On the way down yesterday I made a stop at Erieau, picking
up an adult Little Gull, before hitting Hillman Marsh, finding 17 Willets in
the rain before I met up with Josh. Soon afterwards we got a text from Jeremy
Hatt that he was looking at a Worm-eating Warbler at Kopegaren Woods, so we
raced over there and had great views of this southern warbler (see Josh’s blog
for pics). We wandered the park for a bit after that but didn’t find much of
interest.
This morning things were much better, and we racked up 11
species of warbler (including Blue-winged and Northern Parula) and 11 species
of sparrow (including Grasshopper and some late American Trees) among quite a
few other migrants (Eastern Kingbird, Gray Catbird, Bobolink, Warbling Vireo,
etc). The main highlight of the day however came when we were wandering around
at the Tip, wondering what to do next, when we got a call about a Painted
Bunting coming to a feeder at Pelee Wings. Needless to say, we rushed up there
and after a few minutes of waiting it came right in!
Other than that we didn’t have anything too exciting for the
day. We spent most of the afternoon wandering the Northwest Beach and then
headed over to Hillman after looking for a reported Laughing Gull with no luck. We ended up with 113 species for the day - can’t wait to see what the next 10 days or so bring!
This beaver was sleeping on the beach for a bit before 'migrating' south down the West beach
Pine Warbler playing hide-and-go-seek with the sticks
Black-and-white Warbler
Red-breasted Nuthatch
PAINTED BUNTING!!!! new for me for Canada
Grasshopper Sparrow on the NW beach
I was pretty happy with how this Field Sparrow shot turned out!
At about 7pm the bunting was still being seen (in perfect light) so I went back for a few more shots!
What a great start to my Pelee trip!