So the 2017 Birdathon day was May 19th! We had rented a cottage for the week near Point Pelee (right across the road from Birdie’s Perch, in fact… oh those perch po’boys are sooooo good) and after careful consideration of the weather forecast, we decided that Friday was going to be the day. The alarm went off super early and our count officially started at 5:45am. The first bird of the day: an American Robin singing its heart out just outside the cottage. We listened and watched around the cottage for a while, picking up 15 species before heading off to Point Pelee National Park.

We arrived in the Park around 6:40. We pulled off the road briefly at the Sanctuary parking area to have a look around. Another 14 species were added to the list before we decided that there were too many mosquitoes and it was time to move on!

Ready to go! Got the t-shirt and everything!

We started on the Woodland Trail a few minutes after 7am. The forest was not super active, but there were some nice birds around. It was really great to see the Prothonotary Warblers in the swampy areas. This was the first time I’d seen this bird outside of Pelee Island. This species is classified as Endangered in Ontario so it’s wonderful to find them nesting! We arrived at the tram stop shortly after 9am, having added another 22 species to the list, bringing our total to 51 so far.

At the tip, of course the first bird we saw there was a Barn Swallow! I love those guys. They nest under the pavilion there and are always swooping all over, right past your head.

Barn Swallow

Some highlights from the Tip include Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo that was very nearly impossible to spot. There were no shorebirds or gulls at the Tip because… there was no Tip! The water level in the lake was so high that there was no spit to be seen.

We arrived back at the Visitor Centre around 10:40am. We paused for a quick break under the Festival of Birds tents and were entertained by a very bold Red-winged Blackbird looking for a snack. There are signs everywhere saying not to feed the wildlife but I’ll admit, I might have given him a tiny piece of my apple because he was just so damn cute. Heading back to the car, we were treated to the sight of some soaring Turkey Vultures and a rather scruffy-looking Cooper’s Hawk. Species total so far? 64.

We hit up the Tilden Woods trail starting at 11am. There were lots of birds in the woods, but it was getting harder to find NEW species. But there was a beautiful Eastern Bluebird right near the start of the trail, and deeper in the forest we saw an amazing male Scarlet Tanager (even though that was not a new species for the list, we had seen a female earlier in the day near the Tip). We decided to head out of the Park to find some lunch, stopping briefly at the little marsh lookout along the road where we finally found a Blue Heron, bringing the list up to 70 species before lunch. Not bad?

After a big lunch at Freddy’s it was onward to Hillman Marsh, which is THE place to go if you want to find shorebirds. And we wanted to find shorebirds!! We had bought a spotting scope just the day before and were eager to try it out.

Dunlin

We found lots of great shorebirds at the Marsh, including Whimbrels and a White-rumped Sandpiper which was the subject of much debate among the more experienced birders. The spotting scope was really great, and helped us to actually identify lots of the shorebirds ourselves… our shorebird ID skills are not well-developed, but we’re learning. There were also a pair of American Wigeons and Northern Shovelers.

A flock of Bird Nerds at Hillman Marsh

After spending a fair bit of time at Hillman Marsh, our species list was up to 86. We headed back to the cottage for a much-needed beer break, where we were treated to the sight of a pair of Spotted Sandpipers appearing on the lakeside rocks right in front of the cottage!

Spotted Sandpiper

We headed for an early dinner in Leamington, after which it started to rain which really put a damper on our remaining plans. We had wanted to go to the Deslaurier Homestead trail (around sunset, to hopefully find some Woodcocks) and maybe a couple of other places… but as it was, we drove back into the park and quickly visited the Marsh Boardwalk and stood in the miserable cold wet wind for long enough to see a Wood Duck fly overhead. That was, unfortunately, the end of our Birdathon at that point, with a total of 88 species. A new record for us! It’s too bad we didn’t make it to 100, though. If we’d been able to do our rained-out plans AND if we’d found a couple of notable absences (for instance, we tried really hard to find either a Northern Flicker or House Finch but there just wasn’t one around) we might have made it to 100. Maybe next year!!

Here is the entire species list, in order:

