Friday 13 May 2011

More Pelee highlights

My updates have been sort of lacking. I've just been doing too much birding and I also haven't taken any photos really.

We haven't had any big fallouts in the park like I've been expecting but I am still seeing a lot of birds. On Wednesday I was on my way home and stopped in at North West beach to see if there were any birds there. Someone came by to tell me that a Dickcissel was found at Pelee Wings Store so I biked up to there and found the bird right away. But I was curious why most of the people were about 50 meters away and looking in a different direction. So I went there and just at that moment a Kentucky Warbler wandered across the grass next to a house!

Both those birds were lifers for me! One right after the other. The Dickcissel remained for another few hours at least giving great looks from a mere 15 meters away.

Other good birds lately have been a griseus subspecies Short-billed Dowitcher. The species has 3 distinguishable sub species. In Ontario we usually get the hendersonni subspecies that breeds in Northern Canada and west of Hudson Bay. The griseus one breeds in Northern Quebec (east of Hudson Bay). That's the subspecies they see in Newfoundland during migration but I haven't seen it there.

Some of the latest new birds to my year list have been Cerulean Warbler, Wilson's Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Grasshopper Sparrow....blah blah blah.
The only 2 species of warblers I'm missing for the year now are Connecticut and Prairie. Both of which I have missed by a mere few minutes.

It's been fun down here and I hope I get some time to come back next year. I might be stuck somewhere in Asia though...

And when the next week is over I must begin studying European birds for my 4 months in Denmark! There's a lot of British birders here and man do they ever do their homework. They're often better than the local birders!

Update:
I wrote that post last night and it didn't get posted. But I saw the Bell's Vireo today at Point Pelee. Crazy bird. Only the second or third 'real' record for Ontario I think.
And I walked right by it a few minutes before it was found and couldn't identify it for my group so I ignored it trying not to look stupid!!!!!!
I wasn't the only person who did that.