Yesterday I had a commitment in Southampton in the morning, so since I was already going to be in South Bruce I decided to make a day of it and go hunting for waterfowl. My main targets were geese, as this is normally the best time to find rare geese in Bruce County and there seemed to have been a massive influx in numbers the previous night. I picked up Bob Taylor and spent the morning/early afternoon birding the fields between Port Elgin and Kincardine. Our first stop yielded 21 Cackling Geese and a Greater White-fronted Goose, a great start for sure. White-fronts are uncommon in the county and I tend to only see a few each year. Over the course of a few hours we likely saw over 7 thousand Canada Geese and a number of other interesting birds.
Spots visited
- Browns Pond
- Kincardine Sewage Lagoons
- Sideroad 5
- Concession Road 5
- 10th Concession of Bruce
- Baie Du Dore
Highlight birds
- 32 Cackling Geese
- 5 Greater White-fronted Geese
- 4 Wood Ducks
- 2 American Wigeon
- 22 Northern Pintail
- 1 Sandhill Crane
- 1 Northern Harrier
- 300 Tundra Swans
- 8 Eastern Meadowlarks
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| - Greater White-fronted Goose |
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| - Cackling Geese |
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| - Cackling Geese |
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| - Greater White-fronted Goose |
Not a bad haul!
After dropping Bob off I drove over to the Grey/Bruce line where I had seen all the geese the previous night. I spent a few hours driving concession roads and sorting through large flocks of Canada Geese. Just as I was thinking of packing it in, I spotted a small, almost gull-sized white goose mixed in with some Canadas... Bam, Ross's Goose. Normally there are one or maybe two a year in Bruce, so this was a big highlight. Also a yearbird so that didn't hurt. While I was watching it a Snow Goose flew in, completing my 5 goose day. I've only done that once before in Bruce so it was a very successful day.
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| - Horrible white goose photo |
Right now I'm just at home catching up on work for the weekend, a nice break after the travelling for the past week. Next week I plan on heading to Ottawa with Ezra, with hopes of finding a rare goose among the masses of geese there. I've never witnessed the insane Snow Goose migration there before, so that alone will be a big highlight.
Ontario yearlist @ March 19th - 162
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