1. American Robin
2. Mallard
3. Tree Swallow
4. Herring Gull
5. Ring-billed Gull
6. Red-winged Blackbird
7. European Starling
8. House Sparrow
9. Purple Martin
10. Common Grackle
11. Killdeer
12. Mourning Dove
13. Brown-headed Cowbird
14. Northern Cardinal
15. Canada Goose
16. Yellow Warbler
17. Cedar Waxwing
18. Eastern Wood-Pewee
19. Common Yellowthroat
20. Baltimore Oriole
21. Great Crested Flycatcher
22. Hermit Thrush
23. Red-eyed Vireo
24. Wild Turkey
25. Warbling Vireo
26. Blue Jay
27. Eastern Kingbird
28. Gray Catbird
29. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
30. Blackburnian Warbler
31. House Wren
32. Veery
33. American Redstart
34. Tennessee Warbler
35. Red-bellied Woodpecker
36. Swainson’s Thrush
37. Chestnut-sided Warbler
38. Prothonotary Warbler
39. Bay-breasted Warbler
40. Magnolia Warbler
41. Canada Warbler
42. Wilson’s Warbler
43. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
44. Blackpoll Warbler
45. American Crow
46. Downy Woodpecker
47. Black-throated Green Warbler
48. Cape May Warbler
49. Orchard Oriole
50. Barn Swallow
51. Chimney Swift
52. Eastern Phoebe
53. American Goldfinch
54. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
55. Willow Flycatcher
56. Indigo Bunting
57. Scarlet Tanager
58. Double-crested Cormorant
59. Yellow-billed Cuckoo
60. Red-breasted Merganser
61. Turkey Vulture
62. Cooper’s Hawk
63. Sharp-shinned Hawk
64. Broad-winged Hawk
65. Eastern Bluebird
66. Black and White Warbler
67. Yellow-rumped Warbler
68. Blue Heron
69. Song Sparrow
70. Great Egret
71. Chipping Sparrow
72. Dunlin
73. Black-bellied Plover
74. American Wigeon
75. Northern Shoveler
76. Semipalmated Plover
77. Ruddy Turnstone
78. Lesser Yellowlegs
79. Northern Rough-winged Swallow
80. Semipalmated Sandpiper
81. Short-billed Dowitcher
82. Common Tern
83. Bonaparte’s Gull
84. White-rumped Sandpiper
85. Whimbrel
86. Least Sandpiper
87. Spotted Sandpiper
88. Wood Duck

First: the donation link…click the logo to go to my donation page. Help support the good work of Bird Studies Canada and the Pelee Island Bird Observatory.

This year, we did our Birdathon day in conjunction with the Botham Cup “Green” bird race, an annual tradition as part of the Spring Song festival weekend on Pelee Island. I’ve wanted to attend this festival for several years, but theatre commitments have kept me at home. But no TCP show this spring means… let’s go to Pelee Island!!

After what ended up being a very stressful few days of packing, we woke up bright and early on Friday May 8 and hit the highway to Leamington, aiming to catch the 10am ferry. It just wouldn’t be a trip to Pelee without posting the requisite Jiimaan picture, so here it is:

The Jiimaan arrives.

After a blissfully uneventful crossing, we arrived on the Island just in time for the Botham Cup race official kickoff at noon. We were given a checklist, a set of rules (most notable: travel by human power only!!) and 24 hours to see as many bird species as we could.

The first thing we did was drive over to the cottage we had rented for the week: bird races are one thing, but we had a car full of stuff to unpack, and a cooler full of food that needed refrigeration. But to be completely honest and fair, we didn’t officially start counting birds until after we had parked the car at the cottage! After unpacking, the first thing we did was… have some lunch and relax for a few minutes. We’d been up since 5am, and we were tired! It was a wonderful little while of lazy birding, though. Our cottage was in a great birding location, and we picked up our first 20 species or so just by sitting in chairs on the grass, watching the nearby trees.

After a little while, we decided we’d better get going, so we got on the bikes and went looking for more birds. We decided against the obvious first choice destination (Fish Point) for now, thinking there wouldn’t be much bird activity there in the heat of the afternoon. So we headed east along the South Shore Road, and ended up at the Stone Road Alvar, where we had a pleasant walk through a little trail I was quite familiar with from my PIBO days working on the Breeding Bird Census.

After that it was back to the cottage for a bit of dinner and more lazy birding, where we were lucky enough to have a female Summer Tanager come right to US! (We never did see the male, though.) Afterward we got back on the bikes and went out to Fish Point as evening was descending, detouring slightly to check out a lovely Bald Eagle nest on the way. We found things to be fairly quiet in the woods, but as we neared the path exit to the beach, we came across several fellow birders who told us that not only were there a few nice shorebirds at the tip, but there were many songbirds just arriving from across the lake and they were congregating in a large willow tree. What a great find! Lots of warblers, and even a couple of hummingbirds.

We lingered on the beach for a while (long after most of the other birders had left) and walked slowly back through the woods as darkness fell. We had high hopes of finding owls… I tried calling for Screech Owls, but unfortunately we had no response and heard no evidence of any other owl species either. Too bad! We did hear Common Nighthawks calling as we rode back to the cottage, though.

The next morning we woke up bird-nerd early. My poor behind protested loudly at being forced back onto the bike seat, but we made it back to Fish Point where we discovered that the woods were fairly quiet once again… but we did manage to pick up some nice warblers, and a few more interesting shorebirds at the point. (Pro tip: if you’re bad at shorebird ID, just stand around near a group of other birders and eavesdrop.) We left Fish Point in search of second breakfast (pancakes at the Legion, mmm) and then headed across East West Road to hit up a little trail behind the winery property in a last-ditch effort to expand our species list before the noon deadline. We managed a few extra species (Blackburnian Warbler!) and then went back to the Heritage Centre to turn in our checklist.

