Have you met Frank?

I know I wasn't going to post until tomorrow night, but its pitch black by 6:00 PM and I have nothing better to do, so I went to McDonalds to steal their free wifi (its not stealing though - I bought a small coffee for 90 cents so that I wouldn't feel guilty).

I arrived in the Point Pelee area around 2:00 in the morning last night, and after a short sleep in my car I headed down to the Point. Driving towards the park, the winds were already very strong and the waves quite large.

I set up at the tip with Blake Mann and Kevin McLaughlin. After a while Alan Wormington showed up, as did Richard Carr (the "afternoon shift"!). Despite the heavy winds, there were very few "good" birds! Maybe we need a good bout of north winds to bring in some rarer things to Lake Erie.

Despite being a quite common species, I enjoyed watching the 10s of thousands of Red-breasted Mergansers, fighting the wind and streaming past. Occasionally flocks of other ducks would be mixed in with them, and I saw all three scoters, several Black Ducks and Mallards, many Scaup sp. (mostly Greater Scaup), Long-tailed Ducks, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, and a few Redheads. Alan saw a Sanderling fly past. Common Loons are Horned Grebes were fairly common too, with about 18 of each seen by me. Unfortunately many of the loons were too distant for me to try to turn them into Pacific Loons!

Perhaps the highlight of the day was watching Kevin almost swimming in the lake to fetch a lost glove! Unfortunately we didn't have our cameras ready and he wasn't about to recreate the shot for us!

Kevin had seen a Franklin's Gull just north of the park on Thursday, and Alan had seen it yesterday. Franklin's Gull is a midwestern species of gull that occasionally wanders into southern Ontario, particularly after strong west winds. I figured after leaving the tip that I would chase this bird, as I've never seen one before. No luck there (its a nemesis bird of mine), so I headed back to the park. As expected there were very few songbirds around. Highlights include Chipping Sparrow, a few young Bald Eagles, and a beautiful Great Horned Owl. Any day where you see an owl is a good day, in my book!

Later that afternoon I headed back to Sturgeon Creek to try for the Franklin's Gull again. This time I lucked out, as the first bird I saw was the Franklin's flying over my car! I was surprised by how dainty they are - almost as small as a Bonaparte's Gull in flight.

I managed to fire off a few frames as it circled. The lighting wasn't the greatest and I had to use a high ISO - hence the low quality shots.

Franklin's Gull - Sturgeon Creek

Franklin's Gull - Sturgeon Creek

The combination of white eye-arcs, long drooping bill, buoyant tern-like flight, and dark half-hood distinguish it as a 1st cycle Franklin's Gull. In the above photo, notice the dark mantle colour and black tail band as well.

Franklin's Gull - Sturgeon Creek

Spurred on by that success, I made my way over to Wheatley harbour, stopping briefly at the north end of Hillman marsh to get a few crappy photos of a Great Egret. It is starting to get late for Great Egrets.

Great Egret - Hillman Marsh

Along Deer Run Road (southwest of Wheatley), I saw a large flock of Ring-billed Gulls behind a house. Immediately I picked out a second Franklin's Gull. Funny how it was my nemesis bird not half an hour earlier, and now I had seen two. By the time I managed to get my camera gear and scope ready for digi-scoping, the bird was farther off in the field against the setting sun so I was unable to take any photos (you should be glad - they would have been pretty crappy quality!). Not a bad day!

Tomorrow I plan on following the lakeshore east, hitting up several harbours, beaches, and sewage lagoons. Maybe I'll see some more gulls named Frank after all these winds.

Excellent forecast

I just checked the forecast for Leamington. Tomorrow is supposed to be a high of 7 degrees C with southwest winds at 50km/h! If anyone knows about lakewatching at Pelee, strong winds from the southwest are often the best for bringing in rare "pelagic birds" or water birds. Things to look for this time of year include jaegers (should still be Parasitics and Pomarines around this time of year - its a good year for Poms especially, it seems), Black-legged Kittiwake, Franklin's Gull, Northern Gannet, Pacific Loon, Cave Swallows, King and Common Eiders, Harlequin Ducks, etc.
Saturday's forecast is almost as good - strong southwest winds at 35 km/h and a high of 10 degrees Celcius. Sunday has a forecast of strong southwest winds at 45 km/h and a high of 13 degrees Celcius. With all these strong, increasingly warm winds from the southwest, who knows what birds may show up. Last year around this time an Ash-throated Flycatcher was seen just north of the tip.
I can't make it out to Pelee tomorrow unfortunately, but I should be there for the whole weekend if the forecast is still good by tomorrow night. Certainly looks like half decent conditions for Cave Swallows.

