Pelee pt 15 - FOTE PHOT (o shoot)

Toward the end of my stay at Pelee there was a bit of a cold snap, which resulted in hundreds of swallows sitting on the beach, picking little beetles out of the sand and generally looking unhappy. With the little bit of warmth in the afternoon they started flying around, providing an opportunity to try out some swallow flight photography. Unfortunately the light was pretty terrible and there wasn't much that came out of that, but I'll probably put a few of these pics in a later post.

What did come out of my time spent failing at swallows in flight (as usual) was the opportunity to photograph some Forster's Terns that were diving into schools of little fish just offshore! My aim of this was to get a shot of a tern just as it entered the water, and after about 400 photos I did not succeed! I did however get to spend some time up close with these birds and got a few interesting shots!

I have a few photos like this, just a fraction of a second late for what I wanted!

In addition to the 'splashes with birds in the background' I also have a series of 'splashes with no birds', but I doubt anyone wants to see those!

Most of them were successful in catching lunch!

My original strategy was to aim at the point on the water where I thought they'd hit, and then burst fire when they were diving. After a while I gave up on that and tried to follow them through their dive, which didn't give me any better luck but resulted in a completely different set of images!

I think this would have been the money shot but unfortunately the bill got cut off...maybe next time!

Point Pelee, again - part 14

The continuation of the blog series that has been on hiatus since over a month ago is underway! Kicking it off with Barb and I's bird - a young male Kirtland's that made quite a few peoples' day. This will be the last of the 'bad photos of rare birds' series (unless I discover something lurking in the background of another pic?).

Renfrew County

From May 21 to June 24 (a month ago already!) I was out in Renfrew County, doing some bird and tree surveys at the Petawawa Research Forest for the Canadian Institute of Forestry and the Canadian Forest Service. It turned out to be a more interesting place in terms of birds than I thought it would, and it was nice to see a part of Ontario I hadn't really spent time in before! Most of my time there was spent in the research forest or at the place we were staying (which consisted of some nice cabins on a small lake about 10km outside of Deep River), however I did get some time to explore! It rained quite a bit while we were there, usually in the afternoon/evenings but when it rained in the morning it meant we had the day off, as bird surveys don't work so well when it's raining. On one of the rain days, my coworker and I went over to the Quebec side (Pontiac County was only a 10-min drive away) and managed to turn up 91 species in a few hours including a flock of Brant and a pair of Peregrine Falcons, putting my total Quebec list over 100. Another weekend I took a few days off (of which we didn't take many!) to go visit my brother in Kingston. On the Friday, while I was driving down, I met up with Chris Street, whom I haven't seen in a few years, to pick up some Renfrew ticks. Since my time so far in the county had all been spent in the forest, we were mainly interested in grassland and marsh birds, and had a fair bit of luck in that regard! We also managed to turn up some local rarities in a Carolina Wren and a House Finch at Westmeath. Afterward I had planned a bit of a trek around Eastern Ontario, to see some of the counties I hadn't been to since before I was a birder. This got cut a bit short due to time and traffic issues but I managed to do some birding in Ottawa, Prescott&Russell and Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry counties, vastly improving my county lists for those areas and picking up a few year birds along the way (Common Gallinule, Gray Partridge, Snow Goose, Upland Sandpiper). Then it was a few days of slacklining, frisbee, relaxing and partying in Kingston with my brother before heading back on the Monday. Since my brother had to be at work at 730am, I had a bit of extra time to get back to Deep River, and I used it to do a bit of summer birding in Frontenac, Leeds & Grenville and Lanark counties, as well as about an hour in southern Renfrew, adding a few more county ticks! I also added Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Sedge Wren to the year list. After that it was back to work for a few more days before heading back to the Sault, with a few brief stops in Nipissing and Sudbury counties along the way.

My total Renfrew bird list ended up at 163, with the last bird being a Merlin flying across the highway. Some highlights were a lot of Olive-sided Flycatchers (I entered 34 into eBird, a few of those are probably repeats though), a Black-backed Woodpecker that checked us out on a point count, a few Gray Jays, the aforementioned Carolina Wren and House Finch, and probably the bird of the month - a singing Hooded Warbler on the way to the point counts one morning, which is apparently a first for the Upper Ottawa Valley.

Another highlight that I forgot to mention was the variety of mammals we saw in the Research Forest! I got several lifers including Pine Marten, Fisher, Long-tailed Weasel, Star-nosed Mole and Red-backed Vole. In addition to those we also saw Moose, White-tailed Deer, Black Bear and the usual assortment of chipmunks and squirrels. The Fisher was the real excitement as it came right up to us (maybe 10-15 feet away) while we were on a bird survey (wearing bug jackets) before realizing that we were humans and high-tailing it back into the woods.

I have some more insect photos to go through and identify but here are some of the better shots from the trip so far! Unfortunately my camera battery was dead on my day in Eastern Ontario so I missed a few good photo-ops there...

