Weekend birding

As Josh mentioned in his post the other day, back on November 10 him and I headed over to the Niagara area to look for a Razorbill that had been reported in New York 2 days previously. After a bit of searching (finding quite a few waterbirds), Josh spotted the Razorbill flying into Ontario waters! We got some good looks at this rarity before it dove to avoid a boat and we were unable to refind it. Lifer! We then spent a fair amount of time searching for a Franklin's Gull and Purple Sandpiper without luck...next time.

Friday night, Emily and I headed down to Long Point to meet up with Keelin and Sarah, my coworkers from the summer, for some owl banding. We managed to arrive just as they were releasing a Saw-whet (they had also caught a Screech-Owl earlier) which was to be the only owl we saw all night unfortunately. The next morning I was up early to help with banding, which was pretty slow due to the winds (managed to band 2 Fox Sparrows though!). Once the others got up, we went for a walk to the Provincial Park, which was cut short when I received a text from Ross saying 'Nogo in the lab, want us to hold it?'. YES! was pretty much my response, and we booked it back to Old Cut just in time to get some looks at this awesome bird (NOGO is Northern Goshawk for anyone not familiar with banding codes!). The pics below pretty much speak for themselves.

Afterward we packed up our stuff due to the lack of birds, and headed out via Big Creek and BSC headquarters. Lots of ducks, swans and coots around along with a Little Gull joining a flock of ~250 Bonaparte's out in the bay. Many hunters also so most ducks were too far out to ID! We then headed off down Lakeshore Rd. on a tip from Ross, where we found 2 Cattle Egrets right where he said they'd be - #307 for my Ontario list! Then it was time to head back to Guelph - an almost pure white Red-tailed Hawk along the 401 was pretty cool to see. 

That's all for now, hopefully some of those rarities that are showing up out west will make their way over here! Lucy's Warbler at Whitefish Point, crazy!