Bird Quiz

I saw this bird this past weekend.

Any ideas? Post a comment and make a guess as to what it is and where I went!


This photo isn't mine, but I do have plenty of mine to come!

Photo from here (the link will tell you what species it is - so don't click it until you've guessed!)

Southward bound

Not me, but the birds!

I'm always surprised how quickly some birds turn around to start flying South again.

Shorebirds are the first ones to begin their migration back and true to form they have already begun!
The best part though is that I've seen the very early migrants in Waterloo county! Usually Waterloo doesn't see as many birds as the hotspots along the great lakes during spring migration and so we have to wait until the bulk of the birds move through before actually seeing any of them.

Last Saturday I biked down to Hespeler Mill Pond in Cambridge hoping to find an early shorebird. I was surprised to see 2 Lesser Yellowlegs and a Solitary Sandpiper. Not bad considering the time and location! It might also be a good indication that something good will be found here this fall.

The water levels are super low at the pond so it has a fair bit of great habitat for migrating shorebirds. The only problem for me will be to get down to there regularly.

This guy isn't migrating just yet:

A male Green-winged Teal has been hanging around the pond for a while:

Solitary Sandpiper already headed for South America!

Ditto for the Lesser Yellowlegs:

I could only find one of the Blue-winged Teals:

I was surprised by the number of Killdeers (40+) and that's not counting all the ones I couldn't see in the lily pads. Seemed like a high count for a species that shouldn't be migrating yet? And there were no juveniles among them...

More Locals + video!

In between studying I've been out searching for Waterloos local birds.

I've tallied 368km on my bike between June 1 and today - an average of over 20km a day!
It's a great way of guilt-free chasing. I find that when I drive several kilometers to see a bird I feel a bit of guilt and sometimes I'm reluctant to go on the chase. But that's not the case with my bike! I'm aggressively chasing everything now :p

And chase I did when I got an email from eBird telling me that someone found a Clay-colored Sparrow only 15km away!

Here's a video with the Clay-colored Sparrow at the end:

And here are some photos of other birds:

Osprey:

Northern Rough-winged Swallow:

Indigo Bunting singing in the rain:

The Clay-colored Sparrow was rather easy to find since it was continuously singing:

Great Blue Heron: