Winter Birding on Lake Ontario

On January 3rd I headed down to do some Niagara/Hamilton birding with Erik van Den Kieboom and David Turner. We left fairly early and drove straight from David's house in Grey and arrived at Niagara around 10am. Our first stop was the Whirlpool, where 2 Black-legged Kittiwakes had been hanging out. After a few minutes we located them flying below us with a few hundred Bonaparte's Gulls.

Black-legged Kittiwake

BLKI

Next we made our way to Dufferin Islands Park above the falls, where we decided to bird the park for a few minutes before going to look for gulls. There wasn't much around, but we saw a few decent birds including; Gadwall, Hooded Merganser, Cooper's Hawk, Carolina Wren and Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

Gadwall

Carolina Wren

Out of focus Ruby-crowned Kinglet

We then took a walk along the edge of the falls and did some gull scanning. We didn't see anything crazy, but we did see all the normal goodies;  2 Icelands Gulls (kumliens), 4 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and a Glaucous gull.

Lesser Black-backed gull

Iceland Gull

Iceland Gull

After that we retraced our steps and stopped for a quick scan at Adam Beck, where we saw 2 more Iceland Gulls.

Iceland Gull

Iceland Gull

Our final stops before heading on to Hamilton were the Queenston Docks and the overlook at Queenston Heights. Sadly we missed the Black Vulture at Queenston Heights by 5 minutes, but we did see 6 Little Gulls at the docks. We finished the Niagara part of our trip with 9 gull species, with our only miss being Black-headed Gull.

Horrible photo of a Little Gull

On to Hamilton! First we went to the Lift Bridge to look for the continuing King Eider. The eider wasn't feeling cooperative and decided to spend the day somewhere else, however the Northern Mockingbird, Peregrine Falcon and ever-present Long-tailed Ducks didn't disappoint.

Northern Mockingbird

Long-tailed Duck

Long-tailed Duck

Peregrine Falcon

After that we did a few quick stops at Tollgate Ponds, Windermere Basin and Lasalle Park, adding some birds to our 2020 lists including;  Ruddy Duck, Ring-necked Duck,  American Coot, Great Blue Heron & American Coot.

Our day total ended up at 61 species, not bad for an early January day.

Early December on the Bruce

 Wow this is unprecedented... two blog posts in one day. What has gotten into me?

 Birding in Bruce has certainly felt wintery recently and finding birds is getting increasingly hard. My yard has been very birdless this month.. I've only recorded 13 species so far. The highlight was a Northern Cardinal, which is actually decent for my yard😅 (3rd one this year). You know birding is quiet when you're getting excited about cardinals.

- Northern Cardinal

 The Lion's Head area has been productive recently. There are multiple trees with fruit scattered around the harbour, which is always good for attracting birds in cold weather. Last week on one of my walks around the area I saw over 20 American Robins gorging themselves at one of the trees. Maybe a Varied Thrush or a Townsend's Solitare will show up next??
 The harbour is a good spot to look for gulls and waterfowl, in the past it's attracted some rarities including;  Common Eider, Barrow's Goldeneye and Brant. I stopped for a scan at the harbour while out birding with Michael Bulter a few days ago, and was rewarded with a beautiful 1st cycle Iceland Gull (no pics). Later in the day I went back for with hopes of getting some pictures of the gull and found a Glaucous Gull sitting in the same spot. Two white-winged gull species is pretty good for north Bruce and I was happy to get good views of both.

- One of these birds is not like the others... Glaucous Gull

- Glaucous Gull

- Herring Gull

 While I was out birding around Southampton on the weekend I spotted a distant raptor sitting on the top of a tree. It flew just as I took a photo of it, revealing an all black body and black & white wings.. a dark morph Rough-legged Hawk.

- distsnt Rough-legged Hawk 

I don't see dark morphs very often, so this was a nice treat. I watched in hunting for a few minutes before it eventually disappeared behind a treeline. Unfortunately, it was distant so my pictures aren't great..

- Rough-legged Hawk 

I saw a Snowy Owl on my way home and obviously I couldn't drive by one sitting on a pole without snapping a picture.

- Snowy Owl

 Chistmas Bird Count season is fast approaching, so that's exciting. CBCs really get you birding more in a time when you might otherwise go out less. I'll be participating in 4 (maybe 5) counts this year, with the first 2 happening next weekend. Hopefully the weather cooperates and we don't get any count day snowstorms☺.


 Also I'm going to start doing more short posts on the blog during the winter (like one per outing/topic), as this will allow me to post more frequently and will make the task of writing posts less daunting..

Hamilton/Niagara weekend

   Last weekend (Nov 30th) I went along on the annual Bruce Birding Club trip to Hamilton. The club birds the Hamilton area on the Saturday, then participates in the OFO Gull weekend outing in Niagara on the Sunday. We started out around 9am at Tim's on Saturday, where we made our way to the Desjardins Canal. There had been a Western Kingbird there for a few weeks, however it hadn't been spotted for a few days. Some birds seen at the canal were; Wood Duck, Black-crowned Night-heron and Carolina Wren.

- Black-crowned Night-heron

- American Tree Sparrow 

  After we finished birding at th canal we headed to the Lasalle Marina, where we spent half an hour scanning the waterfowl. All the usual suspects were present, with highlights including; Canvasback, Ring-necked Duck, Surf Socter and Ruddy duck (full species list Here ).

- Ruddy Duck

- White-winged Scoter

 Next we drove to the North Shore Road and hiked around some of the trails. There wasn't much around, but a few songbirds posed for pictures.

- Winter Wren 

- White-throated Sparrow 

  We then drove to the Lift Bridge, where a King Eider had been hanging out. We were greeted by the local Peregrine Falcons as soon as we stepped out of our cars.

- Peregrine Falcon

While walking out on the pier we saw well over a thousand Long-tailed Ducks and after a few minutes of searching... the King Eider. This was a lifer for me, so it was pretty exciting to get great views of it.. There was also an adult male Surf Socter swimming among the long-taileds & I could resist a picture.

- King Eider and Red-breasted Merganser 

- King Eider 

- Surf Scoter 

 We had lunch at Hutches on Van Wagner's Beach, where we didn't see much besides a lone Common Loon. The last stop of the day was Grays Road, where we topped off the day with Black Scoters and a Barrow's Goldeneye.
 We arrived in Niagara just in time to check into the hotel and drive to the library for the Gull talk/quiz by Justin Peter. As usual it was entertaining (the talk) and difficult (the quiz).


 Leading up to Sunday the weather certainty wasn't looking promising (freezing rain and high wind) and the day didn't disappoint! My target bird was the Black-headed Gull that had been found a few days earlier. Since the rain called to start around 8:00, I got up at 7:00 and talked my mom into driving me to the Queenston Docks. Thousands of Bonapartes stream by the docks in the evenings, so I figured the morning would be worth a try. I got my scope out and spent the next 40 minutes scanning though around 2000 Bonaparte's Gulls, spotting a few neat gulls (Little and Lesser Black-backed) in the process. I was just about to leave when BOOM, full scope view of Black-headed Gull! This was my 2nd lifer of the weekend and it was pretty satisfying to "find" it myself. It was spitting rain at the time and I'm a suck when it comes taking my camera out in bad weather, so no pictures.

- my only picture from Sunday. Full frame Bonaparte's Gulls in flight

The OFO gull hike was cancelled due to bad weather, but I was already there so I kept birding until mid afternoon. I saw a total of 9 gull species during the day, which is pretty exciting for a Bruce Birder as we're lucky to get 4 species in a day. The 9 were; Ring-billed, Herring, Iceland (Kumlien's and Thayer's spp) , Glaucous, Great Black-backed, Lesser Black-backed, Bonaperte's, Little and Black-headed.

Here's a picture of my coat after a few minutes outside. Doesn't really do justice to the nasty weather.

fall raptor migration on the Bruce

The last few weeks have been.. interesting.. for weather on the peninsula. The day after Halloween I woke up to what felt like a winter day, -10°C and snow covering the ground. I thought this snow would melt within a few days and we'd be back to more "normal" fall like conditions, but here we are almost 3 weeks later and it's still snow. This week is forecasted to be in the +s for temperature, so maybe the ground will come back...

  These conditions haven't exactly been ideal for one of my favorite birding activities in the fall..  hawkwatching. 4 out of the last 18 days have been "good" for raptor migration at my place, with north wind and sunny/overcast sky. Although there weren't as many raptors as anticipated, I still enjoyed a few productive days. Highlights for me were the 2 Golden Eagles and a great view of a Northern Goshawk.

My totals for species/numbers for my yard hawkwatch (October 20-November 16th) are below;
2 Golden Eagles
14 Northern Harriers
18 Sharp-shinned Hawks
3 Cooper's Hawks
1 Northern Goshawk
16 Bald Eagles
11 Rough-legged Hawks
26 Red-tailed Hawks
2 Peregrine Falcons
3 American Kestrals
96 raptors total.

Some pictures below

- Bald Eagle

- Bald Eagle

- Eagle of baldness 

- Golden Eagle 

- super distant Golden Eagle if you have a bit of imagination 

- Sharp-shinned Hawk

- Northern Goshawk

- Northern Goshawk again 

- Rough-legged Hawk

- Northern Harrier

- Peregrine Falcon

 I'm going to stick some owls in this post too, as the last few weeks have been pretty good for me. I hear Eastern Screech-owls & Barred Owls calling some nights here, however they are always too far away for photos. The neighbourhood Great Horned Owl has been hanging around in my area for the last week and I've seen it hunting a few times, which was cool to watch. It comes out right after dusk and isn't that close, so good photos aren't possible..

- Great Horned Owl (iPhone picture)

 In late October Northern Saw-whet Owl sightings were beginning to pop up in southern Ontario at banding stations, so I decided to try and get one at my house one calm evening. I played saw-whet calls for a bit, then scanned the trees around me with a flashlight. After repeating this a few times I caught some eyeshine in my light. One had flown in right beside me! I snapped a quick photo then called it quits for the night so I didn't bug the owl anymore. Northern Saw-whet Owls are rare breeder on the peninsula and the birds we get are mainly migrants coming south from the boreal forest.

- Northern Saw-whet Owl

 Another migrating owl that shows up around this time of year is the Short-eared Owl. Short-eareds are the night equivalent of Northern Harriers and hunt in the same open areas. It's a bird that I've wanted in Bruce for a long time, so when Zane spotted one in North Bruce I was itching to chase. I hitched a ride up with Bob & Anna-marie one evening and after a few minutes of searching I spotted it flying in it's moth-like flight beside the highway. We enjoyed watching it hunt for a few minutes before it disappeared behind an adjacent treeline.

- Short-eared Owl

- Short-eared Owl hunting