Despite many days with forecasted southwest winds at Pelee this fall, little has been seen by the regulars at the tip. Maybe this will be the weekend when loads of birds are seen???? (or maybe not....)

edit: Almost forgot - there is some very interesting news from across the lake in Ohio. Yesterday, Craig Holt found a state-first Black-tailed Gull along the lakeshore at the Ashtabula power plant. I don't know of any photos posted of this bird yet, but check out the Ohio birding listserv for more info. Who knows, maybe its the same bird that graced our side of the lake 2 winters ago...

Wet and wild times at Pelee

This weekend I zipped down to Pelee, hoping, as usual, for uber-rare vagrant birds. Strong west winds were forecasted for the weekend and I hoped that this would cause some Franklin's Gulls, cool shorebirds, or if we were really lucky, a rare western flycatcher to be found down in the southwestern corner of the province.

When it was all said and done, it was an excellent weekend with good company and a couple of decent birds (despite the persistent rain).

My first destination was a flooded field near Comber at the north end of the county. Large numbers of shorebirds had consistently been found there over the past week or two. When I arrived, there was no sign of the 11 Godwits which were frequenting the spot. However, one lonely Hudsonian Godwit was still present. The winds were so strong here that I had to hide in the cornfield next to the muddy field, using it as a windbreak. This was fairly succesful and I picked out the remaining species, in order of abundance. By the way, most of these counts are estimates:

Black-bellied Plover (250)
Dunlin (150)
White-rumped Sandpiper (60)
Semipalmated Sandpiper (50)
American Golden-Plover (25)
Killdeer (10)
Baird's Sandpiper (2)
and singles of Long-billed Dowitcher, Least Sandpiper, Western Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlegs, Spotted Sandpiper, and of course the Hudsonian Godwit.
I ended up walking in the muddy field to get closer views at the peeps since I suspected one was a Western from a distance. Sure enough, it was! It was a fairly long-billed "female-type" bird. The Spotted Sandpiper is a pretty late date for the species.

A brief check of Tilbury yielded virtually nothing, so I headed on down towards Point Pelee. Wheatley harbour had a really fresh, crisp juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gull but not much else. The onion fields were pretty devoid of all life too, so I called it a day early and headed to my favorite local joint (McDonald's for the free wifi - where else!) and Skype-called Laura from halfway around the world. Ah, modern technology. After that it was drinks with a good friend in Leamington, then I called it a night and slept in my car.

Sunday was as the forecast predicted - miserable with rain out of the southwest. I headed down to the tip and did a bit of a lakewatch with "the regulars" - Alan Wormington, Blake Mann, Richard Carr, Kevin McLaughlin, Steve Pike, and Marianne Balkwill. It was nice to finally meet Marianne!

Despite the winds it was pretty slow at the tip - highlights were probably Ring-billed Gull and Red-breasted Merganser... Well it wasn't THAT bad. A juvenile Red-necked Phalarope was nice to see and a Lesser Black-backed Gull made a few passes. The odd Merlin and Common Tern flew by as well. Despite scanning thousands of gulls, we didn't come up with any Franklins!

Steve was pretty stoked about the large number of "dicky-birds" around in the woods so I joined him for a bit in sparrow field then birded by myself for a few hours at the tip and along Shuster. There were Yellow-rumped Warblers everywhere, and I picked out 9 other species of warblers with them, including Orange-crowned, Magnolia, and Wilson's. All the other expected October fare was present, including Winter Wren, both kinglets, Eastern Phoebes, Hermit Thrushes, Rusty Blackbirds, and a Blue-headed Vireo. Steve mentioned that this was the most number of birds he had seen in the park all autumn.

My next stop was Hillman marsh where I donned the hipwaders and went splashing after Nelson's Sparrows. Despite the high winds I was somewhat successful in this venture, flushing three possible Nelson's (of which I only got a decent look at one of them). I also walked through the grassy field directly north of the shorebird cell and scared up a bunch of sparrows, including one that may or may not have been a Le Conte's. Sometimes they get away from you!