Our full Birdathon/Botham Cup species list:

1. Horned Grebe
2. Double-crested Cormorant
3. Great Blue Heron
4. Great Egret
5. Canada Goose
6. Wood Duck
7. Mallard
8. American Wigeon
9. Red-breasted Merganser
10. Bald Eagle
11. Wild Turkey
12. Killdeer
13. Willet
14. Ruddy Turnstone
15. Dunlin
16. Ring-billed Gull
17. Herring Gull
18. Greater Black-backed Gull
19. Mourning Dove
20. Yellow-billed Cuckoo
21. Common Nighthawk
22. Chimney Swift
23. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
24. Red-headed Woodpecker
25. Red-bellied Woodpecker
26. Downy Woodpecker
27. Northern Flicker
28. Eastern Wood-Pewee
29. Willow Flycatcher
30. Great Crested Flycatcher
31. Eastern Kingbird
32. Warbling Vireo
33. Red-eyed Vireo
34. Blue Jay
35. Purple Martin
36. Tree Swallow
37. Barn Swallow
38. Black-capped Chickadee
39. House Wren
40. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
41. American Robin
42. Swainson’s Thrush
43. Gray Catbird
44. European Starling
45. Cedar Waxwing
46. Northern Parula
47. Tennessee Warbler
48. Nashville Warbler
49. Yellow Warbler
50. Magnolia Warbler
51. Cape May Warbler
52. Blackburnian Warbler
53. Black-throated Green Warbler
54. Yellow-rumped Warbler
55. Palm Warbler
56. Bay-breasted Warbler
57. Black-and-white Warbler
58. Common Yellowthroat
59. Scarlet Tanager
60. Summer Tanager
61. Northern Cardinal
62. Indigo Bunting
63. Chipping Sparrow
64. Field Sparrow
65. Song Sparrow
66. White-crowned Sparrow
67. Baltimore Oriole
68. Red-winged Blackbird
69. Common Grackle
70. Brown-headed Cowbird
71. American Goldfinch
72. House Sparrow

A paltry 72 species! Although I guess not bad when you consider that we took a kind of lazy approach to it. But the winning Botham Cup team saw 123 species. We are just not that hard core.

It was certainly a challenge only being able to travel by bike. Pelee Island isn’t a very big place, but it’s big enough that for someone who was on their bike for the first time this season (ie. me) it was pretty much impossible to make it up to the north end of the Island, or check out the fields along the central roads. We certainly would have been able to add many more species to our list if we were able to be more mobile!

Tired birder after Birdathon!

After the Spring Song weekend was over, we remained on the Island until the following Friday, enjoying a lovely vacation and eventually bringing our species total up to 95. Highlights included watching a Prothonotary Warbler engaging in nesting activity, visiting our friends at the Pelee Island Bird Observatory banding station, and a particularly lovely evening drive up the Centre Dyke Road past fields full of wild turkeys and various plovers.

A just-banded Yellow Warbler at the PIBO banding station.

For interest’s sake, here is the list of the additional species that we saw after the Birdathon was over:

1. Turkey Vulture
2. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
3. Common Loon
4. Least Sandpiper
5. Common Tern
6. Green Heron
7. American Crow
8. Blue-winged Teal
9. Sanderling
10. Bonaparte’s Gull
11. Northern Waterthrush
12. House Finch
13. Prothonotary Warbler
14. Ring-necked Pheasant
15. Horned Lark
16. Black-bellied Plover
17. American Golden Plover
18. Semipalmated Plover
19. Brown Thrasher
20. Savannah Sparrow
21. Northern Rough-winged Swallow
22. Ovenbird
23. Blackpoll Warbler

If you enjoyed reading this, please consider donating to our Birdathon! The donation link is at the top of this post! Help support Bird Studies Canada and the Pelee Island Bird Observatory. It’s all for the birds!

Again: a request for donations! Please CLICK HERE to visit my personal donation page to help support Bird Studies Canada.

This year’s trip was a little different! Time-constrained by theatre commitments and weather, we had only a very short two-day window in which to complete the Birdathon. I was also accompanied by my lovely husband Chris! So last Wednesday, we packed up the car and drove south…

Goofy Pre-Trip Car Selfie

We stayed at Wheatley Provincial Park again. Birdathon Day dawned bright and early. We commenced counting a half-hour before dawn, and the Red-winged Blackbird was able to defend its title from 2013 as “first bird of the Birdathon”!! So many Redwings. So. Many.

Bird nerds eat breakfast in the dark.

After counting birds over breakfast for about an hour, we packed up and headed for Point Pelee National Park. Saw several more species on the way to the park, bringing the total for the day so far to 34.