A flock of Brant in Deep River (different to the ones in Quebec, which were about a week later)

Silvery Checkerspot

Baby White-tailed Deer

Common Nighthawk threat display

The reason for the display

She calmed down for another pic before we left

 Eastern Pine Elfin

Broad-winged Hawk that flew across the road about 2 inches in front of my bumper - luckily it was not the best of roads and I was only going about 20km/h so managed to stop in time!

'Sunburst' Spruce - genetic mutant of White Spruce

Luna Moth on the office door one morning

Olive-sided Flycatcher sketch I did - we saw (or more accurately heard) lots of them!

Calico Pennant

Pelee photos pt. 13

AKA more horribly cropped photos of rarities...just a few more and then it's on to good shots of common birds!

Brandon and I were bored out of our minds one afternoon - spent it at the Tip photographing swallows and kingbirds sitting on the sand, then when we got tired of that I started digging holes - at which point we joked about how digging holes and skipping rocks seem to turn up rarities while at a waterbird count...

About 5 minutes after we gave up digging holes and started skipping rocks, Brandon picked up a small egret flying down the beach - Snowy Egret!!!!

A few minutes later, Brandon's dad joined us, not having received our text about the egret. Just as I turned around to toss another rock into the water, I spotted another one headed our way!

Having only seen one Snowy Egret in Ontario before (last year at Port Maitland), it was pretty cool to see two in five minutes.

Since these photos are pretty bad, here's a bonus - a Worm-eating Warbler from the next day - my first reasonably identifiable shot of this species - also a big crop but what can you do?

Pelee photos pt. 12

A nice male Piping Plover spent a couple hours at the Tip one afternoon - he then returned the next morning before heading off to wherever he's breeding now.

Pelee photos pt. 11

It appears I've missed two days... no excuses other than slacking. Continuing with the rarity theme, here's a distant shot of a Loggerhead Shrike that spent the better part of a day on the East Beach, and even ate a Fox Snake while we watched. 

Pelee photos pt. 10

Probably my best find at Pelee, and it wasn't even a bird...

Yep, it's a butterfly - a White M Hairstreak, apparently only the second record of one overwintering in Canada (the first was found a day or two prior by Blake Mann over in Rondeau) - and other than the invasion last summer, there aren't many records in general! Unfortunately it disappeared moments before other butterfliers could see it (other than Barb who was with me at the time), and it wasn't refound as far as I know.

Pelee photos pt. 9

My first-for-Ontario Laughing Gull, a bird I searched unsuccessfully for at Long Point for 2 summers, missed last year as a chase, and missed finding by leaving the Tip at Pelee about 20 minutes early. At least I got to see it!

At first it was pretty far down the tip, but after most of the crowd had left, it came in a bit closer and even called a few times!

Pelee photos pt. 8

I decided to split off from the group one afternoon to look for a year bird or two that everyone else had, and shortly after I had a close encounter with a Red Bat (flew by my face about 2 inches away), I got a text that there were some Black-necked Stilts at Hillman. I sprinted most of the 1.5km back to my car and raced over there, just in time for Barb to refind them in a different spot!

Since the pics with my 300mm turned out like this...

And the best I could do digiscoping at 70mm was this...

I asked Jeremy Bensette if I could borrow one of his pics to illustrate these beauties, and he kindly agreed! So here is Jeremy's pic:

Much better, thanks Jeremy! (they flew in closer after I'd left...)

Pelee photos pt. 7

The star of the show, my lifer Swallow-tailed Kite! Thanks to Mike and Erica Burrell for finding and tracking it for 30km down the lakeshore, from Port Alma all the way into the park! After it flew into the park and people were (impatiently) waiting for it to fly over the visitor centre, I (sort of jokingly) said "It'll be here in 3 minutes...", at which point Barb announced to the whole crowd (of about 80 people) my prediction of 3 minutes... Luckily for me, about 2 minutes and 59 seconds later it popped up over the trees to the delight of everyone present! At first there were gasps, then dead silence (save for the rapid-fire clicking of camera shutters), and when it was gone, a round of applause and cheers went up and celebrations were had. What a bird!

Pelee photos pt. 6

One of the upsides of the east winds of doom at Pelee was that the birds hung out in the nice evening sun on the west side of the tip. This Blue-headed Vireo was especially tame, and I think it may have provided Mr. Holden over at PeregrinePrints with a photo lifer????

Pelee photos pt. 5

A flock of 4 Willets made the Tip their home for a day, much to the delight of many birders and photographers (myself included).

Pelee photos pt. 4

A nice male Golden-winged Warbler that was quite fond of sitting just behind a stick while at close range, but out in the open further away...

Pelee photos pt. 3

An incredibly tame White-eyed Vireo which gave some good photo-ops despite spending most of its time in thick brush, at times down to less than 2 feet! It hung out in the same general location for the whole afternoon, which was nice as I left and came back later when the light was better.