Pacific Loon, Kentucky Warbler and a Field of Golden Plovers

American Golden Plovers in Breeding Plumage - How Cool Are They?

Migrating Golden Plovers

I birded Point Pelee this Saturday May 9th, and started off in the Onion Fields of all places. I wanted to follow up on a recent report of 300 American Golden Plovers! I think there may have been 50-70 Golden Plovers when I was looking at them but still, very nice to see these avian gems in their breeding plumage.

Upon entering the park, my friend Rick suggested that I stop at Dunes, where a Kentucky Warbler had just been recently ontbirded. That ended up being some of the best birding of the day as a very shy Kentucky Warbler was seen, a Canada Warbler, Chestnut Sided, and a Grey cheecked Thrush were all seen at this spot.

Later on in the day, I ended up seeing a few more great species - my first of season Red headed Woodpecker and Bay breasted Warbler.

I had to leave Pelee at about 4PM to get back to Windsor for a dinner outing, but of course, as I was leaving the park I checked my email just in case a mega rarity had been reported... Pacific Loon at NW Beach!!!!

Pacific Loon at Point Pelee

Wow - an awesome bird! I saw one a few years ago through Jean Iron's scope but this was my first chance at getting a decent look at it and perhaps even a diagnostic photo.

Good birding!
DM

PS: Has anyone else noticed the influx of Red Admirals this week? They are everywhere and its almost reminiscent of Spring 2012. Could this mean that this year is going to be another good year for butterfly watching?

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

Early May Birding at Pelee

So many things to talk about bird-wise! Took a personal day on Friday (May 4th) and spent a good day birding Point Pelee. Some personal highlights for me were seeing Red headed Woodpeckers and 5 species of Vireo ( White eyed, Yellow throated, Warbling, Red eyed, Blue headed) along with... 80 species of birds. I didn't really count or list them, but you get the point.

Some Random Thoughts (in point form for brevity and clarity):

• I was mucking around with my "blog templates" and irreversibly changed my original template to the "newer style" of templates.  I really liked my old template, so I spent much time trying to customize my new template to look like my old one, but still... its not the same. :-(
• I must have 70 photos that I would like to share, but I only chose 8 or so to add to this posting. 
• I just bought a new cellphone and this was the first time I was birding while texting. More on the subject of "Technobirding" later.
• Butterflies are everywhere this year. Amazing variety and its only the first week of May.
• Its amazing how different people will see a completely different set of birds. A flickr friend had YB Chats and Summer Tanagers on this same Friday May 4th. 
• Every year, it seems different birds seem to be more present than others. Last year, I hardly saw any Black throated blue Warblers, where this year, I've seen many. Same with Yellow throated Vireos. I guess its this randomness that keeps things interesting. 
• Lots of variety at Pelee, but seemingly low numbers. It seems that each bird was hard fought for this year. It seems also to be slower than previous years, but perhaps things are the same, the only change being the lack of 'life bird rush' that I was getting in the previous years.
• I did not hear or see a Wood Thrush yet this season... Seems odd no? I did see Hermit, Veery and Swainson's.

I had breathtaking looks at this beautiful yellow throated vireo... nuff said.

 

I was on West Beach Trail when I heard a "Fitz-Bew" call of a Flycatcher. I pished a little and a few warblers came to inspect the noise. I must have taken 15 photos of this white eyed vireo each as amazing as the next. What an amazing bird... I never saw the flycatcher until further down the path. I think it was a Least Flycatcher, based on the eye-rings.

A Point Pelee Specialty... Also seen at Ojibway in Windsor

Even though pretty common, and a local breeder, its always nice to see GCFs.

 Hillman Marsh

After Pelee, I drove over to Hillman Marsh proudly bearing a scope over my shoulder. Nothing super rare I guess, but a few nice birds included Green winged Teal, seasonal Terns, Black bellied Plover in stunning breeding plumage.  American Golden Plovers and Long billed Dowitcher were the highlights, and seeing them through my new scope was awesome.

American Golden Plover in a heavily cropped photo. Notice the greenish golden coloured plovers behind the horizontal row of bonaparte's gulls & terns. Black bellied Plovers in the foreground.

While shorebirding at Hillman, I realized I was standing next to and talking to Jean Iron. Wow! I realized it was her as she had mentioned Blenheim SL and I had just read her Ontbirds posting a few hours earlier.  The birding community is pretty small isn't it?

Good birding,
Dwaynejava

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?