Monday, September 28, 2009

Shorebirds!

Saturday morning I went birding with Chris Street and Tom Thomas, heading down to Wildwood Reservoir near Stratford, then up through Hamilton/Burlington to Smithville and back to Guelph. It was a good day despite the rain, and I got 4 new Ontario birds. At Wildwood, the main attraction was an American White Pelican, but I had seen this species in the spring at the Locks so was more interested in the shorebirds. Our list at the end of the hour scanning the mudflats was:

Semipalmated Plover - 6
Killdeer - 100+
Lesser Yellowlegs - 4
Least Sandpiper - 2
Pectoral Sandpiper - 30+
Dunlin - 1
Stilt Sandpiper - 3
Long-billed Dowitcher - 3


The ones in bold were new for my Ontario list, and at one point I had all three in one scope view! There were also a ton of Great Blue Herons around fishing, and quite a few canada geese. Not much else around, so we dropped Tom off and headed down to Smithville, where we saw a Common Moorhen that had been breeding in the sewage lagoons. My fourth new bird of the day, and one I hadn't been expecting to see until next spring.

After reviewing my Ontario list, I found that I missed two birds on the list! Vesper Sparrow and Eastern Towhee were missing from several years ago. That means that I was actually at 262 before I came down here, which also means that I am now at 268 and have passed my Michigan list, with the Common Moorhen! One step closer to my goal of 300 by the end of university.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

University

It's been a while since I last posted, but I haven't really been birding since then. September 5 was move-in day here at Guelph, but I went to Hamilton for the morning to visit Chris Street and see what the birding is like there in fall. We had a decent few hours, with 60+ species including one new Ontario bird for me - Field Sparrow with several individuals. We missed out on shorebirds and jaegers, but had quite a few warblers and ducks, along with some birds I don't often see up in the Sault like Great Egret, House Sparrow, Trumpeter Swan, Carolina Wren and many, many Northern Cardinals. I got moved in after a good wait in the boiling sun, and made a ton of new friends almost right away. Since then it's been work, but not as much as I expected, and socializing - university life is definitely amazing. As I mentioned though, I haven't been birding, but I did add another Ontario (and Canada) bird - Blue-winged Warbler 8 feet away as we were heading for lunch!

I'll try and get out more sometime soon and take some pictures of these great Southern Ontario birds!