We hit the Woodland Trail by the Visitor’s Centre first thing. Lots of lovely orioles (both Baltimore and Orchard), Blackburnian Warblers and a surprising number of Scarlet Tanagers gave the forest greenery bright splashes of red and orange. Also lots of Black-billed Cuckoos! After about two hours on the trail we had brought our species count up to 49.

Canada Warbler

We returned to the Visitor’s Centre for a brief break where we were treated to the sight of a Cooper’s Hawk above the parking lot. We climbed onto the tram and headed to the Tip, where we picked up several more species (including a lone Solitary Sandpiper in with the gulls…how appropriate) to bring the total up to 66.

Goofy tram selfie. Chris isn’t paying attention!

We arrived back at the Visitor’s Centre where we ate lunch, then headed for the Tilden Woods trail. We spent another hour in the woods there, but only managed to get TWO new species for the list! Memorable ones, though. A Ruby-throated Hummingbird buzzed past us at one point, looking for flowers. I love seeing hummingbirds “in the wild” like that, ie. not at someone’s backyard feeder! A little later on, after having seen our umpteenth Red-eyed Vireo, Chris asked me about what kinds of other vireos there were, so I showed him the pictures in the field guide. Just a couple of minutes later, I looked up into a nearby tree to see…a Blue-headed Vireo! After that, Chris wondered what other birds he should ask about…

Wilson’s Warbler

We were feeling a little stuck on forest species, so we decided to switch habitats and head for the Marsh Boardwalk. It was a lovely day on the water, but only three new species for the list…Black Terns, Swamp Sparrows and a pair of Wood Ducks. I’d been hoping to see Mallards and maybe a heron here, but…nothing! We were feeling a little frustrated so we climbed into the car and headed out of the Park in search of ice cream. Happily, while waiting at Birdie’s Perch, we saw Purple Martins and a Great Blue Heron flying overhead. Species total is now sitting at 73! We ducked into Pelee Wings Nature Store to check out some nice binoculars before heading back into the Park. (I think I’m going to be upgrading my binoculars in the fall…I love my old Nikon Monarchs but poor Chris is using a pair of really crappy Bushnells and if I upgrade my set, he can have my old Nikons and then we’ll both be much happier bird nerds.)

Chipping Sparrow

We decided to take a stab at the Deslaurier Homestead trail before stopping for dinner, hoping that another habitat switch would net us some different birdies. Unfortunately, we only got ONE new bird for the list. I’ve never been so excited to see a White-crowned Sparrow! We also saw a Five-lined Skink, which is not a bird of course but was still pretty cool, since they are listed as endangered. They are also pretty cute! So, at the dinner break, our species count is 74.

Common Grackle at Birdie’s Perch

Over dinner, we discussed what our options were for the rest of the day. I’d been hoping to be at the Deslaurier Homestead parking lot around dusk to see American Woodcock doing their courtship display, but given the lateness of the season I didn’t have much confidence that we would actually see any. So, we decided instead to head back to Wheatley Provincial Park, where perhaps we could find some strangely elusive species that we just weren’t seeing at Pelee.

Eastern Kingbird contortions

On the drive back to Wheatley, we FINALLY saw a lone Mallard duck, and also some Chimney Swifts as we were driving through the town. Back at the park, I managed to find a Bank Swallow and Chris tracked down a Northern Flicker. Only 78 species?? I knew there was a Great Egret in the wetland by the day use area, since we’d seen it the day before. It wasn’t immediately visible though, and I decided that I needed to find it! I had to walk all the way to the opposite end of the day use area (a little farther than I’d wanted to be walking after being on my poor feet all day already) but I found it!

Great Egret and Canada Geese

So, that brought our species list to 79. The sun was down by this point, so we headed back to the campsite for the night. We had high hopes of hearing an owl (we were pretty sure we’d heard a Screech Owl the previous night) but alas, we didn’t hear anything at all overnight, even after trying to call for one.

Overall impressions: So many Scarlet Tanagers! Wow! And it’s definitely better to do this a little earlier in May. There were quite a number of migrants that we completely missed due to the lateness of the trip. And I think next year (assuming we do it at Point Pelee again) we need to make a point of leaving the Park in order to find more waterfowl and shorebirds.

Thanks to Chris for the bird photos.

Edit: after typing out the list below, I realized that I had Song Sparrow on there twice. So actually we only saw 78 species.

Here is the species list, in order!

1. Red-winged Blackbird
2. Least Flycatcher
3. Wild Turkey
4. Canada Goose
5. Common Grackle
6. Northern Cardinal
7. Black-capped Chickadee
8. Great Crested Flycatcher
9. American Crow
10. Tree Swallow
11. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
12. American Robin
13. Gray Catbird
14. Ovenbird
15. Eastern Wood Pewee
16. Blue Jay
17. Mourning Dove
18. Wood Thrush
19. Brown-headed Cowbird
20. European Starling
21. Downy Woodpecker
22. Eastern Kingbird
23. Red-eyed Vireo
24. Yellow Warbler
25. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
26. House Wren
27. Chipping Sparrow
28. Barn Swallow
29. House Sparrow
30. Killdeer
31. Indigo Bunting
32. Turkey Vulture
33. Northern Rough-winged Swallow
34. Song Sparrow
35. Baltimore Oriole
36. Orchard Oriole
37. Blackburnian Warbler
38. Scarlet Tanager
39. Yellow-billed Cuckoo
40. Warbling Vireo
41. American Redstart
42. Chestnut-sided Warbler
43. Magnolia Warbler
44. Black-billed Cuckoo
45. Canada Warbler
46. Black-throated Green Warbler
47. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
48. Black and White Warbler
49. Double-crested Cormorant
50. Cooper’s Hawk
51. American Goldfinch
52. Eastern Towhee
53. Savannah Sparrow
54. Connecticut Warbler
55. Nashville Warbler
56. Bay-breasted Warbler
57. Willow Flycatcher
58. Common Yellowthroat
59. Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)
60. Ring-billed Gull
61. Swainson’s Thrush
62. Solitary Sandpiper
63. Herring Gull
64. Common Tern
65. Wilson’s Warbler
66. Blue-headed Vireo
67. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
68. Black Tern
69. Swamp Sparrow
70. Wood Duck
71. Purple Martin
72. Great Blue Heron
73. White-crowned Sparrow
74. Mallard
75. Chimney Swift
76. Bank Swallow
77. Northern Flicker
78. Great Egret

Wood Duck

Wood Duck and Mallards

Red-winged Blackbird

Black-capped Chickadees

Also I must note that this morning, we caught sight of a Golden-crowned Kinglet in our backyard! Spring migration is underway!!

Before I begin, I will start with another request for donations! Please CLICK HERE to go to my donation page! This trip was all for the birds, so please help support Bird Studies Canada.

My performance with TCP’s Fiddler on the Roof orchestra wrapped up this past Sunday, leaving me free to think about when I would do my Baillie Birdathon trip. After agonizing for a couple of days over destinations and weather forecasts, I finally threw the camping gear in the car and headed out the door on Tuesday afternoon, pointing the car southwest. I was headed to a place I’d never been before: Point Pelee National Park, a birding mecca. What better place to try to see as many species as possible? Well, maybe Pelee Island, where I’ve spent a LOT of time birding…but staying on the mainland and not having to factor the ferry travel into the trip schedule made the destination choice a little easier.

My first stop was Wheatley Provincial Park, which would be my home base for the next two nights. It’s about half an hour from Point Pelee, which isn’t too bad. There were other, private campgrounds closer to the park where I could have stayed, but I really like Ontario’s provincial parks. They’re like Tim Horton’s. Always the same no matter where in the province you are. No wondering if the camp sites will be nice, or if the washrooms will be horrible. You know what you’re going to get, and that is important to me!

I arrived just before dinnertime, set up my tent, then drove into bustling downtown Wheatley to find some dinner. Picked up a sub at Subway and took it back to the park, and shared my picnic table with a very large, very fast wolf spider while I ate it. After I was done, I grabbed my binocs and headed toward the lake shore and the park’s only hiking trail. I decided to do sort of a “practice run” for the next day, and record how many bird species I would see! Over the course of an hour and a half (from 6 – 7:30pm) I was able to record 32 species. I won’t list them here, but notables were the pair of Great Egrets in the pond, a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk being harassed by several blackbirds, and the lovely Blackburnian Warbler that visited my camp site. After I got back to camp, I enjoyed a little camp fire for a while and then headed for bed nice and early to be well-rested for the next day.

The next morning, I woke up at 5am to a chorus of singing birds! Let’s get this show on the road!

Bird Nerd Breakfast

Sunrise was scheduled for 6:11am, so I officially started my 24-hour count period at 5:40am. I sat at my picnic table for an hour, listening and watching as I ate my oatmeal and drank my coffee. I picked up 18 species without having to move an inch. The first bird of the day was a Red-winged Blackbird. (I had been thinking the night before about what the first bird was most likely to be, and I couldn’t decide if it would be a Redwing, or a robin. Both had been singing since well before I got out of bed, but the Redwing was what I heard first when I started the count! Mr. Robin came in second. Third place was a cardinal!)

I was in the car and on my way to Point Pelee by 7am. Recorded four more species en route, bringing me to 22.

I arrived at Point Pelee around 7:30am. After parking the car and briefly checking out the Visitor’s Centre, I hit the Woodlands Trail to look for some birds! From 7:55am until 10:10am I wandered the trail, and found 19 species of birds. Notables included a Brown Thrasher, Scarlet Tanager, another Blackburnian Warbler, and a couple of Wild Turkeys that wandered by as I was watching a White-tailed Deer nibbling on some leaves. The woods were crawling with orioles! Black and orange everywhere you looked. I was a little disappointed at the general lack of warblers, though. Back at the Visitor’s Centre I saw a Killdeer and a Red-breasted Nuthatch, bringing my species total up to 43 so far.

