Another day at the Point

Jason and I headed over to WPBO yesterday for my last visit until maybe October. Ended up being a kind of slow day, but we did have a little bit of everything, which was nice. Jason's highlights were his lifer Whimbrel, Northern Goshawk as a year bird, and a nice juvenile Least Sandpiper around 4 feet away! In addition to those, we had a few shorebirds, nothing new for me, some warblers, and quite a few raptors including all 3 summer falcons and a darkish juvenile Broad-winged Hawk. Other than that, the strong northwest winds and sunny conditions didn't produce a whole lot - other than a jaeger species that may have made 3 passes (or maybe it was 3 different birds?). Either way, it was too far out in the distortion to ID.

Sanderling in the early morning light

juv. Least Sandpiper (this pic at about 8 feet or so)

Panorama shot from the Tip

HDR pic of the sunrise over the waterbird shack

WPBO yesterday

Yesterday I took two new birders (Lynn and Betty) over to WPBO to see what was around. It was a great day for shorebirds, and a not-so-great day for landbirds due to the weather. A cold front overnight followed by strong north winds dropped a lot of shorebirds at the Point, we ended up with 9 species for the day being: Semipalmated Plover (10+), Piping Plover (1), Greater Yellowlegs (1), Whimbrel (2), Sanderling (30+), Semipalmated Sandpiper (20+), Least Sandpiper (15+), Baird's Sandpiper (10+), and Pectoral Sandpiper (1). 4 of those were new for my year list, putting me at 223. 90+ shorebirds is an amazing day in the Sault, and that doesn't include the flock of 50+ birds that took off before we could get an ID on them. There wasn't much else of note for the day, but the shorebirds and great company made it worth it.

Whimbrel looking for bugs

Piping Plover juvenile

2 Baird's and a Sanderling in flight

Whimbrel tracks in the sand

Juvenile Sanderling

Dragonflies

I took an idea from Neil, and started looking at some of the dragonflies that are around at my house, local parks, and at work. I went back through my photos and found a few pics, two of which I'm pretty sure I got the ID right on. I currently only have the beginner's guide to dragonflies and damselflies by the Stokes'.

Common Baskettail at the Locks

Eight-spotted Skimmer in BC
The other day, I biked down to Bellevue Park to see what dragon/damselflies I could find there, found a few, but the only one I could get an ID on was this Sedge Sprite, shown here with a meal.

At work there are a lot of dragonflies and damselflies around the water traps and grassy areas, so far I have been able to ID Common Whitetail, Eight-spotted Skimmer, Canada Darner, and Dot-tailed Whiteface. There are also many species of bluets, damsels, spreadwings, meadowhawks, and a few darners, skimmers, and spiketails that I have no idea on. I'll have to get myself a better field guide on these guys.

Panoramas

Well, my Photoshop has been refusing to work properly, so I've decided I'm going to wait until I get all my files uploaded onto my new laptop to try again on the HDR thing. In the meantime, I'm going to post some of the Photoshop techniques I've learned over the past few months. The first one is pretty simple, as Photoshop actually has a tool made just for it. In CS3, you can just click File - Automate - Photomerge, and then choose which files you want merged. If you choose Interactive Layout, you can play around with the positions afterwards. You can then crop and edit to your liking. Here are a few I've made so far. They're downsized a lot, so the quality might not be the greatest.

Okanagan Valley, BC - August 1, 2007

Whitewater Lake, MB - August 24, 2007

Tahquamenon Rivermouth, MI - May 6, 2007

Tahquamenon Rivermouth, MI - October 21, 2007

One Month

As the title says, only one month and I will be heading off to university! I've gotten a few necessary things done, but still have a lot more to do... I'm hoping to get over to WPBO once or twice before I leave, as I'm missing a lot of shorebirds for the list along with a few other birds.

Some recent things:

A few weeks ago, went up in a small 4-seater plane with my neighbour. My brother is looking at going into aeronautics, and she is eager to spark his interest, and I got to go along! We flew up the Lake Superior shoreline to Pancake Bay and back, doing a few circles around the more interesting things along the way and photographing parts of the city. I got quite a few shots which I will have to post on here sometime.

Other than that, I've mostly been working. I only have 2 days off from now until the end of my summer job on August 28, and then a couple days to get ready for university. My 18th birthday was on July 25, I had a great day with the family and got quite a few sweet presents, and then had a party at my friend's camp that night.

