Baird's on the Beach

(Editors Note: This posting is about 1 week late. I was going to post it last week, but just couldn't hit the 'publish' button until tonight.)

Baird's Sandpiper on Pelee's East Beach
This past Saturday morning (Sept 7th), my son and I went to Pelee to see if we could find any interesting birds or butterflies.  We parked in the VC parking lot and soon found a worn Tawny Emporer fly by and perch on a nearby shrub. Later, while walking through Sparrow Field, we noted few butterflies other than Cabbage Whites! It would have been nice to see a Grey Hairstreak or Cloudless Sulphur, but no such luck. Going out towards the east beach from Sparrow Field, a large group of gulls were seen, along with a distant shorebird.  Long story short, a nice Baird's Sandpiper (see bottom right of photo below) was there. Just as I was noticing the first shorebird through my binoculars, I noticed it was joined by a small flock of 7 Sanderlings... Then quickly flushed by my 4-year old son!

Marbled Godwit at Harrow
An Ontbird posting on Saturday night revealed that a Marbled Godwit was at Harrow SL. Sadly, most Essex County Lagoons are locked up like Alcatraz. Unlike Blenheim, Port Stanley*, Ridgetown*, Tilbury, which allow birdwatchers to view migrant shorebirds (and sometimes are progressive enough to offer viewing platforms*), to my knowledge, Essex lagoons are locked to the public. Its ironic that Essex does this, but then tries to sell itself as a "Birding and Nature" tourism destination.

First of Year Checkered Skipper
As I was putting some books into the trunk of my car this week, I noticed a small blueish-brown butterfly alight onto a white clover plant adjacent to my car. A closer inspection turned out to be a first-of-year Checkered Skipper! I followed it for a minute and noted that it soon flew into a 'whirl-about' with another Checkered Skipper. There must be 6 or more butterflies at this one parking lot alone (alongside a clover filled courtyard).  I assumed these were recently arrived migrants but Alan Wormington informed me that they are resident in Essex County, and west Windsor has lots of ideal habitat: disturbed, industrial areas with potential for its larval foodplant: Mallow. A cool thing about this butterfly is that it is very common in the Southeastern US but drops off (non-resident) north of the 40th parallel [more on common checkered skippers].

Common Checked Skipper - First of Year - Found alongside a parking lot near ambassador bridge in West Windsor

North American Range for Common Checkered Skipper

I have some cool Holiday Beach hawk-watching photos to share. Stay tuned!

Good Birding (and Butterfly Watching),
Dwaynejava

Update*** --> Could this Tawny Emperor be a record breaking late record??
Photographed Sept 7th near the PPNP VC parking lot.

Tardy Tawny? Lepidopteric Laggard?

Green Frog - Along marsh boardwalk

Labour Day Weekend Birding

Somehow, I think of Labour Day weekend as the southbound migratory equivalent of May 15 in the Spring. This past weekend, I was able to get out to Point Pelee with Jeremy Bensette to follow up on some cool birds that had been reported on E-bird. One highlight was seeing a bunch of American Golden Plovers near the intersection of Hwy 3 and Talbot Trail. Later, the onion fields were quiet for Jeremy and I, but we did spot two Merlins in a dog fight near Rd E and Rd 19.

We checked out NW Beach of Pelee next. JB found the cutest little baby turtle. It was so small, the shell was about the size of a nickel or quarter. The images below have a dime next to the turtle to provide some scale for size perspective. If you look closely, you can see the turtle has a sharp stone-line object on its nose. I think this is its "egg-tooth" which is an adaptation that allows the turtle to cut through its shell upon hatching!

Painted Turtle with its Egg Tooth intact

Hackberry Emporer - Ventral Perspective --- Landed on my car's dashboard as I drove through the NW Beach parking lot with my window open! Note the Ontario Parks passes on my dashboard. At $17.00/day ... I can't bring myself to throw them out!

Kory Renaud had found a female Prothonotary Warbler at Blue Heron so Jeremy and I went to join him in re-finding it. Josh and Blake met up soon after for some great birding and was topped up by a nice bbq lunch provided by Kory. Blake noticed the prothonotary as we were finishing up our lunch!  Some warblers I saw at Blue Heron include: Blackburnian, Black and white, yellow rumped, Cape May, Tenessee, Bay breasted / Blackpoll Warbler, Chestnut sided (juvenile), Prothonotary, , American Redstart, Magnolia Warbler,  Warbling and Red-eyed Vireo, Osprey (overhead), Trails Flycatcher, Least Flycatcher, Eastern Phoebe, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

Its strange... I see Cape May easily in the fall, but so rare in May!?!?.

Tonight, after work I kayaked the pelee marsh. It was much more quiet than just a week or two ago. No black terns today. Two Sandhill Cranes, 3 SBD's, 1 White-rumped, 6 Juv Semipalmated Plovers, a pectoral limping around with a damaged leg..... see my ebird report for today... No mega rarities, but watching this group of 10 or so warblers shorebirds from 5 feet away in a kayak was incredible (will post video soon..Phone is dead).

Jeremy texted me as I left the park that he had a Red-necked Phalarope and a Baird's sandpiper at a little stormwater pond near Hwy 3 & Talbot Trail. I had assumed this pond was not productive as it seems very deep, but it seems there were some decent shorebirds tonight!

The Baird's was poorly photographed by myself but Jeremy has great photos (I will try to get his and post them here). It has long primaries extending past its tail, a scalloped appearance in the back of the bird along with white-outlined feathers on its lower scapulars are distinctive. It had a long, straight black bill, black legs, buff-brown colour impression. It even has a white patch of feathers in front of its eyes, which is a subtle feature of juvenile Baird's Sandpipers. Nice find JB!!!

