Long Point adventure

On Saturday, Brett Fried, Myles Falconer and I braved the wild weather and birded the Long Point area, including Turkey Point, BSC HQ and the inner bay, Big Creek marsh, Old Cut and Long Point Provincial Park. Despite the 90+ km/h winds and frequent rain storms (including a little bit of lightning very early on!), we managed to find 74 species including a few rarities. First and foremost was the female Yellow-headed Blackbird that flew by us at Big Creek - new for my Ontario list! Old Cut and the park held the rest of the rarities, including extremely late Eastern Kingbirds, Black-and-white Warblers, Black-throated Blue Warblers and a Cape May Warbler along with 5 other species of warbler. Yellow-rumps made up the majority of the birds we found, easily over 1000 of these guys finding shelter from the wind and feeding. In with them were many of the expected migrants (Winter Wren, Hermit Thrush, both Kinglets, Brown Creeper, several sparrow sp, etc) but no mega-rarities as we were hoping. The inner bay was also loaded with birds keeping out of the wind, most were too far out to ID though. We did find a good flock of Bonaparte's Gulls, some Pied-billed Grebes, a lone juvenile Caspian Tern and quite a few ducks, although apparently less than is usual for this time of year according to Myles and Brett. Anyway, it was a pretty good day despite the weather and lack of mega-birds but there is still plenty of time for something to turn up on these winds!

If you're wondering about the two new additions to my blog (namely the little birds that perch on either side of the logo), they're for a cool competition that Audubon is hosting via Facebook. Unfortunately, living in Canada, I am not eligible for prizes but it is still fun to try to find them all! Go give it a shot if you want, there are currently 15+ species out there to find!

Also, answer the quiz! I've only received one comment so far!