Quality over quantity has been the theme for birding recently. Migration has been incredibly slow until the past couple days, and now the hot weather is making finding anything hard work after about 9:00 am. Still, there have been plenty of cool birds around, including Western Kingbird, Acadian Flycatcher, Summer Tanager, Yellow-throated, Worm-eating, Cerulean and Golden-winged Warbler and Yellow-breasted Chat. I can only call it a highlight now that the weather has warmed up, but thousands of swallows struggling in strong winds and near-freezing temperatures at Blenheim Sewage Lagoons was interesting.
The wildflowers are absolutely spectacular in the park. The diversity and density is far in excess of anywhere else I've seen and they certainly provide some diversion on the slow afternoons. I've rarely spent much time with the spring wildflowers that coincide with peak bird migration, so the slow birding isn't totally a bad thing.
Insects have been slow to emerge with the unseasonably cold weather, but I've had a number of butterflies including an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. No dragonflies besides the migratory Green Darner yet, but I'm hoping to find the first local emergences this afternoon.
That's all I can do for right now but here's a couple shots of some incredibly confiding Dunlin at Blenheim Sewage Lagoons.
I saw my first dragonfly of the season in the Rondeau Visitor Centre parking lot on the day we headed back to Toronto (May 15th). I didn't know what kind it was, but it's probably the kind you mentioned.
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