A quick check of Erieau harbour produced an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull and not much else. I checked Blenheim lagoons around sunset and found a few shorebirds in the sprinklers (including White-rumped and Long-billed Dowitcher). One shorebird had me stumped - it was hanging out with Lesser Yellowlegs and exhibited similar behaviour, but its bill was shaped more like a Stilt Sandpiper. It was a juvenile bird, and it was slightly smaller than the LEYEs but appeared marginally chunkier. It had a different facial pattern too - much blander actually, and with less of an obvious capped appearance. I only wish the lighting was better since I couldn't pick up much on this bird! Maybe it will hang around and someone will notice it and clear up it's identification.

All in all it was a decent weekend and really nice to get away from schoolwork for a bit. The few photos I took from the weekend will be added once I get a chance (might not be for a couple of days)

OFO convention at Pelee

Last night I returned from the OFO convention held at Point Pelee. Despite the low number of migrants in the park, I would still say the weekend was a success! It was great to meet old friends and to put some faces to names.

Saturday morning I drove from where I was staying in Windsor to Point Pelee. Steve Pike and I were scheduled to be a leading a hike throughout the onion fields and Hillman marsh in the morning. When I arrived Steve was already there, and he looked like death warmed over. He bowed out of the morning session and was hoping to be fine by afternoon, or at the latest, by the time of the dinner.

Our group first checked out the dyke that leads east towards the lake from the far end of concession road E. Despite relatively high winds we found a few pockets of songbirds, highlighted by Philadelphia Vireo and 10 species of warblers. A Wilson's Snipe flew by and some Harriers were seen flying around the marsh.

We made our way up to Wheatley harbour, which I had scouted the night before. Unfortunately both Lesser Black-backed Gulls weren't present, but 2 juvenile Ruddy Turnstones were.

After some discussion, our group decided to head north to a field near Wheatley which held American Golden-Plovers the day before. This turned out to be a very good move as not only did we have good looks at the Golden-plovers, but 5 Buff-breasted Sandpipers flew in to close range for a few minutes! The rest of the time, they were barely visible out in the fields. Also seen here were a few Black-bellied Plovers, Killdeer, Pectoral Sandpipers, and singles of Baird's Sandpiper and Lesser Yellowlegs.

Buoyed on by our success, we headed to Tilbury since it was close. The usuals were here, highlighted by a flock of 11 White-rumped Sandpipers. It was good to see birds actually using the "shorebird cell", now that it had a bit of water again.

The afternoon consisted of leading a convoy of over 30 cars back to the BBSA field. Fortunately for all the participants, we managed to see all 5 way off in the distance. Few other decent birds were seen that day, and I finished birding around 4:00 with close to 80 species for the day. Not bad considering I didn't even step inside the National Park!

I slept in my car Saturday night and decided to sleep in til about 8. I birded the park briefly, but it was very quiet for songbirds and I didn't see much. Highlights included Grey-cheeked Thrush and Mourning Warbler.
I did stop to photograph what I was told was a Variagated Meadowhawk.

On the way back home, I stopped at Tilbury but few new birds had arrived. The WRSA flock now numbered 14.

Photos to be added later!

Central Kingbirds and more

This past week I brought my camera into the field a couple of times and managed to get a few shots of some butterflies. Common Ringlets are becoming more and more common. I saw at least one every day last week!

Common Ringlet - Windsor, Ontario

Among the skippers seen last week was this Peck's.

Peck's Skipper - Windsor, Ontario

On Wednesday, I noticed an Ontbirds post from James Holdsworth about a Western Kingbird and 3 hybrid juvenile Eastern x Western Kingbirds. I have never seen hybrid kingbirds and the location was about 2 minutes from my office, so Dan Riley and I swung by one afternoon and took a look at these "Central" Kingbirds. Pretty cool to see Westerns attempt breeding in Windsor, even though only one half of the pair was the right species. The photos are pretty bad and I'll attribute that to the very poor lighting and heavy cropping.

juvenile Eastern x Western Kingbird - Windsor, Ontario

 

juvenile Eastern x Western Kingbird - Windsor, Ontario

The adult Western Kingbird was present too. I had only seen this species once before (an adult seen in November, 2009 in Port Burwell) so it was nice to reacquaint myself with the species. For better photos that were taken by James Holdsworth and Dwayne Murphy, check out Dwayne's blog: http://dwaynejava.blogspot.com/

Western Kingbird - Windsor, Ontario

Yesterday I decided to check out Point Pelee before going to Cambridge for the weekend. It was a beautiful day - warm but not hot, with a nice breeze coming in off the lake. Seacliff Beach was first on my agenda. I had a bit of fun taking some shots of the abundant Larids. There were 8 species of gulls/terns present - Caspian, Forster's, and Common Terns as well as Bonaparte's, Great Black-backed, Lesser Black-backed, Ring-billed, and Herring Gulls. The only LBBG was this individual, molting from 1st summer to 2nd winter plumage.

