard about a Varied Thrush near the Soo that had been present for several weeks....that's how it goes I guess. 

Ruffed Grouse

Spruce Grouse

Sharp-tailed Grouse

The grouse weren't major targets on the trip, simply because I will pick them all up at various points throughout the year. We were hoping that we would stumble upon them at some point on the trip but didn't have really high expectations. We did see Ruffed Grouse (code 1) in a number of locations, but missed the other two species.

Great Gray Owl

Boreal Owl

Northern Hawk-Owl

Barred Owl

There were extremely few small mammals up north and that would explain the paucity of owls. We missed all three of the northern species! I already had seen Great Gray Owl (code 3) in Kingsville and was really hoping to get the other species. We tried several times for calling Boreal Owls (code 3) in suitable habitat, but it was perhaps too early in their breeding season and we were unsuccessful. Northern Hawk-owl (code 3) was one that I thought we would stumble across as we drove backroads in the north, but that was not to be. We had a probable Barred Owl fly over the road in the north but didn't get a great look. Fortunately, I picked up Barred Owl yesterday in Guelph (scroll down the post).

N. Three-toed Woodpecker

Black-backed Woodpecker

We did get Black-backed Woodpecker in Sault Ste. Marie, but struck out on Three-toeds in several locations. Weather definitely played a factor. 

Gray Jay

Bohemian Waxwing

Boreal Chickadee

We got Gray Jays in several locations and a big flock of Bohemian Waxwings in Sault Ste. Marie. Surprisingly we didn't get any Boreal Chickadees in the boreal forest, but I did see a single bird in Algonquin on the way back. 

Pine Grosbeak

Hoary Redpoll

Evening Grosbeak

These were the remaining 3 regular finches I needed to see and we saw many individuals of all three species (all were code 2 birds). Getting the northern subspecies of Hoary Redpoll (Hornemann's Hoary Redpoll) was a great bird, even if it doesn't count as a year bird.

So when it all comes down to it, I got 3 of my 4 main targets, and 8 of my 15 secondary targets. Not great, but at least I saw the birds that mattered the most for my big year! I should get multiple opportunities to see all the secondary targets I missed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday I spend a couple hours in the morning doing some local birding around Guelph. The Barred Owl which had been hanging out at Guelph Lake all winter wasn't too hard to find and Matt Strimas-Mackey and I spent some time watching it hunt in the early morning sun. Very cool bird! 

Barred Owl - Guelph Lake

Barred Owl - Guelph Lake

I tried unsuccesfully for a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in Guelph (not a bird I'll miss this year, but a cool bird to get in the winter), and successfully saw my first Northern Pintail of the year, a drake. Brings the list up to 127.

Northern Pintail - Guelph

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You may recall at the beginning of the year that I made a goal of seeing all 10 regular finches and 10 regular owls early in the year. I have now seen all the finches (plus the bonus rosy-finch) and 8 of the 10 owls. I'll probably head north in April to get Boreal Owls calling on territory as well as trying for Three-toed Woodpeckers again.

There are several other birds that I hope to see before I leave for Scotland on February 16. They are:

Northern Hawk-owl

Black-legged Kittiwake (Fort Erie bird still being seen)

California Gull (one was seen on the weekend at the Niagara River - could very well be around)

Varied Thrush (might have to drive to the Soo for this one)

Tufted Titmouse (not really rare, but I should get them in Niagara)

Harlequin Duck (female bird occasionally being seen in Niagara)

Snow Goose (several birds are in the province, hopefully I can see the one in Hamilton)

Sharp-tailed Grouse (would be a life bird for me. Will try for them when I am back in the Soo)

I have to keep forcing myself to stay focused and only look for winter specialties and rarities. I could easily go to Long Point and get 5 or more year birds, but they would be all common birds that I will pick up later. If I spend time doing that I may miss a great rarity because of that.

This post is getting fairly long-winded so I think I'll end it here.