Chronicles of an Ontario Birder: Pelee Episode IV

Pelee Episode IV - Revenge of the Grosbeak

On the morning of May 10th I woke up at 5am and headed to the tip of Point Pelee with high hopes. For the last few days I had been watching different models and forecasts, which showed ideal conditions for the morning of the 10th. On the night of the 9th there were strong southwest winds reaching all the way from the gulf coast and clear skies that allowed a large number of birds to surge north on the warm air. In the morning the wind at surface level was still out of the southwest, but was fairly light.. another good sign. I was hoping for more than a general increase of birds that comes with weather like this though, I wanted a good reverse migration at the tip too. Reverse migration, reorientation flight, morning flight... there are several different words that describe this phenomena, but call it what you will it's my favourite thing at Point Pelee. During specific conditions (generally southwest wind in the morning after a strong night of migration) hundreds or even thousands of songbirds can be seen flying south off the tip of the point and heading over Lake Erie back towards Pelee Island and Ohio. There are several theories as to why this happens, and the truth is likely a mash up of all of them. Some of these birds are "overshoots" that get caught up in the strong tailwinds and migrate too far north, and then they try to correct for their error and return south. Others are doing some kind of reorientation flight, and will fly over the point and disappear to the south, only to loop back and repeat this again.,, which could be a way of helping to realign their mental compass... anyways I'm not going down that rabbit hole now!

On the walk out that morning there was just a feeling in the air, and my excitment built and built as I neared the point, the first hues of light starting to appear on the horizon. Even at this early hour it was evident that things were happening, as warblers and orioles were calling and flying overhead. There were lots of faint chip notes too, made by unseen birds that were flying higher up than I could see, lost in the predawn darkness. As the morning progressed the crush on the point intensified, as over 100 birders clustered on the small spit of sand and rocks for the best viewing positions. I spent the morning there with the epic crew of Skevington, Wilcox, Konze and Campanelli, at the prime spot by the edge of the point. Often the reverse doesn't start getting good until 7am, but this day was clearly different. It wasn't even 6:20am and we had already had close to 200 Baltimore Orioles and a large number of warblers.

Then the first big highlight of the morning came, when a large brownish songbird with a thick bill and a long tail flew overhead, a young male Blue Grosbeak! It flew over our heads, then circled back down the edge of the point, never to be seen again. This was a lifer for me, and also one of my main Pelee targets for May. That was followed by a male Dickcissel, my first one of the year and always a fun bird to see flying over.

In the end I spent close to 5 hours at the tip before moving on for the day... the birding was just that good! I tallied 82 species at the tip, with some totals below (first of year birds in bold):

- 8 Red-headed Woodpeckers

- 1 Blue-headed Vireo

- 1 Philadelphia Vireo

- 4 Red-eyed Vireos

- 32 Warbling Vireos

- 4 Great Crested Flycatchers

- 15 Eastern Kingbirds

- 1 Eastern Wood-pewee

- 1 Swainson's Thrush (rarely seen in reverse)

- 1 Purple Finch

- 1 Eastern Meadowlark

- 35 Orchard Orioles

- 600 Baltimore Orioles

- 3 Blue-winged Warblers

- 14 Black-and-white Warblers

- 5 Tennessee Warblers

- 12 Nashville Warblers

- 5 Cape May Warblers

- 3 Bay-breasted Warblers

- 3 Magnolia Warblers

- 25 Blackburnian Warblers

- 13 Northern Parulas

- 30 Chestnut-sided Warblers

- 350 Yellow Warblers

- 1 Black-throated Blue Warbler

- 14 Black-throated Green Warblers

- 28 Scarlet Tanagers

- 15 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks

- 1 Blue Grosbeak

- 110 Indigo Buntings

- 1 Dickcissel

- 300 warbler sp (too far to ID)

- 2,613 birds total

It truly was a fantastic morning, definitely one of my highlights of the spring. Some photos below...

- Scarlet Tanagers

- Dickcissel

- Baltimore Oriole

- Orchard Oriole

- Red-eyed Vireo

- Red-headed Woodpecker

- Same bird

- Philadelphia Vireo

- Indigo Bunting

- Scarlet Tanager

- Swainson's Thrush

- Blue Grosbeak!

- Blue Grosbeak

The rest of the day at Pelee I spent birding with William Konze and Alessandra Wilcox, walking most of the trails in the park. It became evident fairly quickly that the majority of the birds had just passed over or had revered back to Ohio, as numbers in the forests weren't that high. We did have some highlights though, including 2 Golden-winged Warblers, 2 Blue-winged Warblers, 4 Prothonotary Warblers, 1 Yellow-throated Vireo and my first Pelee Eastern Screech-owl.

- Prothonotary Warbler

- Scarlet Tanager with some weird yellow patches

- Eastern Screech-owl

In the evening we were just headed into Leamington to get dinner when a report came in off a possible Plumbeous Vireo that had been photographed at Kopegaron Woods near Wheatley. There have only been two records of this species in Ontario before, and we got over there in a flash! Kopegaron turned out to be a small forest lot that was surrounded on all sides by agricultural land. An interesting spot for such a rarity to turn up at. There were already a few birders present when we arrived, with more trickling in as time went on. It should have been a relatively easy chase, as one would think that a bird like that would remain in a small woodlot for the day. But despite a two hour search, we came up empty. It wasn't a total bust though... As the sun was starting to set the west edge of the forest was illuminated by the warm glow of evening light, while the rest of the forest was shrouded in darkness. This meant that foraging songbirds were drawn to the sunny area to get their last feeding of the night in. For an hour I enjoyed what had to be some of my best views of warblers all spring, including a breathtaking male Cerulean Warbler only a few feet away. This was a yearbird too, and I can't imagine a better way of seeing one.