50 Bald Eagles at Peche Island?

Bald Eagle Aerial Dogfight!

These Eagles were fighting over fish, four at one point, right in the middle of the Detroit River between Windsor and Peche Island.

Just a quick posting. Yesterday I stopped by Lakeview Marina in East Windsor where Lake St Clair enters the Detroit River. Peche Island is a small natural park which is surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of mergansers, ducks, swans, herons, geese, and Eagles!

I counted 46 Bald Eagles at Peche Island on Thursday Jan 2nd. I went back today, and there were much less, perhaps 20. Below I have photos of a group of 20 on each side of the river, plus several more that were flying at the West end of Peche Island (these photos are from the east end of Peche Island, and the ice-jam on the mainland side of the river). I had two more as I drove home about 700m west of this vantage point.

20 Eagles along the mainland

20 more perched at Peche Island (more to the left and right)

Several Eagles in flight at any given point... 46 Eagles is a conservative count!

Considering the record numbers of Bald Eagles seen at HMBO this year, could this be a record for most populous group of Eagles in Ontario since the DDT ban?

Good birding!
Dwaynejava

New Year's Eve Birding & New Year's Greetings

Resident Bald Eagles at Pelee

Happy New Year!  I finally got a chance to get out to Point Pelee to do some birding over my Christmas break. I feel bad about not attending the local CBC's as ambitiously as I have in the past, but my health has been lackluster. I made an attempt to go birding on New Years Eve morning with Jeremy Bensette, with the intention of finding some reported Brewers Blackbirds. This posting is a report on that outing from Yesterday.

Out in the Onion Fields, we got good looks at large flocks of Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs. One flock at the east end of "Road C" must have had well over 150 Lapland Longspurs! At one point, a small gravel parking lot adjacent to the Onion Fields was covered in Longsurs. As we drove up , the majority of them flushed but a few remained. Large mixed flocks of Snow Buntings were nice to see, as I did not see any about 1.5 weeks ago when I participated in the Lakeshore CBC.

 Another highlight from this outing was to finally see a nice (first of season) dark-morph Rough legged Hawk! I have attempted to see some in the Pleasent Valley area near Kingsville/Harrow but have dipped so far in seeing one (this season). The cloudy/windy cold conditions made photography difficult but at one point, this bird was kiting almost directly above our car! I see so many hawks that end up being Red-tailed Hawks, that I really get excited seeing a rough legged hawk!

On Dec 28th, I was going to Colasanti's in Kingsville and stopped by to see the reported Ross's Goose at Jack Miners Bird Sactuary. It seems like they really made some nice habitat in that field across the road!  I found a Cackling Goose while looking for the Ross's Goose. 

Convincing Cackler?

My ebird checklist can be found here: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S16176366

Good birding,
Dwaynejava

White winged Scoter and a few other goodies at Lake St Clair

Its been so gloomy out lately... Where is the sun? Well, it was sunny this afternoon so I figured I would get out there and enjoy some sun light & some good birds. What a great way to end off the work week!

Upon arriving at the Kayak Cove park I noticed a dark black scooter. I was quite sure it was a lifer, and upon referencing my trusty field guide... White Winged Scoter (lifer #222 )!  It was so cold out today... it was ridiculous. My goose bumps had goose bumps. I was probably only out there for 40 minutes.

My first attempt at age-based Gull Identification. Would this be 3rd, 2nd and 1st winter Herring Gulls (respectively)?

A Red Breasted Merganser. All three Mergansers were seen!

A Great Blue Heron flew slowly along the shore and then perched on a branch on Peche Island (top middle on the photo above). Only in the depths of January is this particularly interesting!

Greater Black Backed Gulls were around. I would love to get a very crisp, clear photo of  a Greater Black backed Gull.

This photo has several Bald Eagles just to the left of the middle of this photo. I think I'm counting about 6-8 'lumps'. Pretty cool! I  hope they stick around when I get my Kayak back in the water.

I still haven't yet seen a Long tailed duck. I think it might be my nemesis bird! This duck eludes me!

Overall, a pretty good post-work birding trip. I met up with a new blog reader (Kelly) who kindly brought her scope. I think I'm convinced that I'm going to buy one. I'm thinking about this one. Any thoughts on buying scopes? Are the specs on this one decent?

In Birding,
Dwaynejava