Long Point-May 11 and 12

This will be a short post as I have some preparation to do for this weekend ANYWAYS....

May 11

After a full 10+ hour day at Rondeau, I had another early start today as this is the day that I was doing my Birdathon on. A birdathon is a fund raiser for birds and wildlife. People sponsor you and you try to see how many species you can see in one day.
Unfortunately this year, May 11 happened to be Cold and Windy so the birds hunkered down and weren't singing much. The total species count for the day was 109. Not high but we had to really search for the birds today. Regardless, we saw some pretty good birds, despite the tough weather.
I will just outline some highlights from a long day:

Dickcissel- Bird of the day and lifer for me at E Quarter line

Harris's Sparrow- Same bird that I found last weekend

Hooded Warb- Backus woods

I spent most of my spare time just traveling around the Long Point area and spent a good chunk of Sunday just haning around the banding station and woodlot. This is a place where you can meet a lot of people and often learn a lot.

Common Nighthawk- Long Point, ON

First Nighthawk of the year

 

Magnolia Warbler- Long Point, ON

Off to Long Point again for the long weekend! The migration has supposed to have really picked up today so I'll see what I can find.

 

Rondeau May 10

May 4
I had originally planned on doing a full post on this day as things were pretty good birdwise but I have fallen behind and have some catching up to do. I'll spare you the details.

Highlights

HARRIS'S SPARROW- Self found in the 'New' Long Point Provincial Park early in the morning. I think that the bird is actually still hanging around and have seen it 4 times since.

Blue-winged Warblers- 2 in the Provincial Park

Scarlet Tanager- Just beautiful and happened to be a year bird

Eastern Fox Snake

And thats about it. It was very birdy but nothing unexpected except for the Harris's Sparrow of course.

May 5

Same stuff as May 4th

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RONDEAU AREA May 10

I was a little worried on the drive down Friday Morning because of the torrential downpour but as soon as we hit the "Welcome to Rondeau" sign, the rain stopped, a little good luck to start the day. My Grandma and I arrived at about 8:30, a little later than hoped but for a long drive pretty respectable. The plan was to bird from the northern end of Rondeau to the tip down south point trail then hit Blenheim Sewage Lagoons on the way back. We didn't make it to the tip but heard it was very slow anyways.
Starting off at the pony barns I immediately realized that there were plenty of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and they could be heard and seen almost constantly. The pond next to the pony barns were especially productive with many warbler species. I added some good birds to the 2013 list in the form of  Northern Waterthrush and American Redstart. Walking down to spicebush was pretty uneventful with the usual suspects singing. Most of the birds were low because of the wind, but a pair fo tufted titmice made and appearance. Spicebush provided a pretty good assortment of warblers but in many ways the people outnumbered the birds. A Worm-eating Warbler and Golden-winged Warbler were around but eluded most people including us. We did get a tip from a man that said that he had a Kentucky Warbler at the maintenance loop so we hitched a ride back and went to check it out.
A Hooded Warbler was a very cool bird but other than that it was pretty much dead. Just as we were about to get into the car however I heard a bird sing from the edge of the bush across the road... Kentucky Warbler! I listened to it for a bit just to make sure and everything matched..This was a lifer for me,though I was hoping to actually see it. I am comfident I will get good looks in the future and am looking forward to it. From there, we somehow ended up at the visitor's center where I hung around waiting for one of the Yellow-throated Warblers to show up at the feeders there while my Grandma went to search for the Kentucky Warbler. I got tired of that so I walked down the road to the McArthur's cottage feeder where I finally found it.

Yellow-throated Warbler-Rondeau Provincial Park

A Yellow-throated Warb pic from from last year with a point and shoot camera (courtesy of my Grandma)

After no more luck with the Kentucky Warbler we headed to the very productive Blenheim Sewage Lagoons.

Highlights:

Cackling Goose
Wilson's Phalaropes-4
Semi-palmated Sandpiper-1

Lots of other expected shorebirds along with 15 bobolinks!


Over all a pretty productive day despite the rainy start and slightly slow bird speaking. Once again no good pictures because of camera troubles but hopefully soon.

 

Long Point- May 3

It has been officially May for a couple of days now and birders from all over are gathering to their favourite migrant traps to catch the spectacle of migration.
One of my favourite places to spend my time is Long Point and this is where I first became interested in birds. My Grandma and I are renting a cottage just across from Long Point Bird Observatory's "Old Cut" field station and I will be birding the area as much as possible over the next month. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from this weekend because I left the camera battery at home(how do you forget that) so a couple of horrible i-phone photos will have to do. I have a bit of catching up to do.

Its just the beginning of May and Long Point has already had a couple if mega rarities. Long Point's first Bewick's Wren since 1997 was banded at the "tip" field station. Long Point's 3rd Swainson's Warbler was also banded at the tip. This station is not accessable to the public though.

I arrived at Long Point Thursday night and just walked around old cut for the remaining daylight hours. Highlights included:
Veery
Blue-winged Warbler
Ovenbird
I decided to pack it in early because I knew that Friday would be an early start.

