Birding along Lake Erie

I'll make it short since I'm short on time...currently I am parked outside of a McDonald's in Leamington making use of their wifi.

Today's birding took me along the lakeshore from Port Stanley to Point Pelee. Here's my Ontbirds post summarizing Port Stanley:

"I had about 16 species of shorebirds in the Port Stanley area this afternoon. There were 5 species on the 

East pier, including a juvenile Red Knot. On the beach west of the pier were thousands of gulls, including a

1st cycle and adult Little Gull.
At the lagoons, I ran into another birder and we had
6 A. Golden-plovers (j)
2 Baird's Sandpipers (j)
1 White-rumped Sandpiper (ad)
2 Red-necked Phalaropes (j)
1 Stilt Sandpiper (j)
1 Horned Grebe
 
While along the lake there was a constant stream of raptors including all 3 falcons.

I counted over 2500 Broad-winged Hawks in 1/2 an hour, so I am sure the hawkwatch

had huge numbers today.

1st cycle Little Gull

Bonaparte's Gull - Port Stanley

Horned Grebe - Port Stanley Lagoons

juv. Stilt Sandpiper - Port Stanley lagoons

world's crappiest photo (Red-necked Phalarope juv)

The rest of the day I hit up some spots between Port Stanley and Pelee, stopping at Ridgetown, Blenheim, Wheatley harbour, Hillman Marsh, and the Onion Fields. I didn't find anything really crazy, though another Horned Grebe (Blenheim lagoons) was weird.

Horned Grebe - Blenheim lagoons.

I finished the day with 84 species - not bad considering I had almost zero songbirds (only 2 warbler species, 1 thrush, etc)

More phalarope awesomeness

I decided to once again make the short trek over to Tilbury this afternoon while taking a break from work. Many of the same ducks and herons were still present, including the female Northern Shoveler (she was joined by 5 others on Saturday, but they were now gone), a handful of teal, a couple of Black Ducks, and a dozen Wood Ducks. While scanning the shorebirds, I was happy to see that the young Red-necked Phalarope had returned. It had been absent yesterday, apparently.

This is an awesome little bird and one of my favorite species. The lighting wasn't ideal at this time of day, but even still I slowly crawled down the embankment and grabbed about 100 photos of the little guy. Makes me wish I had an extra 100 or 200 mm on my lens!

juvenile Red-necked Phalarope - Tilbury lagoons

Every so often, the phalarope would spin quickly in a circle, creating a vortex that sucks tiny invertebrates up to the surface, which it promptly plucked off of the water.

juvenile Red-necked Phalarope - Tilbury lagoons

About a dozen total species of shorebirds were present including 4 juvenile Baird's Sandpipers, an adult White-rumped Sandpiper (the first of the fall for me at Tilbury), and 3 adult Long-billed Dowitchers.

adult Long-billed Dowitcher - Tilbury lagoons

While I was watching the shorebirds, I noticed that they all started lifting a wary eye to the sky. I took this as a hint and looked up, but the only raptorish shape I could see was a Chimney Swift way up high. About 10 minutes later the same thing took place.

juvenile Red-necked Phalarope - Tilbury lagoons

This time, though, the culprit was a juvenile Peregrine barelling in. It chased a flock of peeps around for a bit before eventually leaving. At one point the falcon was dangerously close to the phalarope, huddling close to the water! I found it interesting that the dowitchers and Greater Yellowlegs didn't fly when the Peregrine flew in - in fact the dowitchers never stopped feeding the entire time the aerial assault was on.

Peregrine Falcon - Tilbury lagoons

The flocks dissappeared, but over the next 20 minutes slowly started arriving and feeding. Here is a Lesser Yellowlegs trailed by a couple of peeps. I think the front two are Semi-sands and the back one is a Least.

shorebirds - Tilbury lagoons

Also seen was a single American Pipit, my first of the fall and first for Tilbury. I also heard a couple of Bobolinks as they migrated south over the lagoons (also new for my Tilbury list). I think I've seen close to 100 species of birds there over the last year.

Finally! A change at Tilbury

This morning when I posted I lamented how, despite excellent conditions, the rare birds were just not showing up at the Tilbury lagoons. I did have an American Avocet there early in July, but ever since then the rarest birds have been the regular Long-billed Dowitchers.

It seems that for today at least, the curse was slightly broken. While no rarities were found, there was a huge change in the numbers and diversity at Tilbury with a few interesting birds mixed in. Beforehand, let me mention that the quality of the photos leave something to desire. The birds were a little too far away for me to use the 300mm, so I resorted to digiscoping with my 18-55 lens.

My coworker, Matt, and I took a break from work and made the quick trip over to the lagoons. One of the first birds we saw was this Horned Grebe, hanging out with a couple of Pied-billed Grebes. What a weird sighting! I have never seen one at the lagoons. It almost seems that an Eared Grebe would have been more likely.

Horned Grebe - Tilbury lagoons

Around this time, another car pulled in and I realized it was my friends Ken and Mike Burrell. They were doing a big loop of the southern Ontario shorebird spots and had already seen an Upland Sandpiper at Mitchell and 2 Red-necked Phalaropes at Exeter. Together, the 4 of us scoped the "shorebird cell" at Tilbury with a few highlights.

This juvenile Red-necked Phalarope stood out and was one of the first birds I looked at. I nice surprise, and a new one for my Tilbury list (as well as Ontario year list, but who's counting).

juvenile Red-necked Phalarope - Tilbury lagoons

Stilt Sandpipers had arrived. Earlier in the fall I had seen 1 or 2 adults, but today 3 juveniles were present. Neat looking birds, and one of my favorites.

juvenile Stilt Sandpiper - Tilbury lagoons

I was happy to finally see a few Baird's Sandpipers at Tilbury - the first ones of the fall for me here. They were both juveniles.

juvenile Baird's Sandpiper - Tilbury lagoons

Of course there were still Dowitchers - 3 adult Long-billed, and the rest juvenile and adult Short-billed. Some of the Long-billed Dowitchers were quite far along in their prebasic molt. No pics today.

Other birds seen include 14 Great Egrets (a lot less than the 40 Blake had!), 2 Black-crowned Night-herons, both species of Teal, 5 Northern Shovelers, and 8 Wood Ducks.

This afternoon I brought my camera into the field with me in case I came across any butterflies. I found a few Fiery Skippers and an un-IDed Duskywing. My guess is Wild Indigo.

female Fiery Skipper - Turkey Creek, Windsor

I kind of like this shot of a Viceroy on the gravel path.

Viceroy - Turkey Creek, Windsor

This mama and her two fauns kept an eye on me as I approached.

White-tailed Deer - Turkey Creek, Windsor

White-tailed Deer - Turkey Creek, Windsor

That's all for now. I am hoping to go to Pelee first thing tomorrow, or at the very least Tilbury again.