Long Point Visit, Norfolk County (From July 2018)

*Editors Note: I posted this later than I wanted to it was written in Mid July 2018. 

During this past weekend (July 14-16), my family did a little three day trip to Rondeau, Port Stanley, St Thomas, then brief visits to Turkey Point, Long Point which are beautiful sand spits that jut out into Lake Erie. 

While birding was not an official activity of this trip, we did take a boat-ride out to the tip of Long Point which is something I've wanted to do for years. You may already know that Long Point is 42 km long! And most of it is off-bounds to most people because it is such a delicate ecosystem. 

We also tried to partake in some mountain biking trails which are quite nice around Turkey Point. Since my two boys and wife are not avid cyclists, we only did two trails. One trail was dominated by Pine trees and at one point, I couldn't help but notice the trill-like call of a Pine Warbler!  Red-eyed Vireos, Eastern Wood Pewees, Downy Woodpecker and Chipping Sparrows were noted. 

We drove through Backus Woods and the St William's Forest areas. We even stopped by the Backus (Backhouse) Conservation area which featured a nice Nature Center, Water-powered Grist Mill, and a old Homestead that you can tour. 

There is so much to say but I guess I could summarize my thoughts by saying that Norfolk County is a beautiful location with surprising amounts of intact forest and nature. It has much in common with the rest of the shoreline along Lake Erie.  Beauty in abundance, generous amounts of farmland (corn, soyabeans, tobacco) fresh fruit stands.... Hopefully, Norfolk will conserve its natural resources for future generations. 

Turkey Point Mountain Biking Club:  https://tpmbc.com/

Brown Thrasher, Bluebird and Pine Warbler at Black Oak Heritage Park

Every year at this time - I get into a mode of "I'm going to go for a nature walk every day after work".  Since I have a day job and kids, I might only get one hour a day to be outside, so Ojibway is close enough to my house to spend the majority of that time birding and not driving.  Pelee would be nice, but since its over 1 hour away from Windsor, I can't really make a round trip in anything less than ... 5 hours --- which is a big time commitment!

It was 22C in Windsor today. I walked Black Oak Heritage Park for one hour between 4-5pm. It was not really too birdy, but the few birds I ran into were pretty good. Here are some highlights:

*Eastern Bluebird mating pair (Male Singing!)
*Flicker, Downy and Red Bellied Woodpeckers
*Brown Thrasher singing its paired mimid song... amazing!
*Pine Warbler
*Yellow bellied Sapsucker (brief look)
*5 or so Rusty Blackbirds (foraging low)

This is my third separate Pine Warbler sighting so far!

Good Birding!

4-20 Weekend Birding @ Ojibway & Pelee

The weather this weekend in Windsor & Essex was finally spring-like and I made an effort to get outside and do some birding!  Some highlights this weekend were nice looks at Pine Warbler at Point Pelee, Eastern Towhees singing on location at Ojibway, and Carolina Wrens and Winter Wrens.

Some of the areas that I walked/biked on Saturday was Ojibway's Black Oak Heritage Park and Spring Garden  - both of which are great areas to walk.

Some new birds for the year at Ojibway included 3 Eastern Towhees singing on territory along the Titcombe pathway.

Oakwood Forest (adjacent to Ojibway Park) has some surprisingly good birding and botany opportunties. Hepatica flowers have finally broken though the oak leaves that litter the forest floor. A female Yellow bellied Sapsucker was present as well a nice breeding-plumaged Yellow rumped Warbler. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet showed me its Ruby Crown feathers as I foolishly tried to photograph it.

Butterflies seen over the last week include what one might expect: Mourning Cloak, Eastern Comma and Cabbage White.

I noticed a huge flock of noisy blackbirds at Black Oak Heritage Park last Friday and it slowly dawned on me that there were hundreds of Rusty Blackbirds in the tree-tops!

Sunday morning (this morning) I was at Point Pelee at about 10am and started off at Delaurier Trail. I was happy to see Ellen Smout and a group of OFO birders as I got out of my car. Ellen found this nice Pine Warbler. She hinted that this might be the best bird of the day (it was).

At the risk of stating the obvious, things see to be a little later this year than normal. The winter like conditions of the last few weeks may have something to do with that.  Good birding!

PS: I had an Eastern Phoebe in my back yard, as well as a Hermit Thrush this weekend!

Earth Day Birding at Point Pelee - April 22nd, 2017

Just a quick posting today. A 4 hour walk this morning at Pelee provided some decent birding. I walked from White Pine to Cactus Field over to Tilden's Trail then over to Woodland nature trail, down to Post-woods Trail, then over to the Serengeti Tree then Tram Loop Woods.

Woodland Nature trail was pretty good this morning. I was happy to see Red breasted Nuthatches, a female YBSS, my first of season Blue headed Vireo, Nashville Warbler and Black throated greeen Warblers. One rarity that was observed was a singing Tufted Titmouse!

Post woods trail was very birdy this morning with a few small flocks of warblers that included: Yellow rumped, Pine and Black throated Green warblers.

Two species that I was hoping to get but missed were:  L. Waterthrush & Lincolns Sparrow.

Seeing four warbler species + Blue headed Vireo today was pretty exciting. Its only going to get better from here!



Good Birding!

Pelee Sunrise

I had taken a photo of the sun rising over the boardwalk, but I did not have my wide angle lens. I was told once that the sun rises directly over this boardwalk on May 1st. This photo is from the first week of May last year.

Birded Pelee today with the Ojibway Birding Group. This is the first time in a long time I was able to join the group on their outings. I arrived at Point Pelee early (6:45am) and walked the marsh trail first thing. One highlight (besides the sunrise through the light mist over the marsh) was the sound of Virginia Rail calling at one point along the boardwalk. Next, I walked Tilden's Trail to have another great highlight... A Waterthrush! I'm torn on the identification, I did not hear it make so much as a chip note! It foraged the slough along the northern boardwalk at north end of Tilden's Trail.  (David Sibley has a small writeup here on  differentiating Northern from Louisiana Waterthrushes: http://www.sibleyguides.com/2012/08/identification-of-waterthrushes/)

 

The Ojibway birding group met in the parking lot and walked the West Beach path northward. Some West beach highlights include:
Black and White Warbler
Brown Thrasher
Yellow Warbler
Yellow rumped Warbler

Amazing raptors flew overhead all afternoon... they included: Broad-winged Hawk, Coopers, N. Harriers, Bald Eagles... (No Kites!). Even Sandhill Cranes flew overhead on a few occasions.

After a quick lunch at Paula's Fish Place, Kory and I walked Northwest Beach where we found a small but nice pocket of warblers. We had:
Pine Warbler (my first in Canada?),
Black throated Green,
Palm Warbler,
Yellow rumped Warbler
Blue headed Vireo
Eastern Phoebe
House Wren (FOS)! ... Oddly, the House Wren was not calling when we saw it.

At 3:30, I left the park and dropped by Hillman Marsh. I had very little time to really bird the shorebird cell, but I did get a glimpse at a pair of Long billed Dowitchers, as well as many Dunlin, Black-bellied Plovers and  Caspian Terns.

Thanks to the Ojibway birding group for a great morning of birding. Birds were sparse today, but it was great to be out there!

Good birding!
Dwaynejava


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68 species total