Hillman Hudsonian

Just a quick posting for today.

Having heard of some good birds at the Comber Flooded Fields during the work week , I went over there this morning to see if I could pick up some good shorebirds. Upon arrival to the flooded field, I had a chance to meet Kory Renaud and Dave Martin from Amherstburg. I had read about Daves great sightings for quite a while from WEPBIRDS ... but only met him today! I was amazed to hear that he reads this blog! We scanned the flooded field habitat for quite a while but could not pick out anything significant beyond yellowlegs and Dunlin.

I then moved on to Hillman Marsh. Kit M. texted me earlier in the day that he would be there so I joined him. Again, we saw similar birds at Hillman Marsh shorebird cell. But at one point, I had noticed a single shorebird flying and after taking many pictures of it in flight - came to realize that it might be a Hudsonian Godwit!  The strange thing about this sighting is that it was so fleeting - perhaps less than a minute - and I think I simply lost track of the bird or it might have flow up high and out of sight. I did not see it land or I did not see it resting on the ground.

It was nice to see it because it was my target bird for the day. When Kit and I left the Hillman Parking lot,  we spoke briefly to a birder from Michigan - Carl Overman - whose name I see a lot on Ebird reports. He confirmed that my photos were most likely Hudsonian Godwit as well.

Now that I look at the photos from the comfort of my kitchen table and laptop monitor - many details are much more evident - such as the bi-coloured bill, warm brown tones in the plumage, bright white rump with bordering black plumage etc.

I sometimes joke around with other birders that I'm just a mediocre birder who only finds obvious birds like blue jays or cardinals. I am a sub-200 species/year ebirder - not even making the top 100 in my own home county .... But maybe once a year I find a decent bird.  It just goes to show that every dog has his day!

Good birding!
-Dwayne

PS:  I can't help but reminisce about the "Flock" of 20 or so Hudsonian Godwits I had seen back on Oct 14th, 2011.

http://dwaynejava.blogspot.com/2011/10/comber-shorebirding-still-excellent.html

Thanksgiving Birding + Long Point Video Documentary

Happy Thanksgiving!!

This past Saturday Sept 8th 10th, I had attempted to go birding at Pelee - my intention was to get up early and perhaps do a tipwatch for a few hours. But - I slept in --- big time. I did make it into the park for a slothy 11am arrival -- I think even the gate attendant looked at me with pity as I drove in.

I divided my small ration of birding time into three parts: 1- A walk around Delaurier Trail, 2- A walk at Hillman Shorebird cell, and a quick stop at the Comber flooded fields.

Delaurier was a nice walk- as always. I honestly had one bird that I was hoping to run into - a Blue headed Vireo.  It seemed that every tree around Delaurier had a few warblers in it - but as far as I could tell, it was almost a monoculture of Yellow rumped Warblers!

Hillman had a really nice flooded field (different from other years - if I'm not mistaken). Having no scope, my observations included: Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Dunlin & Pectoral Sandpipers.

Comber - Kory R had reported a Hudsonian Godwit at the Comber Flooded Fields. Kit Rick and myself quickly went to find this bird. Kit had obtained permission to access the fields from the Canning Company - so we went out to see this awesome shorebird. We kept  a safe distance in an effort to not flush the bird. I was reminiscing recently about the time I was at Comber and had a "flock" of about 20 Hudsonian Godwits land right near me. It might have been one of the top ten birding moments of my birding efforts thus far.

About five years ago, I had seen a flock of about 20 Hudsonian Godwits --- an amazing birding moment!

As promised in the title of this blog posting, I wanted to share a great 1-hour video documentary about Long Point with readers. A friend of mine texted me on Sunday that there was a documentary about Long Point. I did not get the text until today, but I was luckily able to find it online. This should be mandatory viewing for any aspiring naturalist, and most people reading this blog will know much of the content in the video.

http://tvo.org/video/documentaries/striking-balance/ep-1-long-point

Good Birding!
Dwayne

Obligatory Back Yard Birding Reference

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

Better looks at Hudsonian Godwits and Other Shorebirds in Comber

Wow... after talking to Blake Mann and Ellen Smout over the weekend, it was suggested that the best viewing was in later afternoon, as the sun setting in the west would give nice front-lit views of some incredible shorebirds. So at about 5pm today, I politely excused myself from Thanksgiving festivities and headed out to Comber for a quick 30-minute birding session. Glad I did... check out some of the pics below.

A Hudsonian Godwit flies above 20 resting shorebirds in this tightly cropped photo. Incredible.

Juv. White rumped Sandpiper (I think...)

from yesterday... Golden Plovers

Dunlin and White Rumped Sandpipers

Mix of shorebirds on the east end of the tomato field

Thanks to Ellen Smout for sharing this great find. I lifered three birds this weekend!

Good birding!
Dwaynejava

Bonus! 20 Seconds of video of Hudsonian Godwits preening and sleeping.



Lifer Summary:

American Golden Plover #284
Hudsonian Godwit #285
White rumped Sandpiper #286

Hudsonian Godwits and American Golden Plovers in Comber

Yesterday, a report from ontbirds mentioned Godwits and American golden Plovers in a field in Comber, which is just south of Stoney Point or Pointe-aux-Roches if you prefer the french name. I did street level mapping of the described area, and even the google street level view of this road shows a huge flooded field with shorebirds on the perimeter! The surface area  of this shallow-water-covered field must be over 1km square if not more. Note that in the photo above, there is a small tomaoto field in the forground and a giant area of flooded field behind it. (Side note: Why hasn't ERCA flooded the shorebird cell at Hillman?)

Hudsonian Godwit blends in with the grass in the bottom left quadrant of this image

My first approach to bird this area was walk directly into the farmers' field and scan the edge of the water for any shorebirds with long, upward curved bills. What I found was a mono-culture of 400+ American Golden Plovers with a few Black bellied Plovers mixed in. Killdeer and a few SP Plovers were around in lesser numbers. Singles of Yellowlegs and other seasonal shorebirds were seen in the tomato fields along Comber Line Rd.

It was cool to see the birds take off when a raptor approached the group. It was pointed out to me that Black Bellied Plovers have Black "armpits" and American Golden Plovers just have a uniform light grey under-wing and armpit.

When a Peregrine Falcon would occasionally stir up the group, four birds stood out from the others. They were bigger and stood out quite obviously from the American Golden Plover 'swarms'. In fact my first look at the Godwits were in flight as shown in the photo below. I only saw four Hudsonian Godwits both in flight and when feeding in the flooded tomato fields.

I visited this site from 8-9:30 this morning and again from 2-3 this afternoon with a family Colasanti's visit in between. I thank the many kind scope-bearing birders for pointing out the resting and feeding Godwits that I would have missed without their kind info-sharing. Of the 8 people I met, 3 were readers of Nerdy for Birdy!!!  Very cool!

I'll cut this short here,  but basically, adding two more lifers today was very cool and exciting. I can't believe this amazing mudflat is so close to home and I didn't know about it until yesterday. It's closer to Windsor than Tilbury, and seemingly better than Tilbury SL. Thank you Ellen Smout for posting these excellent birds & shorebird habitat to Ontbirds. I only wish I knew of this earlier!

Good birding,
Dwaynejava

Lifer Summary:
American Golden Plover #284
Hudsonian Godwit #285

Bonus Quiz Question!!!

Quiz Question: Dowitchers at the top of this photo. Long billed or Short?