Friday, May 3

I beat the sun up and managed to get out birding by 5:30 am. As soon as I stepped out the door I knew that I would be adding lots to the year list as the air was filled with songs of avian life. Yellow Warblers announced their presence near the entrance to the  park, along with an American Bittern calling from deep within the marsh. A Wood Thrush's call could barely be heard above all the other noise. Some Nashville Warblers, Brown Thrashers, Blackburnian Warbler, Black-throated Green Warblers all sang and allowed for awesome views.
Eventually things started quieting down as I got further into the park and some of the diversity changed. Nashville, Palm, Yellow-rumped, and Black and White warblers could be heard singing and eventually showed themselves. I also had my first couple of Black-throated Blue Warblers as well as a Red-headed Woodpecker. I was hearing Blue-winged Warbler for much of the time and eventually got to see it making its way up some vines. Bobolinks made a couple of flyovers along with Common Loons and Common Mergansers. After looping around the park I made my way back along the road and picked up Cape-may Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, and Swamp Sparrow. The Park had proved to be productive.

I moved on from there to Old Cut where there was much of the same. Big Creek and the Causway produced Forster's Terns, a single Common Tern and Marsh Wren.

Over all a pretty productive day and added lots to the year list. AND... NO TICKS!  No actual rarities but May 4th Highlights coming up!

Long Point and Beamer

Last Friday my dad and I took a trip down to the Long Point area to look for early migrants. We didn't see a lot but it was fun just to get outside.

Highlights include:
Sandhill Cranes at Big Creek and a single on Concession A
Bald Eagle- Old Cut
Carolina Wren at Concession A
Eastern Meadowlarks on the way home in Townsend. (Year bird)

For me the highlight of the day wasn't even a bird...it was a snake! The first of 2013 and it came in the form of a Garter Snake at Big Creek. It wasn't moving very fast and it looked cold, but this snake was a sure sign that spring has arrived!


Saturday was an awesome day so I decided to go check out the action at Beamer Conservation Area. Although I arrived a little late, I was just in time for some good raptor migration. Red- shouldered hawks poured through at a steady rate, along with a few Rough-legged hawks, eagles, and of course Red-tailed hawks and Turkey Vultures. We also caught good views of the resident Cooper's Hawks. Some saw a Northern Goshawk, but I didn't see it. I think that Niagara Peninsula Hawk Watch doubled its 2013 count so far in just one day!
Sunny days at beamer, with lots of raptor movement are awesome!

It's That time of Year Again

Its that time of year again...Spring! The time of year that birders live for and after a long winter, the new migrants and warmer weather is absorbed eagerly. Birds have been singing for a couple weeks now and the silence of winter is gone! Mourning doves are "coo"ing, and cardinals are singing, along with every other bird announcing its presence. Waterfowl has long since arrived, tundra swans fly over honking their ghostly calls. In Norfolk, where I live, tundra swans have covered fields for the past few weeks, though they are starting to deplete. Turkey Vultures are now starting to arrive in large numbers, along with other raptors like red-shouldered, red-tailed hawks. The all to familiar song of robins is filling my backyard and as I write this I can hear a white-crowned sparrow.

The snow around my house has completely melted and my shoes now collect mounds of mud when I walk through the fields.

The urge for spring to come has been eating at me for the last month as things have been slow bird wise. I have had some highlights lately such as long-eared owl(maybe not so lately), golden eagle, and sandhill cranes, so my birding efforts have not been in vain. 

Long-eared Owl-Nanticoke, ON

The next couple of days have the potential to bring migrants so I plan on birding from Long Point to Grimsby, ending up at Beamer Conservation area again, looking for migrant raptors. It should be fun and I am looking forward to seeing what I can find. 

Sunshine state!

It has been since just before the new year that I last blogged so I figured a post has been LONG overdue.
2013 has been pretty uneventful until recently as I have been finishing up the end of symester 1 and studying for exams. I had been birding very casually but my first actual serious birding was a 2 day jaunt down to the Niagara River last sunday with my Grandma. There we met up with Kevin Mclaughlan, Jean Iron, Ron Pittiway, Willie D'Anna, Betsy Potter and Celeste Morien. We didn't see anything spectacular, but saw the usual species( glaucous, iceland, thayers, herring, ring-billed, bonapartes) as well as the long staying snowy owl behind the new NOTL hospital. There was also a sabine's gull reported from Buffalo Harbour as we were in Fort Erie. We tried but failed to see it from the Canadian side, where we ended the day.

In other news, I just got back from a 2 day trip to Florida. My Dad was going down there on buisness and I tagged along. We also spent a lot of time exploring the area looking for wildlife. I added a bunch of year birds, Florida birds and 1 lifer, a wood stork. One of the highlights of the trip was Ocala National Forest, about and hour and a half north of Orlando. This place really felt like I was in a movie set! The springs you can swim in are unreal. They look clearer than a pool!! It was hot (what can you expect from Florida) but we hiked the trail for about an 2 hours and though we didn't see an incredible number of things, we had a fun time looking for American Alligators.( which we missed.)
Fun stuff!