On September 21st I left Bruce for a some birding along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
First I went to Long Point, where I spent a few days camping in the "New" Provincial Park. On the first morning I went to "The Dunes" before sunrise hoping for morning songbird flight. During the 4 hours I was there it was sunny with a moderate wind from the Northwest, which made the morning quite productive. Brandon Holden arrived shortly after I did and birded with me for the morning.. he may or may not have added a few species to the list. I saw a total of 81 species (almost all flyovers), with highlights being;
4 Northern Shovlers
1 Ruddy Duck
70 Common Terns
4 Common Loons
1 Osprey
3 Northern Harriers
6 Bald Eagles
1 Red-headed Woodpecker
1 Merlin
2 American Kestrals
1 Least Flycatcher
1 Philadelphia Vireo
1 Horned Lark
1 Swainson's Thrush
650 Cedar Waxwings
5 American Pipits
1 Bobolink
15 Rusty Blackbirds
17 Warbler species* 1 Black-and-white Warbler, 5 Tennessee Warblers, 5 Nashville Warblers, 3 Common Yellowthroats, 12 American Redstarts, 20 Cape May Warblers, 7 Northern Parulas, 8 Magnolia Warblers, 15 Bay-breasted Warblers, 6 Blackburnian Warblers, 70 Blackpoll Warblers, 2 Black-throated Blue Warblers, 35 Palm Warblers, 1 Pine Warbler, 25 Black-throated Green Warblers, 1 Canada Warbler, 1 Wilson's Warbler and 180 unidentified warbler sp
Some pictures of the birds below
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| - Cedar Waxwings |
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| - Northern Harrier |
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| - Black-throated Green Warbler |
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| - Merlin |
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| - Cape May Warbler |
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| - Northern Parula |
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| - Common Loon |
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| - Red-eyed Vireo |
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| - Red-headed Woodpecker |
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| - Northern Flicker |
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| - Northern Flicker |
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| - Magnolia Warbler |
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| - anyone wanta try IDing this one? |
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| - Bald Eagle |
I spent the rest of the day exploring the park..Nothing crazy, but I did hit 100 species for the day list.
The next morning I tried The Dunes again, however it quickly became evident that I wasn't going to have a repeat of the previous day. The winds were strong South, which pretty much wrecked the morning flight (In the hour I was there I saw a grand total of 6 warblers of 3 species). I spent the rest of the day biking around the Long Point area, making stops at the Long Point Bird Observatory, the tower along the causeway and the Bird Studies Canada headquarters. There wasn't huge numbers of migrants around, but I saw a few of each of the following; Solitary Sandpiper, American Woodcock, Sandhill Crane, Great Egret, Green Heron, Pied-billed Grebe, Cooper's Hawk, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Peregrine Falcon, Marsh Wren, Wilson's Wabler, Scarlet Tanager.
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| - Green Heron |
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| - Scarlet Tanager |
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| - Merlin |
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| - Peregrine Falcon |
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| - Bald Eagle |
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| - Common Gallinule |
Spent the next day in Paris visiting family ..
On Friday I got a ride down to Hamilton, where the annual OFO convention was being held over the weekend. I couldn't make it to any of the Friday outings, but I did make it down in time for the dinner/presentations. The speakers were good... our table (the young birders table) was 2 points off from winning Sarah Rupurt's bird quiz (2nd year in the row of 2nd place).. which turned out to be quite hard this year. After that I got a ride back to Waterloo with Ethan Gosnell and his mom, who's house I was staying at for the weekend.
Up bright & early on Saturday for the Young Birders outing around Hamilton. We (me and Ethan) got a ride down with Ken & Mike Burrell, who were the leaders. We met up with the other YBs at Fifty Point Conservation Area, where we spent 2 hours birding. It turned out to be one of our better stops of the day, which around 60 species seen. The Highlight was an adult Long-tailed Jaeger that flew by while we were scanning the lake. Other birds seen included; Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Common Loon, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Eastern Wood-pewee, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Philadelphia Vireo, American Pipit, Black-throated Blue Warbler and Wilson's Warbler.
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| - Swainson's Thrush |
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| - Philadelphia Vireo |
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| - Blackburnian Warbler |
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| - Yellow-bellied Flycatcher |
The next stop was the Gimsby Sewage Lgoons, where we didn't see much besides Northern Pintail and Lincoln's Sparrow. After that was Tollgate Ponds and Windermere Basin, at these stops highlights included; Ruddy Turnstone, American Golden Plover, Great Black-backed Gull. Then on to the Woodland Cemetery where we ate our lunch & watched a few Peregrine Falcons and a Sharp-shinned Hawk glide by. We had the whole place to ourselves, which seems to imply that it's not a popular picnic destination (weird eh?). After wandering around for a bit and not seeing much (besides a Coyote, which was neat ) we called it a day and went off on our own to pick up some day birds like Trumpeter Swan.
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| -- Park Coyote |
Back to the convention centre for the banquet. Since I wanted to keep this post brief I'll just sum it.. talked to a bunch of people, listened to Jeff Skevington's talk (was good).. Got back to Ethan's place at 11pm and listened for nocturnal flight calls for a bit. We got Grey-cheeked Thrush, Swainson's Thrush and a sketchy Black-and-white Warbler.
I had been eyeing Sunday all week because the forecast called for strong East wind all day. Fall days with E winds can be awesome in Hamilton at Van Wagner's Beach, as the wind pushes the birds that were out on Lake Ontario towards shore. We were up and on the road quickly on Sunday morning and arrived at VWB just after sunrise. There was A good collection of birders along the shore(60ish), which wasn't really surprising given the prime conditions. After scanning the lake for half an hour we got our first "good" bird of the day, a Parasitic Jaeger that gave us a close flyby. Another 30 minutes passed before when someone spotted a flock of 4 distant Sabines Gulls. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get good pictures (just a bit too far for my lens), but you can still tell what they are.. During the 10 hours I was there, the highlights included; 12ish Parasitic Jaegers, 1 Long-tailed Jaeger and 1 Pomarine Jaeger. Everyone else had a Black-legged Kittiwake, which I missed because I was eating lunch at Hutches when it was seen (of course later in the day another birder had it at Hutches). In Bruce County it's a great to see one jaeger in the day, so observing all 3 within a few hours was quite exciting! The birding slowed down after 2pm and I headed out around 4..
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| - Parasitic Jaeger |
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| - Caspian Tern |
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| - Sabines Gulls |
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| - Parasitic Ocean falcon |
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| - Parasitic Jaeger (top) Long-tailed Jaeger (bottom) |
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| - Long-tailed Jaeger |
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| - wind surfer |
Back to Bruce...
I went on a Bruce Birding Club outing led by Bob & Anna-marie Taylor on October 2nd. The day started off with some beautiful weather, 10°C with rain & wind😁. Visited all the usaul haunts in South Bruce during the day, with the most productive stops being Kincardine Lagoons. Best birds of the day were Snow Goose, Cackling Goose, White-winged Scoter, Gray Catbird, Vesper Sparrow, Bay-breasted Warbler and Black-and-white Warbler. Total was 72 species, not bad for a cold October day..