Not much else to put into this post, I'll hopefully be putting a bunch of stuff up within the next few weeks - so you can look forward to birds, aerial photos, the start of my dragonflying and some interesting shots. For now, I'll leave you with my first attempt at an HDR (high dynamic range) photo, taken yesterday evening. Let me know what you think.

Bellevue Marina at sunset

It's been a while

For those of you wondering, yes, I am still alive! Just haven't gotten around to posting anything on this for quite some time. I was pretty busy in June, what with prom, exams, graduation, and starting work again - I'm now working full time at the golf course. This spring turned out to be fairly decent, not quite as good as last spring for rarities, but if they showed up every year, they wouldn't be as exciting! Here are some highlights from the spring (since my last post).

Piping Plover at WPBO

May 10 - found a strange-looking Palm Warbler while bigbying, got some pics and reviewed them, turned out to be a Yellow Palm Warbler! A really rare bird in Ontario.

"Yellow" Palm Warbler

May 11 - went and saw the Pelican that was hanging out on the river - stayed from May 10-13.

May 13 - found a Northern Mockingbird down at Bellevue.

Northern Mockingbird

May 16 - went down to the Locks in a huge storm, turned out to be one of my better ideas this spring, had 81 species in a little over an hour, including 19 warbler sp. and my first-ever breeding male Scarlet Tanager for SSM - I've only seen them in fall before.

May 18 - did my Big Day for 2009 - ended with 148 species, smashing my last year's total of 135 and setting yet another record for Algoma District. Drove 343km and walked 21km for that total. Highlights were Boreal Owl (heard-only), Forster's Tern (my first here in several years), and BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER (first record for Algoma!), as well as 2000+ Chimney Swifts going in to roost. Also ended with 21 warbler sp. The starting temp for the day was -4C, by the afternoon it was up to 18C.

Short-billed Dowitchers at the Locks

May 19 - got a tip on some Bonaparte's Gulls on the river (missed these on the Big Day), so went down, and counted 128 individuals! A good total for in town.

May 24 - went to WPBO and then cruised Chippewa Co. to fill some holes in the list. Highlights were Green Heron, Whimbrel, Yellow-headed Blackbird, and Olive-sided Flycatcher. These last two were new for my SSM list. Another interesting sighting was a flock of 6 Chaffinches visiting the feeders - probably escaped birds so they don't count though.

Green Heron at WPBO

Yellow-headed Blackbird
Semipalmated Plovers
Gray CatbirdSpruce Grouse nest on FR 3344 in Chippewa

June 6-7 - started work and added Great Crested Flycatcher and Black-billed Cuckoo to the year list

June 14 - did a survey in Chippewa Co. for Kirtland's Warblers - didn't find any, but added Field Sparrow to my SSM list at one of the sites. Also added Vesper Sparrow and Common Nighthawk to the year list on the sites. Cruised around afterwards and added Connecticut Warbler and Great Egret to the year list.

June 25 - went out east of town for a couple hours and added Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Black Tern to the year list - also found a new colony of Black Terns, they seem to be doing very well this year. Had my high school Graduation this night as well! Only a few more months and I'm off to Guelph!

So, I'm at 219 sp. (up from 152) for the SSM yearlist (as well as ABA since I haven't gone anywhere this year), and 272 (up from 268) for the SSM life.

Bigbying

I have done some birding lately, just haven't gotten around to posting anything. I biked down to Bellevue Park this morning to try and add some birds to my pitifully small Bigby list. Found 64 species, despite a late start (9:30), a lot of which were new for the Bigby, bringing me up to 109 for that. Also added 3 year birds (Black-throated Blue Warbler, Northern Parula, Cliff Swallow), bringing me to 156 for the year. Yesterday I led the Sault Naturalists walk at the Locks, finding 59 species, including a GREEN HERON (SSM bird #269) - a really rare bird for up here, and in town! Went to Bellevue afterwards with Ken and added some more species, bringing the morning list to 75. This bodes well for my big day next weekend! Last weekend I went to Whitefish Point, and added Piping Plover to the year list, another rare bird up here. Also had great looks at a Golden Eagle, and finished my regular hawks for the year with a Northern Goshawk. I'll post all the pics from these three outings later.

In the meantime, back to school work... I also got the new Birds of Peru - I'm hoping to be headed down there in December after exams for two weeks of amazing birding with a couple other youngish birders. If I end up going, I could easily see as many species as are on my ABA list right now - in only 14 days! Even if you aren't headed to the tropics, the book is great, and well worth the buy. It illustrates the 1800+ species found in Peru in full colour plates - this includes 230+ species of flycatcher and 130+ species of hummingbird! It'll take a while to memorize everything for sure.