I hopped on the tram to head for the Tip, arriving at about 10:30. While walking along the trail to the Tip, I saw a Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Palm Warbler (among others) and took a long, hard look at a lone duck out on the water, which I determined to be a Lesser Scaup. Once I got to the actual Tip, I was treated to the sight of many gulls, terns and a few shorebirds. This is where my birding weakness lies! My ID skills on gulls and shorebirds are so weak. I stared at the birds for a long time, and was able to pick out Common Terns, Bonaparte’s Gulls, both Herring and Ring-Billed Gulls, a Solitary Sandpiper and a Caspian Tern. I missed a few potential species here, though, because I couldn’t positively ID them. Oh well! I think the strangest sight of the day happened out here at the Tip: I saw a tiny Ruby-throated Hummingbird buzzing around amongst the gulls, out over the water at the Tip! Not sure what it was doing there, but this is not the first time I’ve seen this kind of behaviour from a hummingbird. I recall seeing one doing this exact same thing at the end of Fish Point on Pelee Island.

After returning to the Visitor’s Centre at about 11:40am, my species total was up to 58. I hung around the Centre to eat some lunch and wait for the afternoon guided hike to start. The hike started at 1pm, and would take us around the Woodlands Trail again, the same trail I hiked in the morning. I was a little worried that maybe I should have done a different trail in the morning instead of hiking the same one twice, but as it turns out, it was alright! In the heat of the afternoon, there were many, many warblers in the woods. Highlights of the early afternoon were a Blue-winged Warbler, a Worm-eating Warbler and a Yellow-throated Vireo, all of which were birds I had never seen before. I also caught sight of a flying squirrel high up in a tree, which is a little unusual since it was bright daytime. There had been reports of a Prothonotary Warbler hanging out on this trail, but we didn’t find it.

Back at the Visitor’s Centre by 3:30, my species count was 76. I had been hearing reports of a very rare Kirtland’s Warbler near the entrance to the Northwest Beach parking lot, so I decided to get in the car and head up that way to see if it was still there. Arriving at the parking lot entrance, I found a HUGE crowd of birders all trying to catch a glimpse of this little bird! I stood with them for about twenty minutes, and we saw many OTHER birds, but there was no sign of the Kirtland’s. I was tired and hungry so I gave up, left the park around 4pm in search of somewhere to get some dinner.

After refuelling with a delicious dinner of fried perch at “Paula’s Fish Place” just down the road, I came back to the park and started on the Marsh Boardwalk trail around 5:20pm. The reeds were swarming with Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Yellowthroats, but here I was only able to pick up four “new” species for my list. It was lots of fun watching a small flock of Black Terns flying around over the water! Lots of frogs and turtles, too. I was done by about 6:10pm, my species count sitting at 81.

I was scheduled to attend the “twilight hike” at the Delaurier Trail, which was supposed to start at 7pm. I headed straight for the parking lot and relaxed in my car for a little while, since I was pretty tired from walking all day! While I waited, I pulled out the camera and took the ONLY photos I took all day (other than the breakfast photo) of some super-cute Chipping Sparrows that were foraging in the parking lot quite close to the car.

Chipping Sparrow

I was looking forward to this evening hike, since I was hoping to get into some slightly different habitat than the forest-type places I’d been in for most of the day. Maybe find some grassland/savannah birds, and there was a chance of seeing a Yellow-breasted Chat! However, we started along the trail, and things were very quiet, so the guide decided to change locations and take us up to the Northwest Beach parking lot to look for that Kirtland’s Warbler. We all piled into cars and headed up the road. I was disappointed at missing out on the grassland habitat but…WE FOUND THE KIRTLAND’S WARBLER!!! So that was pretty cool. We also saw LOTS of other types of warblers while we were there (unfortunately nothing “new” for my list though, other than the Kirtland’s and a lone Tennessee Warbler.) Eventually we headed back to the Deslaurier Trail parking lot, where we found a Common Nighthawk flying overhead. Then, around 9pm, we were able to see the courtship display of some American Woodcock! I’ve seen Woodcock before, but I’ve never actually seen their display. They are just the cutest things. To look at them, you’d wonder how they can even fly at all.

It was the end of the day, and I was EXHAUSTED. Species count: 86. Maybe I could have had 100 if I’d tried harder to visit more diverse habitats, who knows? But I was still pretty happy with my birds. I left Point Pelee and headed back to Wheatley, and I only made one wrong turn in the darkness, hahah.

