Sorry its been awhile since my last post! Over a month! So in the past.....48 days, a fair amount has happened for me, bird world wise. I finished my time at Long Point, went birding a far amount, got lifers, and year birds! I guess in this post I will just talk about the end of my bird banding time, and a few of the best times I went birding.
My last few weeks at Long Point were very good. 3 of the 4 nights I was up for owl banding were really good, so I managed to band a good number of Saw-whets. Though when it was my time to leave and go home, I knew I would miss it there. All the friends I had made, and the banding I had done. Will I go back again? I sure hope so, it was an amazing and fun experience. Thank you to everyone at LPBO for the awesome experience.
Northern Saw-whet Owl I got to band.
Now if I was writing this in order of dates, my best birding day would be next.....buuuttt.. Since its the best, I am going to save it for last.And I'm kinda interrupting my train of thought on my birding lately, buuuut....I Just received word, like 3min ago, that there is a Ross's Goose in Sarnia!! This is a would-be lifer for me! So, if you are reading this today, hopefully there will be another post tomorrow, and hopefully it will say, "I got my lifer Ross's Goose today!" and not "couldn't find ross's goose :(". The bird is by a pond with some Canada Geese on 'Ronald Bloom Drive' or something like that. It has been posted on the Lambton Wildlife page on Facebook. But anyways, just thought I'd throw that out there. But back to birding.
Lately, randomly in the county, there have been a considerable number of raptors out and about. Lots of Red-tailed Hawk, and American Kestrels, but even the less common raptors such as Merlins have been in considerable numbers lately. One day this past last weekend, in about an hour drive, I saw 1 Northern Harrier, 1 Cooper's Hawk, 3 Red-taileds, 1 Rough-legged Hawk, 2 American Kestrels, and 2 Merlins! In one hour of driving! Even today when I went for a walk in our forest, had 4 different Red-taileds around! I know this isn't a raptor, but last week I also got my First of Season(FOS), Northern Shrike! Flying right beside the car close to the road, providing an excellent view! When I turned around to try to see it in an even better view, it was nowhere to be found. Oh well, it was still probably one of the best views I've ever had of the species!
In the last month or so on my property, there have been numerous interesting sightings. I've had a flock of about 50 Redpolls fly-over, I would be willing to bet that there was a Hoary with them, but there no way I could pick one out in that short time as they flew over. I've had Bohemian Waxwings on a couple occasions, sadly none were very good looks, and one of them was just heard, but still a good bird. Numbers of Red-bellied Woodpecker's have been very high, one day with 4+ individuals! And of course the odd Pine Siskin here and there flying over still. But one day, I heard 2 distinct calls of Evening Grosebeaks flying over! Which was awesome!, but kinda sucked at the same time, I had never seen this species at the time. But luckily, a few days later, a flock of about 25 flew over calling! I got a fairly good look because they were fairly low. So i did end up getting my LIFERs Evening Grosebeaks on my property.
I have been to Lorne C. Henderson a few times since I've been home as well. One day, shortly into November, I had a (probable second year) Golden Eagle fly right over me! Another FOS bird! Also, both species of Crossbill, Red and White-winged, have been seen and heard flying over, and feeding in the trees while I was there on other days. Though I am very surprised that those are the only winter finch species I have seen there recently.
We are now......not up to the best birding day yet...but close. The second best birding day lately was a Kettle Point on the 5th of November. Some of the coolest birds I saw while I was there are: Surf Scoter, Bald Eagle, both Crossbills, Iceland Gull, Brant, Little Gull, Pomarine Jaeger, Purple Sandpiper, and, my first ever Lesser Black-backed x Herring Gull Hybrid! The hybrid gull was very difficult to ID, took probably 20min at leased of observation to finally confirm. Was only my second Gull hybrid I've ever found. For the rest of the species, it is not the first time I have seen them at this location, but it is the first this year! The Little Gull surprisingly gave me a little bit of trouble to ID as well. It was a second winter bird so it didn't have the upper-wing pattern of a Juvenile, but it didn't have the black under-wing of an adult. This was the first second year I have seen of this species. Brant, Little Gull, Pomarine Jaeger, and Purple Sandpiper I have only seen there once before, the Jaeger and the Sandpiper I have only seen once in my life before! This was a very Awesome day for birding here! But surprisingly, that wasn't the best birding day for me!
http://ebird.org/ebird/canada/view/checklist?subID=S11968047
Here is my checklist for that day.
We have finally gotten to my best birding day. This day took place at Point Edward, Sarnia, during those super strong North winds on the 30th of October, I spent more then 5 hours birding there that day! The first bird I saw while I was there was Brant, which is typically a fairly rare species for the county, usually on 1-2 recorded a year. But, this day, at one point in the morning, I counted approximately 160 individuals! They were moving all around and there would have been many out of my view, I would not be at all surprised if there were over 250 individuals there that day! It was utterly Crazy! All 3 Scoter species were seen that day, with 100+ individual White-winged, 42 Surf, and 13 Black, all three of these were high-counts. All the likely ducks were seen there as well, also in fairly high numbers! There were Tons of Horned Grebes in the water flying back and forth, with a few Red-necked Grebes thrown in with them! 38 Greater Black-backed Gulls seen, which is the highest count I've ever had of the species, also a few Glaucous Gulls, and individual Lesser Black-backed, and Thayer's Gulls. Out in the distance, 2 Jaeger sp.'s were seen, to far out to ID. One of the best birds there was my second ever Red Phalarope seen flying halfway out. This is another species that there are very few recorded in the county. But the best bird of all, was my LIFER's Sabine's Gull!! Got great looks at 2 as they flew by together! This was very exciting for me! They're very cool looking gulls! Sadly I missed my would-be lifer black-legged kittiwake, but it was still an amazingly awesome birding day!
http://ebird.org/ebird/canada/view/checklist?subID=S11902915
Here is my checklist for that day.
But anyways this is the end of this post. Sorry for not posting lately!
And thank you for reading!
Good Birding!
(ps. if either of my parents are reading this, can I borrow the car tomorrow?)
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