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.

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!