Another quick update on some recent "50 days of rare" birding fun
- Oct 4
Alessandra and I decided to spend the morning working the Ferndale Flats area, with hopes of turning up a cool sparrow or longspur. Migration was fairly slow, although there were lots of American Pipits, Lapland Longspurs and Eastern Meadowlarks around. After covering most of the eastern Ferndale area we headed over to Lion's Head and birded around the harbour area... All the usual suspects plus first of fall Surf Scoter. Tons of pipits around the Mar area on the way home, but overall a pretty uneventful day.
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| - American Pipit |
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| - Horned Lark |
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| - Pipit |
- Oct 5
The winds were quite low during the morning, so we drove over to Oliphant to bird the shoreline for a few hours (low winds make Nelson's Sparrow hunting easier, plus there's more visible shoreline). The north flats area had a few groups of Black-bellied Plovers, plus yellowlegs and 8 late Semipalmated Plovers... Basically the same stuff that's been in the area for a few days. A thorough walk around the grasses and shoreline of the Oliphant Fen area produced 0 Nelson's or LeConte's Sparrow, but there were a few cool birds to keep things interesting... 12 American Golden-Plover, 9 Pectoral Sandpipers, lots of dabbling ducks and a longspur. On the way home we stopped by Sauble River mouth, where there were basically no birds to speak of! It was midday at that point so we headed home for the day.. No other highlights.
Conditions looked decent for lakewatching around south Bruce, so Alessandra and I got up early and drove down to Kincardine for a watch at Dunsmoor Park. On the way out the door we heard several Gray-cheeked Thrushes flying overhead, my first of year for Bruce. Arriving at Dunsmoor just after dawn, we spent the next several hours watching waterfowl and gulls migrating by. It wasn't the best day I've had there, but honestly not terrible for the date! Highlights listed below;
- 39 American Wigeon
- 12 Northern Pintail
- 61 Redhead
- 3 Greater Scaup (first of fall)
- 12 Lesser Scaup
- 12 Surf Scoter
- 2 Red-necked Grebes
- 4 Black-bellied Plovers
- 1 Common Tern (late)
- 1 Forster's Tern (not annual in Bruce... around 18 records all time. My 2nd for the county, and also this location!)
- 16 Common Loon
- 1 Peregrine Falcon
- 1 Swainson's Thrush (watched it come in from wayyy out over the lake)
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| - Forster's Tern |
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| - Peregrine Falcon |
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| - Semipalmated Plover |
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| - Surf Scoters |
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| - Swainson's Thrush fleeing the lake |
Checked a few spots on the way home, but no real highlights to speak of. 2nd yard record of Green Heron calling after dusk was cool though.
- Oct 7
Considered another lakewatch, but the following day looked a lot more promising/I was tired, so we birded locally around Oliphant. Several Black-bellied and Semi Plovers, a lone golden-plover and some Dunlin were the only shorebirds around, and a juv Peregrine Falcon with a full crop whipped by... maybe not encouraging many shorebirds to stick around the area. Heavy peregrine migration all along the coast that day, with a highcount of 30 new Grand Bend. We tried the Sauble Beach waterfront after that, where we had 3 more peregrines, some scaup and a rather unexpected bird... a Yellow-billed Cuckoo flying by the sand dunes. Caught me off guard at first! My latest record for the county by weeks and only our 3rd October record... pretty cool.
We cut inland after that, checking the Wiarton harbour and sewage lagoons. Again pretty slim pickings, only highlight was a lone Ruddy Duck.
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- vismig Yellow-billed Cuckoo
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| - Peregrine Falcon with full crop |
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| - a very buffy juv American Golden-Plover |
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| - Pectoral Sandpipers |
- Oct 8
Originally this day was looking a lot more promising, with wind gusts forecasted near 100kph from the northwest, giving me high hopes of another Bruce jaeger day. Unfortunately the winds got lighter as the day approached, and what we got turned out to be around 50kph with gusts of 75, the direction also shifted, from northwest more to straight north. I still drove down to Kincardine to try it out, arriving with Alessandra shortly after 7:30. Erik (aka Boomer) drove down to join us as well, staying for the majority of the day. Several others came and went, though the bands of near horizontal rain scared off most sane birders. The reason I like Dunsmoor so much is because there's a nice sheltered viewing area under a pavilion, so you can still scope while staying dry and avoiding the worst of the rain on nasty days. Shortly after arriving massive numbers of Ring-billed Gulls started streaming over... nearly 2000 in under half an hour. The duck migration was also fantastic, some of the best I've had in Bruce during early October. The Sabine's Gull/Jaeger numbers were less fantastic on the other hand, with a grand total of 0... We ended up leaving around 2:30, so a solid 7 hours of lakewatching. No crazy highlights, but it was a really fun day of watching/chatting with friends! Quinten did a great blog post comparing what all the birders out along Huron saw, read that HERE.
Here's the eBird list for full numbers, but here are some highlights;
- 40 Green-winged Teal
- 60 Scaup (40 Greater, 20 Lesser)
- 181 Surf Scoter (New Bruce highcount.. old one was 41!!)
- 118 White-winged Scoter
- 1 Black Scoter (first of fall)
- 1 Long-tailed Duck (first of fall, early)
- 240 Common Merganser
- 1 Red-necked Grebe
- 1 Sanderling
- 81 Dunlin
- 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull (surprisingly rare in Bruce. I see 1-3 a year)
- 2 Common Loon (way less than Friday.
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| - Surf Scoters |
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| - Lesser Black-backed Gull |
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| - More Surfs |
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| - Dunlin |
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| - Surf every other photo |
- Oct 9
Heavy rain and west wind for the majority of the day. I still got out to check a few spots, but didn't spend very long. The highlight of Petrel Point/Spry Lake/Wiarton Lagoons was Trumpeter Swan and some scoters... so yeahhhh
- Oct 10
In the morning Alessandra and I drove over to Petrel Point for a lakewatch, conditions weren't great but I don't lakewatch locally nearly as much as I should so I wanted to give it a try. After half an hour of being there a band of rain came in and we bailed, but before that we had a few peregrines and a Surf Scoter, the latter being a new bird for my 5MR (so sad....). We noticed there were a ton of sparrows along the roadside between my place and Petrel, so we spent the rest of the morning hunting for rare sparrows between Red Bay and Stokes Bay. I was really feeling optimistic about a Harris's, or really any rare sparrow considering the massive numbers... Wasn't meant to be though. By the time we returned hope we'd seen well over 1200 sparrows, with the bulk being White-crowned (700) and Dark-eyed Junco (350). Shortly after returning home I saw a report of a Harris's Sparrow from MacGregor in South Bruce the day before... of course.
Rest of the day was spent contemplating life
- Oct 11
Spent most of the day driving down to Pelee for a big year presentation in Windsor, so I wasn't able to bird very much (mainly due to leaving too late). I did bird a lot on the 12th/13th though, which I'll cover in my next post.
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