As the sky began to warm into the pre sunrise glow on December 3rd, I was heading down Victoria Road in Guelph with Alessandra… our destination, Niagara On-The-Lake. Unlike a lot of my drives this year, the purpose of the trip was not to chase a rare bird, but to lead a Gull outing with Justin Peter for OFO.
This year has ended up being a whirlwind of big year activities, and having free time to actually lead bird walks was hard to come by. Things start to slow down in December though, as winter sets in across the province and less rarites show up. Niagara region is also a good place to be at this time of year, as a lot of my “likely” (I use the word lightly with massive quotations) new yearbirds are rare gulls.
Arriving at parking lot just west of the Niagara River mouth, I found a collection of twenty odd birders clad in winter gear with an array of spotting scopes aimed at the lake. The keeners, arriving before the start time and antsy to get going. Justin was easy to spot, with a commanding personality and also being a full foot taller than most of the birders around him. I hadn’t seen him since we lead a hike together at the Huron Fringe Birding Festival 3 years ago, so it was nice to catch up again. Neither of us had lead a hike in this region before, and frankly didn’t have much of a plan for the route, so after a brief strategy talk we got the group together and headed out. The idea was to start at Queens Royal Park by the river mouth, then work our way up the river to the control gates above the falls. With a group of over 30, the real challenge is trying not to lose people on a tour with many stops like this one.
The first stop turned out to be the best of the day, at Queens Royal Park. We had been there for several minutes already, adding common species like Red-breasted Merganser and Bonaparte’s Gull, when Alessandra told me that she had just seen a Razorbill! Refinding it took several minutes, but soon enough my scope landed on a large, black and white alcid with a thick bill. My second Razorbill of the year, and ironically in the same spot as my first in the beginning of January. This was a lifer for many in the group (including Alessandra) and definitely the highlight of the day. After watching it dive and swim around with some Horned Grebes for awhile, I spotted a second Razorbill with it! Pretty crazy stuff. My photos are subpar because of the distance, but they’re marginally better than my January ones.
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| - Razorbills |
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| - Alessandra post find |
Starting the day with a seabird sets a pretty high bar to follow, and while none of the birds we found during the day matched it’s rarity, there were definitely highlights. An adult Little Gull at Queenston, circling into a frenzy of several hundred Bonaparte’s, banking occasionally to reveal its jet black underwings for a few seconds before disappearing into the fray again. Several Iceland Gulls at Adam Beck, including two adults of the “Thayer’s” subspecies, with darker primaries and more streaking on the head. We also found a rare Herring Gull x Lesser Black-backed Gull hybrid, only my 2nd time seeing this combination in Ontario.
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| - The Group |
After the group disbanded around 3pm, Alessandra and I drove back down to the river mouth to meet up with Andy Nguyen, William Konze and Luke Raso to watch the flyby of gulls. Our hope was to see a Black-headed Gull, which there had been a possible report of up river in the morning. Hundreds of Bonaparte’s flashed by, their wings illuminated in the golden hour light as they rose up and banked, then dipped into the shadows and disappeared out into the lake. I ended up counting around 3,800, but no Black-headed. Last year around this time I had 12,000, so weaker numbers this season apparently. A nice Red-throated Loon provided some photon ops here though.
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| - Red-throated Loon |
I ended the day by strolling along the top of the falls with Alessandra, where hundreds of Christmas lights are arranged around the parks and roadsides. Coupled with the falls being lit up by massive beams of coloured lights, it gave the whole area a nice festive feeling and was a nice end to a day of relaxed winter birding.
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