Lesser Black-backed Gull - Seacliff Beach, Ontario

I had limited time in the park so I decided to walk the West Beach trail from the VC to the tip. Many Giant Swallowtails were taking advantage of the abundant Spotted Knapweed.

Giant Swallowtail - Point Pelee National Park

I was happy to see 2 new butterflies - 2 Dun Skippers (no photos) and 3 Horace's Duskywngs. Horace's had been reported on and off for the past week or two, but I was still surprised when I came across them.  They were all within 5 feet of the water's edge, landing on some of the vegetation that had washed up on shore.

Horace's Duskywing - Point Pelee National Park

Horace's Duskywing - Point Pelee National Park

This was an odd sight - a Great Blue Heron flocking with the gulls. Another 1st summer/2nd winter LBBG was with this flock as well.

Great Blue Heron - Point Pelee National Park

A single Eastern Comma allowed me to take its photo.

Eastern Comma - Point Pelee National Park

From there, I headed over to the Tilbury lagoons. The conditions still remain excellent but still there wasn't much turnover. These lagoons are now probably being checked close to every day so I would imagine that if something really rare drops in, it has a good chance of being seen and reported.

Among the 12 species of shorebirds were 4 adult Long-billed Dowitchers, 3 Short-billed Dowitchers (including 2 juvies), and an adult Stilt Sandpiper. Only 3 Great Egrets this time.

A tour of Essex County

Today I decided to take full advantage of my day off and tour around, hopefully kicking up some cool birds and butterflies.
The first stop was Tilbury. This remains the best, easily excessible shorebird spot in the county and it wasn't bad today. There must have been a big influx of dowitchers as there were more than a dozen. 5 of them were Long-billed and a few juvenile Short-billed were around. I didn't get any photos as they were too far for my 300 lens. I did, however, grab a few shots of this closerish Lesser Yellowlegs.

juvenile Lesser Yellowlegs - Tilbury lagoons

Cormies!

Double-crested Cormorants - Tilbury lagoon

Next up was the Ridgetown Lagoons. I was actually disappointed as I thought that there would be more habitat than there was. The smaller cell did have mudflats, but the geese were hoarding them. There were, however, a handful of semi-sands, a single Least Sandpiper, a single Semi-Plover, and a couple Lesser Yellowlegs.

Blenheim was next on the agenda. I hadn't actually visited in a few weeks so I wasn't prepared for how terrible it would be. Every single one of the lagoons was filled to the brim with water, and even the sprinkler cells were completely dry! Highlights from here included Mallard and Starling. Well, there was still a single Semipalmated Sandpiper that I watched for a bit. I kind of felt sorry for it, "foraging" on bare dirt. I also scanned through about 500 Mourning Doves and didn't see anything interesting. On to Erieau!

Off the pier were various gulls and terns, including a 1st summer/2nd winter Lesser Black-backed. There were tons of people here hanging out on the pier, so I didn't linger. Off of Erie Beach I had a young Little Gull with the Bonaparte's, which I think is the first one of those for me this year.

Next I checked out Hillman Marsh, Wheatley Harbour, and the harbour by Sturgeon Woods. I didn't see anything unexpected, though I got a second Little Gull at the harbour by Sturgeon Woods.

The final stop was at a weedy field in Leamington to look for butterflies. 3 or 4 Common Checkered Skippers were nice!

Common Checkered-skipper - Leamington

As was this thing, which I think is a Fiery Skipper?

Fiery Skipper - Leamington

That's all for now. Overall it was a typical day for early August - hot weather, lots of driving, few birds, but a couple nice summering gulls/migrant shorebirds/southern butterflies.

