March Jaeger?!

Today, Reuven and I headed to Toronto in chase of a reported Eared Grebe. We arrived at the east bay of Colonel Sam Smith Park to several birders looking at the bird, however the lighting was bad and the bird was distant so it was hard to see well. We moved farther west and had much better views of it in better light and it became apparent that the bird was in fact a Horned Grebe in heavy molt with an interestingly placed tuft on its head. Oh well, that's how it goes sometimes!

the culprit - Toronto, ON

While we were here we enjoyed the sights and sounds of hundreds of Red-necked Grebes calling back and forth. This is a major staging ground for them and there are presumably several thousand between Toronto and Oakville on the lakefront. There has got to be a Western Grebe mixed in somewhere!

Red-necked Grebes - Toronto, ON

Garth Riley had found a Pomarine Jaeger earlier in the day way out over the lake, a crazy March record for Ontario. Most likely this was a bird that wintered on the Great Lakes. Several Pomarine and Parasitic Jaegers continued to be seen at Niagara-on-the-Lake until mid December, at least.

Reuven and I set up our scopes with Garth, as well as Andrew Keaveney and Sarah Jane Stranger-Guy who had arrived. After about 20 minutes of scanning I picked up a darkish jaeger barreling in. We all got on it but it was very distant. Several times it harassed some gulls, and it even flew out over land at Humber Bay to the west!

Pomarine Jaeger - Toronto, ON

We squabbled a bit over the ID but the bird appears to be an intermediate morph immature Pomarine Jaeger. This is a code-3 bird for me, and quite an unexpected one! This may save me from a few trips down to Van Wagner's beach in the fall, though I'll probably still go since jaegering can be a lot of fun (with rarity potential).

Pomarine Jaeger - Toronto, ON

Reuven and I slowly started to make our way back to Guelph, stopping at a few lakefront parks without seeing much. A few cormies were here and there.

Double-crested Cormorant - Port Credit, ON

 We stopped at Mountsberg once we got off the highway to check out the situation. No shorebirds yet, but there were a few ducks including a pair of Blue-winged Teal. Since I'm trying to photograph as many species as I can this year, I grabbed some crappy digi-scoped shots (species #105 photographed this year). What better way to finish off a blog entry than with a blurry, cropped photo?

Blue-winged Teal - Mountsberg reservoir

Local rarities

I've managed to get out locally a fair amount in the last little while, and as a result have some birds to show for it.

When birders think of Guelph and Wellington County, there's not much that comes to mind. Guelph isn't a hotspot for raptors, shorebirds, ducks, gulls, warblers, vireos, or really, anything. I guess Snowy Owls do come down into the northern part of the county most winters, which is pretty cool I guess. But that's about it.

However, Wellington county is where I have decided to make my home for 4 years (I am in the final year, now), so you make do with what you are given. I like to think that over the past little while I have seen some decent birds in the county (best was last year's Parasitic Jaeger and Connecticut Warbler, probably).

Anyways, so recently I've gone out and seen some "local" rarities. The first was a juvenile Red-necked Grebe. I first heard about this bird from a posting by Fred Urie on a local birding forum. The bird was hanging out in a smallish pond along Wellington Road 32 and present for a few days . Red-necked Grebes are abundant in Lake Ontario, but not so much inland. I went out on October 4, and there it was, the little stripey-headed bastard in all his glory.

juvenile Red-necked Grebe, Guelph

Earlier in the week I was looking at some google maps and came across the "Hespeler Mill Pond" in north Cambridge, which looked promising. I decided to check it out since it was only a couple minutes from the Red-necked Grebe spot.

Surprisingly it was actually quite productive! A Great Egret, a nice variety of puddle ducks, some kingfishers, Cape May and Bay-breasted Warblers and some random shorebirds. Shorebirds are tough to come by in this part of the world, so to get 10 species in one spot was quite something! The best of the bunch were a pair of Long-billed Dowitchers, closely followed by Black-bellied Plover and Wilson's Snipe. I think there are only a couple of county records for LBDO prior to these ones (This spot was just over the county line, in Waterloo).

juvenile Long-billed Dowitchers feeding

Other than these birds, it has been pretty decent in Guelph...an Orange-crowned Warbler here, a Cackling Goose (or 6) there. And this morning I woke up to the thump of a junco hitting my window. Winter's almost here! By the way, he sat on the ground for about 10 minutes before flying away.