I had been thinking about maybe doing some owl-prowling during the night, but I decided against it. The park’s only hiking trail didn’t seem like it was in an area where I’d have a good chance of success, and I didn’t want to just wander around the campgrounds in the dark. Also, I was really tired. Like, really really tired. But as it turned out, the owl came to me! As I was getting ready for bed, I heard an Eastern Screech Owl calling not too far away. Their call is fairly easy to imitate, so I had a nice little chat with the owl before falling into my sleeping bag for the night.

So, final species tally: 87. Here is the full list, in the order in which I saw/heard them!

1. Red-winged Blackbird
2. American Robin
3. Northern Cardinal
4. Black-capped Chickadee
5. European Starling
6. Common Grackle
7. Wild Turkey
8. American Crow
9. Least Flycatcher
10. Great Crested Flycatcher
11. Blue Jay
12. Veery
13. Northern Waterthrush
14. Ovenbird
15. Downy Woodpecker
16. Canada Goose
17. Tree Swallow
18. Mourning Dove
19. Baltimore Oriole
20. Eastern Kingbird
21. Yellow Warbler
22. Chipping Sparrow
23. Red-eyed Vireo
24. Brown Thrasher
25. Orchard Oriole
26. Scarlet Tanager
27. Nashville Warbler
28. White-crowned Sparrow
29. Black-throated Blue Warbler
30. Gray Catbird
31. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
32. Eastern Wood Pewee
33. Lincoln’s Sparrow
34. Great Blue Heron
35. Traill’s Flycatcher
36. House Wren
37. Pine Siskin
38. Pine Warbler
39. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
40. American Redstart
41. Blackburnian Warbler
42. Killdeer
43. Red-breasted Nuthatch
44. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
45. Warbling Vireo
46. Palm Warbler
47. Lesser Scaup
48. Double-crested Cormorant
49. Herring Gull
50. Ring-billed Gull
51. Common Tern
52. Bonaparte’s Gull
53. Solitary Sandpiper
54. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
55. Barn Swallow
56. Caspian Tern
57. Yellow-shafted Flicker
58. American Goldfinch
59. Cooper’s Hawk
60. House Finch
61. Blue-winged Warbler
62. Black & White Warbler
63. Chestnut-sided Warbler
64. Northern Parula
65. Cape May Warbler
66. Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler
67. Common Yellowthroat
68. Magnolia Warbler
69. Worm-eating Warbler
70. Carolina Wren
71. Black-throated Green Warbler
72. Yellow-throated Vireo
73. Blue-headed Vireo
74. Red-bellied Woodpecker
75. Northern Harrier
76. Red-tailed Hawk
77. Eastern Towhee
78. Swamp Sparrow
79. Bank Swallow
80. Black Tern
81. Mallard
82. Eastern Bluebird
83. Kirtland’s Warbler
84. Tennessee Warbler
85. Common Nighthawk
86. American Woodcock
87. Eastern Screech Owl

Birds I am surprised I did NOT see: Brown-headed Cowbird, Song Sparrow, House Sparrow

Birds I am disappointed I didn’t see, but not surprised: Cerulean Warbler (there had been reports of one near the Visitor’s Centre), Prothonotary Warbler, Red-headed Woodpecker (also had been several near the VC in previous days)

Things I learned:

• I really quite enjoy camping alone.
• I don’t fit in with most of the types of “serious” birders I saw at the park. (At least I have a Tilley hat, although even my Tilley is weird, since it’s one of the brown hemp ones instead of the typical beige.)
• Point Pelee is super awesome but you couldn’t PAY me to go there on a weekend during migration. As it was, during the week, the people very nearly outnumbered the birds.
• I’m really glad I’m not a bird and/or nature photographer, because those massive lenses and tripods look really heavy. Some people had CARTS they were pushing around the trails, to carry all their gear!
• I can find and identify songbirds really well. In fact, I think I annoyed the evening hike’s guide a little bit by finding, ID’ing and pointing out all the warblers for the group faster than he was. Oops.
• Having said that, I am completely hopeless at anything that’s not a songbird. I need to get better.

Overall: that was a super fun trip but I’ve never birded so hard for such an extended period of time before! I’ll be very happy to go back to my casual, non-list-keeping style of birding.

Thanks for reading, and once again here’s a link to my donation page!

Yellow Warbler, being shown to the people gathered for the demonstration.

Despite not catching many birds, I still managed to get two new species for my “birds banded” list: a Lincoln’s Sparrow, and Brown-Headed Cowbird.

Lincoln’s Sparrow

I had to leave a little early to head to New Hamburg, since I was already late for the 9am rehearsal for Fiddler!

Sunday was another lovely-weather day, which didn’t bode well for catching migrants. I arrived just a tiny bit too late to go on the net-opening round, so I listened to the birds in the pre-dawn as I sat at the table and waited. Loved the sound of wild turkeys gobblin’ it up somewhere in the distance, and admired the small herd of deer that passed close by. Lots of birds were singing, but I was actually able to identify all the songs I heard, which means that none of the singers were migrating warblers!