Birding around Essex

I met up with Ken Burrell and 3 of his coworkers - Megan, Nate, and Charlotte - for a day of birding/butterflying around Essex County. Bird-wise, it was pretty quiet: Some Moorhens and various wading birds at Holiday Beach (though no Cattle Egret), Sanderlings at the tip of Point Pelee, and the shorebirds at Tilbury were probably the highlight. Amongst the regular hoard of Spotted Sandpipers and Killdeer, we also picked out:
4 Stilt Sandpiper
4 Short-billed Dowitcher
1 Greater Yellowlegs
1 Solitary Sandpiper
40 Lesser Yellowlegs
40 Least Sandpiper
20 Semi-palmated Sandpiper

Butterflies were also in the news. At Pelee we saw many Giant Swallowtails, some Spicebush Swallowtails, Emperors (both Tawny and Hackberry), and an American Snout among others. My highlight was finding a worn Juniper Hairstreak right next to the trail on the west side of the tip. No photos, though Ken might have grabbed some on his camera.

Despite the lack of "good" birds, it was an enjoyable and relaxing day away from work!

One last run at Pelee

Overnight those of us in southwest Ontario were hit pretty hard with thunderstorms. In some areas up to 80 mm of rain fell, so as expected I was hoping that some rarities had shown up somewhere. But also, as expected, I did not locate these rarities.

Driving towards the park, the amount of rain that fell was immediately obvious as most of the fields were flooded. The gulls were making use of this, but I could not find anything of interest with them.

Pelee was very slow, especially at the tip. It was really good to do some birding with Sarah for a bit as well as run into a few old friends at the park. Highlights (they were few and far between!) include:
11 species of warbler including Black-throated Green (late), Canada (heard only) and Cape May
White-rumped Sandpiper in the Onion fields

It seems that Ottawa was the place to be today (Arctic Terns, Purple Sandpiper, Franklin's Gull, etc). Check out Bruce's post:
http://ontbirds.ca/pipermail/birdalert_ontbirds.ca/Week-of-Mon-20110523/027621.html

Pelee yesterday

I was on the road by 5:30, and by 6:15 I arrived at the Hillman marsh parking lot. The birding here was good as usual - almost immediately I picked out a Western Sandpiper among the semis and leasts. Nice! There was also a White-rumped Sandpiper present, but it was difficult to study the birds because they kept flushing and flying around for a few minutes. At around 6:35, all but a few Black-bellied Plovers left. On to Pelee.

I was hoping for a bit of a Whimbrel flight but alas that was not to be. I met with with Sarah Rupert and we did a bit of a tip watch. A single Whimbrel flew in, circled, and left about 4 times. At least one of those times it touched down on the beach not far from us for a few brief moments! Sarah had a Red Knot fly by that I just caught a glimpse of, and that was about it for shorebirds.
A bit of a reverse migration was happening in the morning. Nothing unusual, but an Acadian Flycatcher perched on the very last bush on the peninsula, before flying out over the lake. Also, at least 4 Red-headed Woodpeckers and many Chimney Swifts. 

Walking back to the tram stop, there were still a few good Passerines around. Many MANY Blackpolls, a Canada, and about 8 other species of warblers. I finally picked up alder flycatcher for the year too.

Laura had to get up early for work today so my plan was to wake up with her and head to the Blenheim/Erieau to do a bit of birding. Well, that plan obviously failed as I am sitting in my bed after just waking up....

Pelee - May 21

I finally had a chance to head over to Pelee for the first time in a few weeks. So far I had missed out on a number of interesting birds that had been seen there recently, such as Bell's Vireo, Swainson's Hawk, Fish Crow, 37 species of warblers, etc.

Checked out DeLaurier for a change first thing in the morning. This was probably by best location all day. No real highlights, but I did see/hear about 15 species of warblers.

I headed down the West Beach footpath towards the tip. This has always been my favorite trail at Pelee - fewer birders, a clean view of the sky, and always a chance for rarities. A few of my better Pelee finds last year (Henslow's Sparrow and Kirtland's Warbler) came from here.  On Thursday, a Dickcissel flew over me along this path as well.
Today was really slow, though a few singing Mourning Warblers were nice.

At the tip I ran into Brandon Holden and Ken Burrell who had just returned from a month of birding on Pelee Island. Ken and Brandon had a probable female Western Tanager reverse-migrate not long before I arrived. While walking near the tip with them, Ken's sharp ears picked out the distinctive song of a Prothonotary warbler.  I took a look at the "Yellow-legged" gull at the tip as well. I'm not convinced that's what it is!

Hillman Marsh wasn't bad later that evening and I did see a couple of White-rumped Sandpipers which were new for the year. Apparently others had seen Baird's (REALLY good spring record) and Western Sandpipers there that evening as well. Finished the day with about 120 species.