Holiday Beach on Labour Day Weekend

 I had a wonderful morning of birding on this past labour day weekend.  I had several warbler species as well as flycatcher species.  The photo above shows the lake erie beach dune habitat. 

Holiday beach has the classic lake erie scrub/swamp habitat thay migrants love to visit during migration. I spent two hours sorting through tonnes of birds. These photos are some that I managed to photograph...

As a final note - I have had a new hummingbird feeder that immediately attracted hummingbirds. There are three or four that I see fighting over access to the feeder. Amazingly i have noted that they perch in a tree close to my back deck, affording incredible photos occasionally. 

 

I have also noted two different olive sided flycatchers over the last week or so as well. ... Just from my back yard!

Good birding!

Dwayne

Tropicana - Tropical Kingbird in Windsor + some Orange Crowned Warblers Return

 

Over the last few weeks, I have enjoyed birding, just in my back yard - watching the fall migration take place.

On weekends in September - I had observed a few large kettles of hawks fly overhead.

Over the last two weekends, I was able to find at least one Orange Crowned Warbler in the hedgerow behind my house.

I was sitting in my living room this past weekend, and heard a "bang" sound on my window. I was amazed to see a small warbler on the ground below the window. I was sad to see that an Ovenbird struck my window.  I gently placed it on a small structure off the ground, just in case maybe it would recover, and perhaps avoid being eaten by a cat or some other predator while it recovered. It was gone the following morning - so it either recovered or was predated by another animal. 

I have seen Lincoln's Sparrows in my back yard

Back in August, even had a new lifer butterfly - a Zabulon Skipper - which I have never seen until this year.

But over the last day or two --- a level 5 rarity showed up just minutes away from my home in Windsor. I could almost ride my bike to see this bird -- a Tropical Kingbird!  I feel I have seen these birds during my trip to South East Arizona - so its not a lifer for me - but still-  its a great bird to behold - especially if one lives in Windsor.

Good Birding!

Dwayne

I snooze, I lose

I had the green light to go to Pelee this morning, but decided to stay closer to home and wait a little longer for things to really get going in later April (I snoozed).  That was a bad idea, as it was a pretty good day at Pelee and my nemisis bird was there today, easily seen... Worm-eating Warbler.  (I losed).
 

I did have some nice birds in Windsor this weekend though. I had two distant Common Loons (rare for me) at Peche Island in East Windsor. Saturday at Ojibway Park was surprisingly good. Four warblers were seen including Yellow-rumped, Pine, Ovenbird and Yellow Warblers seen. Two male purple finches lounged at the feeders in nice sunlight... a real treat.  Just a few feet from the finches, an Ovenbird foraged on the ground giving face-melting views of this thrush-like warbler.

 

 

The Blue Grosbeak is still being seen at Ojibway now for the third day.  He is easily seen from the visitor center window, where he skulks around in the weedy grasses and brushpiles.

Some target birds that I would love to see during this season would be:

Kirtlands Warbler
Worm-eating Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Kentucky Warbler
Golden winged Warbler
Henslows Sparrow
Vesper Sparrow
Grasshopper Sparrow

Any eight of these birds would be lifers, so if you see them... text me (maybe)!

Yours in birding,
Dwaynejava

Dickcissel at Pelee

(Note: this was posted for Wed May 11th, 2011. The labels somehow became corrupted, so a recent fix reposted this as a new posting... I've corrected the date back to the 11th of May)

I've made an effort to go to Pelee at least weekly from late April to late May, and during peak season, I even plan on stopping in mid-week. I went to Pelee for about 2.5 hours tonight and spent most of the time on the west-side paths. This was suggested by the daily Pelee birding report due to the strong East winds.

The highlight of todays trip was stopping off at Pelee Wings and seeing Dickcissel (lifer #240) hop around on the grass below the feeders. Along with Dickcissel, Baltimore Orioles were taking advantage of the sugar-water feeders and a Red headed Woodpecker was eating from the feeder as well. Incredible!

At the park, I saw very few warblers today. I saw many sparrows and orioles though.

Even though I saw few Warblers today, I did see some great birds. Some (from memory) include:
Lincoln's Sparrow (on 3 seperate occasions)
White Crowned Sparrow
Orchard Oriole (many)
Baltimore Oriole (many)
Red Headed Woodpecker
Winter Wren
House Wren
Common Yellowthroat
Northern Waterthrush
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
Ruby throated Humingbird
Rose breasted Grosbeak
Veery
Yellow Warbler (many)
Nashville Warbler (many)
Ovenbird

 

I also made an honest attempt to see the Pacific Loon that has been around Pelee, but can't say I could see it. Where are all the warblers??? I've been hard-pressed to find a black throated green this season!

Good Birding!
Dwaynejava

Yellow Breasted Chat and some other great warblers at Pt Pelee

I was reading a posting from the Friends of Point Pelee today about a Yellow breasted Chat that was at Point Pelee, and couldn't resist going to check it out. Surprisingly, I found it with very little wait and with little effort.

 

 This Yellow breasted Chat is lifer #238. How exciting.
The yellow-ness of this bird's breast is incredible!

Oddly enough, I was only at Point Pelee for about 1.5 hours. I only had time to walk Shuster Trail and the east side of Tildens Trial.  In hindsight, I wish I had walked Woodland Nature Trail, as an awesome little yellow bird was seen there (Prothonotary).

I was walking alone on a Tildens footpath and flushed about 6 birds and I just waited patiently for some of them to return to view. A Louisiana Waterthrush came back into a tree just meters from me and belted out some songs!! It then hopped down into the slough and foraged completely ignoring me!

  My first (Male) Hooded Warbler. Very cool. I saw a female at Ojibway Park last spring.

An ovenbird made a quick appearance, but quickly flitted away. I've only seen this cool little warbler once before (last year) at Rondeau. Veery was all over the place today, and incredibly tame. Many that I saw tonight were only 15m from the path and not very shy. They would pose for me!

 I almost grew Weary of Veery. Not!

 Nashville Warbler was the most numerous Warbler tonight!

As I photographed the Hooded Warbler, I looked up and saw some Heron -like birds overhead. I noticed a different shape and gestalt to them and realized they were probably Sandhill Cranes! I would hear the cranes calling in the distance and it was pretty amazing. It echoed through the forest and was very cool and haunting.

Good birding,
Dwaynejava

Did you know Humans eat Sumac? I am a fan of the many great lebanese restaurants in Windsor, and there is a pink-purple spice on fattoush salad that gives it a bitter kick... Below, a Brown Thrasher was the subject of my exposure tests before the Chat arrived. Not a bad bird to practice on... but hey... its Pelee.