23,480 Broad winged Hawks today at Holiday Beach

I stopped by Holiday Beach today after work (Friday Sept 16th). I figured it would be a good day as I drove down Howard Ave and noticed roadside flags blowing in a Southeasterly direction indicating North-West winds. Also the weather on Friday was dramatically colder which may encourage some movement as well.

Upon arrival to Holiday Beach, I started off by scanning the forest edge along the beach, but not much was  seen. Later from the hawk tower, 16 species of warblers continually streamed by the trees bordering the area around the tower. Several flycatchers were noticed as they perched on a leaf-less branches. The one below might be a Least Flycatcher. Red eyed Vireos, various Thrushes and Cardinals were present as well.

A Least Flycatcher

Some raptors seen today ... well so many were seen... Merlins, Coopers, Sharp Shinned, Bald Eagles, Osprey, Broad winged Hawks, Common Nighthawks, and Northern Harriers... wow... that was in one hour that I was on the tower! Five Wilson's Snipe passed over the tower at one point and obviously ducks and herons were everpresent.

I had forgotten my binoculars, so I could not really enjoy the numerous kettles of Broad winged Hawks, but at times, some were low enough to see with the naked eye, and I attempted to take some photos. Even at 5:30pm, streams of Broadwings were still going overhead.

 

This video... well, it's not that good, but is worth watching if you've never seen a good kettle of hawks. When I take video with my camera, I must hold the camera away from my face, as I must look at the preview screen. With the heavy lens and manual focusing, it really makes it too wobbly to make for decent video footage. Still pretty cool though.


Good birding,
Dwaynejava

Holiday Beach Hawkwatch on Sept 11th 2011

Birding in the Neighborhood

 

 A quick walk to the end of my street this morning (there is a small 2-acre forest there) netted a Warbling Vireo, Philadelphia Vireo (I think), Swainsons Thrush, Black Capped Chickadees and Tufted Titmouse.  I typically don't see Tufted Titmice too much over the summer as they seem to avoid bird feeders and are more secluded in the woods (IMHO). Also, I have not really seen Tufted Titmouse in Windsor outside of Ojibway Park, so to see them residing in the small forest near my house is pretty exciting. The feather molt on Tufted Titmice seems to really clean up nicely for the winter, so these birds will probably look a little nicer in November. They're probably juvi's as they don't have too much rust colour in their flanks.

Buffy spectacles and olive coloured flanks hint that this is a Swainson's Thrush. He's on his way to Central or South America for the Winter.

 

Tufted Titmouse... one of my favorite birds, and a Windsor specialty

Holiday Beach Hawkwatch
A mid-afternoon family trip to Holiday Beach had some nice looks at some raptors that are in-season in early September such as Sharp-shinned Hawks, American Kestrel and Osprey. Resident Bald Eagles were there as well.

Even though the forested beach  area was pretty well birdless, some of the trees next to the observation tower were pretty active with passerines. The trees had singles of Warbling and Philly Vireos along with Yellow, Magnolia, Nashville and Cape May Warblers.

I'm quite confident this is a Philadelphia Vireo, a lifer incredibly... at 281. I thought I had seen a Philly last fall, but many keen blog readers quickly pointed out the lack of yellow on the throat and chest (it was really a warbling vireo). One must ID a Philadelphia Vireo carefully as they are very similar in appearance to Warbling Vireos and (to a lesser extent) Red eyed Vireos. Philadelphia's are much more rare than Warbling Vireos as well... indeed, its taken me three years to finally see this bird!

Good birding,
Dwaynejava

Lifer summary:  Philadelphia Vireo #281

PS: Common Nighthawks flying over the house tonight along with Swallows.

Parasitic & Long tailed Jaeger at Hamilton's Van Wagners Beach

I couldn't help but chase the Parasitic and Long tailed Jaeger's that were at Van Wagner's Beach this Saturday morning. I was going to title this posting: Chasing Jagermeister, the bird, not the shot.  I've never been one to do shots, so I'll just give the basic title above.

Anyway, I arrived at Van Wagners Beach at 8:30am and walked the beach for a few minutes. I quickly spotted a Sanderling and experimented photographing it at different ISO/Aperture combinations. I also got low to the ground to really allow the short, telephoto induced depth of field to really isolate the bird from its background with natural gaussian blur. Some of my last photos of the Sanderling were at ISO200/F11, which ended up hurting me later...

Later on, I joined a group of birders at the Lakeland Center and finally met Josh Vandermeulen & David Bell. I told Josh that when I leave at 11am, the birds will naturally come in. Ironically, 11-12 had the best showings of Jaegers of the morning, so my extra hour there paid off.

My earlier ISO200/ F11 setting ended up giving me 1/300 sec when the Jaeger went overhead...

 

At noon, I checked out the Windermere Basin which is just a few minutes from VW Beach. It was cool to visit, but I was a little bothered with all the trash in the mudflats. Shopping carts, tires and chemical barrels littered this otherwise beautiful habitat surrounded by an industrial wasteland.

 

Some birds seen at Windermere Basin were an assortment of ducks, Black bellied Plover, and some small flocks of shorebirds. Many butterflies were around including this Wild indigo Duskywing.

I dropped by Tilbury SL on the way home and was disappointed to find the shorebird area void of any avifauna.

Good birding,
Dwaynejava

Lifer summary:
Parasitic Jaeger 279
Long tailed Jaeger 280

Bonus Video: Full Frame Sanderling

Holiday Beach on Labour Day Weekend

A little tradition I started two years ago is to basically bird the forested area at Holiday Beach on Labour Day Weekend. I can almost say that the concentration of warblers, vireos and thrushes in this 200m strip of beach is consistently higher than any other place I've birded, including PPNP! (This statement only applies for the first week or two of September.) Today was a little quiet at Holiday Beach overall, even though the WNW winds were somewhat favorable to birds being found along the shore of Lake Erie.

The first three birds I saw today were a perched Kingfisher right on some rocks along the beach, an obligatory Northern Flicker and Blue grey Gnatcatcher. A Carolina Wren was singing loudly near the banding station, but I could not locate it. House Wrens and Black capped Chickadees scolded me as I walked the dunes of holiday beach in search of migrants.

 
I hit a really nice pocket of warblers along the beach today. It was a really nice 20 minutes of birding!  Outside of that small flock of warblers, it was pretty quiet. A few warblers seen include: Wilson's, Black and White, Blackburnian, Magnolia, Blackpoll, and American Redstarts. I had seen or photographed a few more but could not really ID them confidently.

Besides warblers, there were many Cedar Waxwings and Blue Jays. Raptors seen from the tower included several sharp shinned hawks, bald eagles, swallows, humingbirds and more (the daily report is sent out to Ontbirds Subscribe to or See: http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/ONTB.html). I was only on the hawk tower for 20 minutes.

This Eagle flew over the bridge over big creek in Amherstburg.

Its amazing to read the Ontbirds reports and read about people's interactions with migrants along Lake Ontario, Huron and Erie. I've seen and read several reports about Jaegers in Hamilton and Sarnia... (drool). I think I might make the effort to get out there and see these guys (P & LT Jaegers). I'm due for a lifer!

Good birding!
Dwaynejava