White-winged Dove (was) at Rondeau

He took a wrong turn at Albuquerque... Probably a male (hates to ask for directions)

February-March have always been a bad birding months for me. Its almost a time for me to back away from birding heavily so I can recharge my batteries while things are slow.  Its a good time to bank some time into work, night-school, family so that I can go full throttle as late April approaches.  Back on Feb 2nd though I couldn't help but twitch a long-staying White-winged Dove at Rondeau (It has moved on by now, it has not been seen for about a week at Rondeau). My story of how I saw this bird was anticlimactic... I pulled up to the visitor center, walked up to the feeder station and saw it sitting prominently on the main feeder post. Local birding phenom Jeremy Hatt has a brilliantly written writeup on his attempt to find this bird here.

An Ojibway Park Specialty, Tufted Titmouse perches for an instant before landing on a black sunflower seed feeder.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about this bird/photo was that I almost lost my photos of the Dove. Somehow, my memory card became corrupted and neither my card-reader or camera could read my Compact Flash memory card. Luckily, I have a program called "Lexar: Image Rescue 3" and it salvaged all the files on my card. I was worried I had lost my White-winged Dove photos but luckily they were recovered.  Some recent photos from the Detroit River and Ojibway Park were salvaged as well. I even had some photos from two summers ago when I went out west to BC. One of my favorite moments from that trip was the 'accidental' discover of a small group of Lewis's Woodpeckers.

So, yes, I'm still birding, but in a much lighter fashion. I even (gasp) went birding without my camera a few times recently. Lakeview Marina in East Windsor is an excellent spot to see seasonal ducks, gulls, swans, eagles, Herons etc. My parents have excellent feeders at their house that have attracted a pair of Red-breasted Nuthatches (three winters in a row now), which is a pretty rare bird in Essex, particularly in the middle of South Windsor.

Good birding!

Dwayne

Purple Sandpiper: #314
Glaucous Gull:  #315
Iceland Gull #316
White winged Dove #317


PS: Flashback!
July 2011... Trip to BC. Target bird was a Lewis's Woodpecker. Click here for full story.

Lewis's Woodpecker in Okanogan Valley