Bruce Birding Club outing on Feb 5th

Yesterday I arrived at 8am in Southampton to meet the BBC for an outing (led by Norah Toth & Judy Duncan) around the southern part of the county. The day started out at -7°C with sun and nonexistent wind, not bad birding weather! Our first stop was the Southampton Harbour, this turned out to be our best stop of the day. As I was scanning a flock of Common Goldeneyes, something popped up among them... a King Eider! For the next 20 minutes we watched it swimming/occasionally diving right offshore.

- King Eider 

- King Eider and Common Goldeneye 

 Getting a great view of a county lifer was pretty exciting way to start the day! King Eider is a rare visitor to Bruce County, with only 8 accepted records on eBird. Bob and Anne-marie had a male 1st winter KIEI at their place last week, so it's likely the same one (This bird). Some other things that were kicking around the harbour needed me to take their photos...

- Common Goldeneye showing off to the eider 

- Bufflehead 

- Red-breasted Merganser 

- Long-tailed Ducks 

 Our next stop was a house with a feeder, which I wasn't expecting to be very productive because feederbird numbers have been really down this winter in Bruce. I was pleasantly surprised though! Just after we got out of our cars Bruce Edmunds spotted a Red-headed Woodpecker on the roof of a barn. This is a good bird for the county in the winter, Red-heads normally migrate south by November. The usual suspects were around the yard too, including 3 other woodpecker species (HAWO DOWO RBWO).

- Red-headed Woodpecker 

 Unfortunately a House Sparrow decided to photobomb one of my shots..

 For me, seeing Horned Larks on the shoulders of country roads is a sign that spring is around the corner, so it was fun seeing my first ones of the year fly up in front of our car.

- Horned Lark

 We spent the rest of the morning meandering around county roads and stopping at feeders from time to time. Highlights included; Red-tailed & Rough-legged Hawk, Snowy Owl, American Kestral, Northern Shrike, A Common Raven building a nest and Red-winged Blackbird.

- Rough-legged Hawk 

- Red-winged Blackbird

 After we had lunch in Paisley we made our way  towards the Lake Huron shore, ending up at Baie Du Dore, which was our last stop for the day. During years when the lake freezes, Baie Du Dore can be excellent for waterfowl and gulls (becuase it's basically the only open water in the area). Most of Lake Huron is still open at the moment, so the bay is fairly quiet. Bald Eagles and Great Black-backed Gulls were still present in decent numbers and of course the resident Mute Swans were swimming around😞. Probably  the highlight bird there was a distant Horned Grebe (yucky photo of it below).  Some gulls & goldeneyes flew close for pictures as well..

- Herring Gull

- Herring Gull

- Common Goldeneye

- Horned Grebe

 The ice looked pretty cool too

 We ended up at 39 species (5 FOY for me), not bad for early February. We really lucked out with the weather, sunny and relatively warm all day, which is all you can ask for in the winter.

 Some other recent Bruce sightings below

 - first Barred Owl of the year calling behind my place last weekend.

 - On January 22nd a juv Gyrfalcon flew over my yard! Unfortunately I didn't have time to get my camera, so no pictures this time. (2 year yard-gyr streak!😱)

 - a Northern Flicker that I saw flying South along the Huron shoreline.

- Northern Flicker 

- 6 Trumpeter Swans at the Rankin River Portage

- My big Purple Finch flock is still around, varying in numbers day to day (20-70 birds).

January birding in bruce County

It's been awhile since I wrote about birding on the peninsula, so I'll add a few recent sightings.


Matt Parsons found a Harlequin Duck at the Lion's head Harbour in late December and I hadn't had a chance to chase it since I returned from visiting family in southern Ontario for the holidays. Erik was driving me home (after our Niagara trip the day before), so we made a quick "detour" to Lion's Head on the "way" back. The duck was just chilling with Common Goldeneyes in the harbour, so it was a pretty easy find.

Harlequin Duck

When I arrived back at my house I was greeted by my overwintering flock of Purple Finches. These finches have been growing in numbers since early December and I can now see up to 75 during a walk around my property. Normally PUFI are an uncommon winter bird around my area, so having them so plentiful this winter is exciting.

A few days ago I went on a drive around South Bruce with my dad to try and find some new birds for the 2020 yearlist. First we went to MacGregor PP, where Andrew Keaveney had found an Eared Grebe during the Saugeen Shores CBC. After scanning the lake for a few minutes I spotted it diving on the other side of the inlet. It was too far away for good (even ok) pictures, but it was still a county lifer so I'll take it.

Eared Grebe "record shot"

We then drove around the Paisley area looking for overwintering raptors, which turned out to be a good decision as we found a Golden Eagle and a dark morph Rough-legged Hawk. Golden Eagles have become regular winter residents in South Bruce in recent years, with 6-10ish birds hanging around from Decmember to April. The one we saw decided it was going to come closer for a picture, which was nice of it. While we were pulled over for the eagle I also saw a Northern Shrike beside the road.

Golden Eagle

Golden Eagle

Golden Eagle 

Northern Shrike 

Rough-legged Hawk

Bruce birding in the winter is pretty quiet most of the time and species lists won't be anywhere near those of more southern counties, however there are still some cool birds around if you spend time looking. In few weeks before things start to pick up, with Horned Lark being the first noticeable arrival in mid February.

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..