Good birding,
Dwaynejava

Comber Shorebirding Still Excellent...v3

There are five Species in this photo... You gotta love shorebirding!

Ok, this is my last Comber Shorebirding posting... I promise!!! :-)   I went after work on Thursday this week. It was cloudy but I figured I'd go anyway. I figured shorebirding will give some variety that I am not getting so much of at Holiday Beach's Raptor Festival (aka Hawktoberfest). Anyway, I walked through the muddy field in Comber to see what was out there and well... It's still pretty good! 20 Hudsonian Godwits, and 7 Long billed Dowitchers along with hundreds of Black bellied Plovers and fewer Golden Plovers in the mix.  White rumped Sandpipers, a single Juv Baird's along with Pectoral Sandpipers were around as well.

This photo below is pretty cool. The resting shorebirds flew up at one point and I took a few photos. I left this full size and uncropped. I enjoy just scanning through this image and seeing how many birds I can see. Blogger has been implementing a feature to browse the images in a given posting, but I prefer just seeing the original. If you want to see the original even in that tool, you can click the link that is referenced at the bottom of the page to see the original. 

Sleeping (Juv) White rumped Sandpipers

7 Long billed Dowitchers.  A Black bellied Plover on the left and a Golden on the right.

Juv Baird's Sandpiper.

Its funny how during my 1-hr birding session, I didn't see a single person. I didn't say a single word. I just made my way out into this field, chosing a path that best allowed me not to get muddy and also would be the best approach in an effort not to flush the resting shorebirds. I would walk 10m then stop, look around through binoculars, consider a 'path' to take then walk another 10m, crouch down, stay crouched, take photos, and so on. One cool thing I noticed about shorebirding was that if you just stand there (at 30m or so) and just wait, some birds will leave periodically and some will arrive making the viewing experience surprisingly dynamic. The "Bairds" above (I might be mistaken... it could be a white rumped) was not in this group of birds but just ended up flying in by itself. It orientated itself with the other birds and went on its way with foraging etc. So cool to witness nature like this. So few other people do it... its what makes birding so fun in my opinion.

 

Next weekend I will go back to Holiday Beach and hopefully see some late October raptors. I'm really hoping to see a Saw-whet Owl this fall.  Even though this posting is a little repetitive from the last, I still like posting some photos online or else they are easily forgotten. Also, one day I am going to go through and put all my birding trips into E-Bird.
Good birding!-Dwaynejava

As requested: Map Directions. Sorry I didn't post this earlier, I assumed readers had the original Ontbirds Posting.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=42.285040+,+-82.548441&hl=en&ll=42.287897,-82.549124&spn=0.008191,0.01929&sll=42.285993,-82.548051&sspn=0.008191,0.01929&vpsrc=0&gl=ca&t=h&z=16

About 20 Godwits congregated after being flushed by a Northern Harrier

Birding Pointe Mouillee in Rockwood Michigan

After about 1.5 years of birding, I have seen/photographed about 185 birds. I'm not bragging (or putting myself down)... the number of birds a birder sees depends on many variables, such as the geographic location the birder lives in, time spent out in nature, seasons, habitats, optics and keen-ness. I've had this psychological level I want to pass, which is 200 bird species mainly in the Essex County region. To get to this level though, I have to start counting some shorebirds.

One of the last areas of birding that is still a bit confusing to me is shorebirds! Up until recently, I did not have a field-guide, and I still don't have a scope or binoculars, and they come and go from the Windsor area in the span of about two months of the year. There are no really good birding spots/habitat for shorebirding (in Windsor) that I am aware of. (One surprisingly decent spot I've recently discovered is behind This School in Lasalle).

Mid to Late August is the time of year when Ont-birders get emails notifying them of all the shorebirds at various habitats that attract these shorebirds (flooded fields, Lagoons & Wetlands). Some of the birds listed include:

- Black Bellied Plover -
- Stilt Sandpiper
- Baird's Sandpiper (Lifer)
- Semi-Palmated Sandpiper (Lifer)
- Semi-Palmated Plover
- Lesser Yellowlegs
- Greater Yellowlegs
- Pectoral Sandpiper (lifer)
- Least Sandpiper
- Killdeer

 So, recently I came across a blog that suggested there were 20+ shorebird species, including American Avocet, Hudsonian and Spotted Godwits, Phalaropes and others! And it was only 35 minutes from Windsor!
This park is called Pointe Mouillee in Rockwood, Michigan (http://www.dnr.state.mi.us/publications/pdfs/wildlife/viewingguide/slp/107Mouillee/index.htm). I had to go and check it out. This park is located on the western shores of lake erie, about 30 minutes south of Detroit.

Birds seen generally include the birds listed above plus:

Wilsons Phalarope (Lifer-giving himself away with his circular foraging strategy!)
Willet
Pied Billed Grebe (abundant)
Black Crowned Night Herons
Yellow Headed Blackbird (Lifer-in flight, with white wing-patches flashing)
Belted Kingfisher
GB Heron
Great Egret
Red Knot (lifer)
Sora Rail (Flushed from dyke... only seen for a second)
Bobolink (lifer - but in non breeding plumage)

Thanks must go out to Dane from Ohio who I met out on the pathways and who shared his scoped views, knowledge and company with me. As usual, I am so impressed with the keen observation skills of the birders I meet.

Do you see the Wilson's Phalarope in this photo?

So, for the mostpart, I have about 8 new lifers today (pushing me to about 193 birds on my life list) , but really, I'm not overly excited because well... they're shorebirds and to make matters worse, they're in their vague, non-breeding plumage. I think shorebirding will grow on me if I get a scope and see them in April with their breeding plumage. To see a Godwit or an Avocet today probably would have blown my mind. The Bobolink was nice though!

Good Birding
Dwayne