Once the nets were open, each round brought in just a few birds. We caught a White-Crowned Sparrow, which was another new bird for my species list, so that’s nice. Near the end of the morning, we witnessed the most adorably cute bit of Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher drama: we caught a female in the net, and what was obviously her mate was hanging around having a little freakout in the nearby trees. Totally heartbreaking! But they were happily reunited later on, the female with a nice new bit of bling. We also heard an Orchard Oriole singing (and some other folks spotted him, and got some nice photos) as well as a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak. There was also an Eastern Kingbird hanging around. Nice to see them back for the spring!

Things I learned: I despair of ever being able to actually learn to age these birds. Especially sparrows. It’s so hard. And Red-Winged Blackbirds can bite hard enough to draw blood. Also, getting up at 4:45am on Saturday and Sunday while still trying to live a normal life during the rest of the week (and weekend) which includes the run-up to production week for a major show is hard. Next weekend (which is actually show weekend) should be…interesting. Heh.

After we closed up the empty nets for the morning, we got down to the serious business of the day: beer sampling.

The morning’s beer selection.

I brought some Garbage Pail Ale from Mount Breithaupt Brewery for people to try, and they seemed to like it. Hopefully some of Banquo’s Pilsner is properly carbonated by next weekend. Hopefully the weather is a bit better for bird-catching next weekend too!

This season I am joining Kevin Grundy (and others) to do some banding on the weekends at the rare Charitable Research Reserve in Blair, near Cambridge. It’s good to be able to be living at home and still do some banding, even if it’s only on the weekends. The weather was co-operating, and it was going to be a lovely day! They had been out yesterday, but I was unable to join them because I was busy with the Bloomin’ Earth show in downtown Kitchener. We didn’t catch very many birds today, but I got to band some American Goldfinches and a couple of Song Sparrows. They had banded an American Woodcock just before I got there! I guess I was a bit too slow.

House Wren

Frosty Morning

Tools

Swamp Sparrow

Ladybug Plays A Game

I’m looking forward to next weekend. Assuming the weather is okay, we’re going to be doing a rare-sponsored bird banding demonstration, so that should be pretty neat.

Support me in the 2013 Baillie Birdathon!

Clicking that lovely photo above will take you to my personal donation page at the Bird Studies Canada website, where you can pledge money online. You can pledge a single amount, or you can pledge per-species! (If you want to pledge per-species, please contact me directly – you can still donate online in this case, but your donation will have to be made AFTER I complete the Birdathon in May.)  If you don’t want to donate online, just contact me and you can donate directly! You can email me at ecmoffat at gmail dot com. All donations of $10 or more will receive a charitable donation receipt for income tax purposes.

What is the Baillie Birdathon?

Bird Studies Canada’s (BSC’s) Baillie BIRDATHON is the oldest sponsored bird count in North America. It’s also a great excuse to spend a day birding!

Where does the money go?

Raising money for the Baillie BIRDATHON is a great way to have fun while supporting bird conservation across Canada. The funds raised go to:

• Bird Studies Canada, to support the many programs that advance the understanding, appreciation, and conservation of wild birds and their habitats.
• Local conservation organizations. BIRDATHON participants can designate groups such as naturalists’ clubs or Canadian Migration Monitoring Network stations to receive a share of the revenue. In my case, I will be directing this portion of my funds raised to the Haldimand Bird Observatory.
• The Baillie Fund, which provides funds for conservation projects, with priority to those involving volunteer naturalists. Since its inception in 1976, the Baillie Fund has awarded grants to approximately 500 bird conservation and research projects in Canada.
• Students at Canadian universities who apply for the annual $1,000 James L. Baillie Student Research Award.

Northern Saw Whet Owl, looking so pretty!

Northern Saw Whet Owl, looking SO CUTE!!!!

They’re so soft and fluffy. Except for the talons, they’re pretty pointy. I’ve got some new holes in my thumb that weren’t there before!

I hung around for part of the morning banding session and managed to snag two new species for my list, a Slate Coloured Junco and a Brown Creeper. Here they are!

Brown Creeper

Slate Coloured Junco

And now, because I basically haven’t slept in ~30 hours and have done a ridiculous amount of driving in that time, I’m going to bed.

So where does a Bird Nerd go from here? For now, I need to change focus and work hard on the pre-Art-Walk and pre-Christmas-on-Etsy prep for my glass art business. I have lots of lost time to make up for! I’ve also got some theatre projects in the works that will keep me VERY busy between now and February. But in the Spring, hopefully I will be doing a bit of banding closer to home. This blog will be pretty quiet until then, but I expect I’ll take it up again later on, even if it’s just to post the occasional picture.

Thanks for following my Bird Nerd Adventures! It’s been fun.

Field guide? Pfft, I don’t need no stupid field guide.
(Unless it’s a shorebird. Or a gull. Or…a wader, or a duck. Or a hawk? Or… )