Check out the new blog/website!!

 

In my last post I mentioned that I haven't posted much content recently because I was quite busy during the late fall of 2023... Well a large reason for that was because I was spending a lot of time building a website for a new business I created with Alessandra! The business is called GyrKite Birding Tours, which combines the names of both of our favourite birds (the Gyrfalcon and Swallow-tailed Kite). The goal is to do what we love (birding) and share our passion for the outdoors with others, while travelling around to fun birding locations. For this upcoming year, we will be focusing on Ontario for our guided trips, but if all goes well we will be branching out to other parts of Canada and even the tropics in the future! Right now we're in the launch phase trying to spread the word about our company with the birding community, so if you could share it with friends family we would greatly appreciate it.

On the new website we've also started the "GyrKite Blog", where we plan to do posts about bird identification, bird-finding in different regions as well as updates about our tours. I still plan to use this blog from time to time, though I won't be posting at the same rate that I did in 2022 : ) 

If you've enjoyed reading this blog, I encourage you to check out the new blog and follow along! Maybe even join use on a tour one day!

LINK TO GYRKITE TOURS HERE

- Gyrfalcon from 2020... Because why not??

50 Days of Rare 2023 - highlights

 I just wanted to write a post summarizing my 50 Days of Rare highlights back in the fall of 2023. Originally I was going to post an update about my birding once or twice a week, but that didn't really happen mainly because 1). I didn't see many rare birds and 2). I got rather busy in late October.

Overall the "competition" was really successful, with around 55 Ontario birders signing up. 42 Rarities were added to the spreadsheet, with the winning bird being a Dusky Flycatcher (3rd Ontario record, 1st for James Bay), found by Jeff Skevington at Netitishi Point on the coast of James Bay. Some of the other notable highlights listed below;

Jonathan Ruddy (Short-billed Gull in Renfrew)

 Brandon Holden (Dovekie on Lake Huron)

Dave Don (Little Blue Heron in Hamilton)

Doug McRae (Purple Gallinule at Presquile)

Max Segler (Slaty-backed Gull and Thick-billed Murre at Netitishi)

Jeff Skevington & Lev Frid (multiple Northern Fulmars at Netitishi, also Razorbill by Jeff)

To see the full list of rarities, check out this spreadsheet

Here's the fantastic artwork Alessandra did for the Dusky Flycatcher!

- Alessandra's Dusky Flycatcher digital art

Alessandra and I tried to get out daily for some rarity searching every day, and with the exception of about 5 days we stuck to this well. Sometimes I was only able to spare an hour or two, during which I'd tend to check somewhere local like the Oliphant shoreline or Red Bay. I tried to do as much lakewatching as I could, mainly in the Kincardine/Inverhuon area but also close to home at Red Bay. It was an interesting season for birding on the Bruce... rarities were few and far between, but there were a few really fun days for waterfowl migration, and also a massive invasion of Dunlin in late November. As much as I enjoy finding a rare bird, just being out birding and witnessing an impressive day of migration can be very rewarding. We ended up submitting nearly 200 eBird checklists during 50DOR and explored several areas we'd never been to before, another fun bonus.

- Pine Siskins

- White-winged Scoter

My personal highlight was on November 7th, when Alessandra an I had a juvenile Black-legged Kittiwake flying by Dunsmoor Park in Kincardine. This was the 6th record for Bruce County (per eBird) and a species I had wanting to add to my county list for a long time. It was too far for photos unfortunately, however I'll include one of my old ones just for fun.

- Black-legged Kittiwake from 2019

My 2nd best bird of the fall was a Forster's Tern on October 6th, also at Dunsmoor Park in Kincardine. Around the 15th record for Bruce County, and my 2nd for this location (the other was September 27th, 2020... similar date too!). This bird stuck around for a few days, and most of the local birders were able to cross paths with it.

- Forster's Tern

While we birding in Oliphant on October 1st, Alessandra spotted a Nelson's Sparrow that was skulking in some dense fen vegetation. This was the 6th record for Bruce County, and the 3rd year in a row there has been one at this location.

- Nelson's Sparrow

And that was basically it for my 50DOR rarities! One of the slower falls I have had for self finding... But that's the way it goes sometimes! Regardless it was still really fun getting out birding so much! I'll link a few highlight checklists below...

Oct 23 - Fun finch migration in the yard

https://ebird.org/checklist/S152922466

Oct 22 - Kincardine lakewatch, Bruce highcount of RBME and a good duck flight

https://ebird.org/checklist/S152871030

Oct 6 - Solid Kincardine lakwatch & FOTE

https://ebird.org/checklist/S151564519

Oct 8 - Kincardine lakewatch... good duck flight, county highcount of SUSC, also juv LBBG

https://ebird.org/checklist/S151742003

Nov 7 - Kincardine lakewatch, 84 Snow Geese (by far the highest # I've had in Bruce), county highcount of LTDU & the BLKI

https://ebird.org/checklist/S153965694

Nov 10 - A fun day at The Bluff with friends... 2 Golden Eagles were the highlight. Later in the day we found the latest record of Ruddy Turnstone for Lake Huron

https://ebird.org/checklist/S154203243

Thanks to everyone who participated in 50DOR! It was nice to have some extra motivation to get out birding, and I look forward to doing it again next fall : )