For me the highlight of the last week and a half was a Northern Mockingbird, which was a Bruce Lifer for me. The bird was hanging around a yard in Miller Lake for a few days and was being consistently seen, so I went up in search of it with Jarmo. After an hour of searching it popped up right in front of us, affording us good views.
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| - Northern Mockingbird |
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| - Northern Mockingbird |
The Sauble Beach area has recently been very productive for me, with highlights including; 300 swallows circling over the mouth of the Sauble River (4 species, Barn, Tree, Cliff and Northern Rough-winged), Caspian Terns, Long-tailed Ducks, Red-breasted Mergansers, Horned Grebes and a Piping Plover. It's always awesome seeing the first Piping Plover of the year, as they are a very rare breeding species in our province (and a beautiful bird😁).
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| - Northern Rough-winged Swallow |
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| - Cliff Swallow |
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| - Red-breasted Merganser |
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| - Horned Grebe |
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| - Piping Plover |
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| - Piping Plover |
Some recent bird sighting in my neighbourhood include; Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Osprey, Broad-winged Hawk, Field Sparrow, Pine Warbler, American Woodcock, Common Redpoll and Rusty Blackbird. I also saw a Spotted Salamander on my road (not a bird😉).
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| - Great Egret |
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| - American Woodcock |
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| - Pine Warbler |
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| - Pine Warbler |
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| - Great Blue Heron |
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| - Broad-winged Hawk |
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| - Spotted Salamander |
On May 1st, I went on a BBC outing led by James Turland in the Kincardine area. The rain was slamming into the windshield of the car and the wind was howling on the way down in the morning.. it wasn't looking like a pleasant day to be outside. Luckily the rain and wind let up as we arrived at the Kincardine Lagoons (our first stop of the day) and by the time we were ready to start birding the rain stopped completely. The highlights at the Kincardine Lagoons were; Wood Ducks, Lesser Yellowlegs, a Northern Harrier Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Pine Warblers, Palm Warblers, a Northern Waterthrush and a Blue-headed Vireo. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, so I'll include one of Bruce Edmunds's pictures.
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| - Northern Waterthrush |
We then had lunch by Lake Huron, which was nice because I saw 250+ Barn Swallows and a Glaucous Gull while we were there.
After that we visited Chalmers Pond and the J/I line, where I saw a Spotted Sandpiper, a Pectoral Sandpiper, Upland Sandpipers, a Merlin and Eastern Meadowlarks. After the outing finished we made one more stop, at Horseshoe Bay by Southampton. There we saw massive numbers of swalllows... 700+ Barn Swallows, 100 Tree Swallows, 20 Northern Rough-winged Swallows and some that were too far out to ID.
It's May now and soon we will be swamped with warblers, Vireos and Thrushes... things are moving.
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