Quiz 6

Ok, so I missed last week - didn't realize until a few days later. Anyway, here's the next quiz, and congrats to Brendan Fogarty for getting the last one right with Warbling Vireo and Green-tailed Towhee. I think someone else got it right, but I can't remember who - please post your answers in the comments so I don't forget!

I posted 3 shots to make up for missing last week - quizzes from now on will only be one or two pics.

It's been a while...

Ok, so I know I haven't posted anything birding-related for a while, so here it is, a summary of my month and a week since the last post. First off, I've added 55 species to the year list, bringing it up to 122 - a reasonable total for this time of year although I'm still missing a ton of birds that are around. There hasn't been much out of the ordinary - last ski day was April 4, on which I found my FOS Red-shouldered Hawk - always a nice bird up here. I went to Sudbury for Easter, and on the way there managed to find 2 Ross's Geese and a Cackling Goose, both of which used to be super rare in the area but are annual now. The day after my return I went out and found another Ross's Goose, along with a lot of waterfowl. The first shorebirds have returned, with Greater Yellowlegs and Woodcock on the list. I managed to shatter my record numbers of Pintails and Green-winged Teal in a field, with 120+ and 60+, respectively. On April 19, saw 11 breeding-plumaged male Lapland Longspurs, something you don't see too often. Yesterday I went to Whitefish Point for the first time this year, and we had a good day despite the rain and constant NW wind - basically the worst conditions for spring birding. We managed 76 species by the end, with 16 year birds and 2 new for my SSM list! The new ones were American Avocet (2nd point record) and Spruce Grouse (FINALLY!!!!). I also added Short-eared Owl to my WPBO list, one that has been missing for too long. Went out today to look for a yellow-throated warbler, with no success. It probably took off with the cold front yesterday. Managed to add Brewer's Blackbird though. That's it for now - we should be seeing a massive influx of migrants over the next week if the weather cooperates, there are a ton of new species coming in to southern ontario!

Ross's Goose - Desbarats

Mallard - Sudbury

Trumpeter Swan - Sudbury

Hoary Redpoll - Sudbury

Common Redpoll - Sudbury

Short-eared Owl - WPBO

American Avocet - WPBO

Spruce Grouse - Vermillion Rd.

Quiz 5

Congrats to Brendan Fogarty for being the only one to get all 5 birds right on the last one. John Garrett, Tim Hajda, Andrew Spencer, Jason Bojczyk got 4/5, and a few others got 3/5. The correct answer was: top - Purple Finch, Black-capped Chickadee, American Tree Sparrow, mid - Fox Sparrow, bottom - Piping Plover.

This new quiz is a couple of pretty old shots of mine.

Quiz 4 - Hide n' Go Seek

Congrats to Tim Hajda, John Garrett, and Jason T for getting the last quiz. The answer is - Least Sandpiper (top) and Semipalmated Plover (bottom).

This new quiz shouldn't be too hard - if you can find the birds that is! Birds often like to hide in dense brush or camouflage themselves in their habitat - it's good to be able to ID them when you can only see bits and pieces! Also having a sharp eye helps.

Bonus points if you can ID all 5 species present. Yes, there really are 5 different species between the 3 photos!

Quiz 3

First of all, congrats to Andrew Spencer and Tim Hajda for acing the last quiz, and to Chris West for getting 5/8 on the species. Answer: Top Photo: Common Goldeneye (m), Hooded Merganser (m), Common Goldeneye (f), Canvasback (m), Canvasback (f), 3 Common Mergansers (m). Bottom photo: Red-breasted Merganser (m), Lesser Scaup (f), Tufted Duck (m), 2 Lesser Scaup (m), and 4 Bufflehead in the background. The Tufted Duck was a bit of a curveball, I'll admit, but you have to keep on your toes in the field! You never know what might show up.

This week should be a little easier. Good luck! And post those answers if you have them, even if you aren't 100% sure! I've only gotten 2 for each of the last two quizzes.

Photo of the Week

Ok, this is a day late, but I was pretty busy last night with homework and such. I was messing around in Photoshop today trying out some new things, and liked this one. It's a random field in Chippewa County, Michigan. Good spot for Short-eared Owls but they weren't there that night.

I need more answers for that quiz!

Quiz 2

Congrats to John Garrett and Chris West for ID'ing the Downy Woodpecker in the last quiz!

Here are two new ones - as you can tell the theme is duck flocks - ID all the birds in both photos! Good luck!