A few of us spend a few minutes watching birds moving around over the marshes, and quickly picked up Peregrine Falcon, Merlin, Sharp-shinned Hawk and Northern Harrier. It ended up being a great weekend for raptors despite the poor conditions for migration, with the following seen:
Numerous Turkey Vultures
1 Osprey
2 Bald Eagle
4 Red-tailed Hawk
5 Northern Harrier
9 Sharp-shinned Hawk
1 Cooper's Hawk
5 Peregrine Falcon
3 Merlin
Seeing a Peregrine is always a highlight, so 5 in one weekend was certainly a treat.
This very tame Mourning Dove was hanging around the banding lab at Old Cut. Hopefully it is a little more fearful of the numerous raptors than it was of us!
We were camping in the Provincial Park nearby, and as we were getting our permits I spotted a huge insect flying weakly across the lawn. When I went over, it was exactly what I expected - my first Chinese Mantis!
While the smaller European Mantis is a common sight across Southern Ontario throughout the fall, the Chinese Mantis is restricted to the extreme south of the province and is not as common even there. We ended up seeing three of these beasts (known to eat hummingbirds) over a day and a half. Both of these species have been introduced in probably misguided attempts to control garden pests.
On the subject of enormous insects, this huge Pandora Sphinx Moth caterpillar was feeding on grapevine directly over our heads.
As we entered the campground, it became immediately clear that our initial assessment of there not being many birds around was flawed. Huge numbers of Yellow-rumped Warblers were filtering east through the large Eastern Cottonwoods on the south side of the peninsula. I estimate that we saw 1500 individuals that day, but there were likely hundreds of thousands of birds along the entire peninsula.
The rain, despite forecasts, held off for the entire weekend, and as a result we had much better luck than expected with herps.
First off was this hatchling Blanding's Turtle - egg tooth still attached! I've seen lots of adult Blanding's but this is only my second small one.
Not long after we came across two very small Eastern Fox Snakes. I've seen a number of large fox snakes but never one this small.
for comparison, adult Eastern Fox Snake from Pelee Island in May.
We hit the jackpot the next day though, with this Hatchling Spotted Turtle! This is my first ever Spotted Turtle, something I've wanted to see for a long time!
Other herps seen included Green, Leopard and Bullfrog, American Toad, Snapping and Painted Turtle and Garter (both normal and melanistic) and Brown Snake.
On Monday, a Brown Booby, normally found no closer than Florida, was discovered at the beginning of the Niagara River, at Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York. This is one of the most unlikely birds to ever occur in Ontario. Needless to say, I wanted to see it! Unfortunately, I had school commitments on Tuesday and Wednesday, but on Thursday 5 of us drove down to Fort Erie, arriving at 9 am.
We waited with a number of other birders, scanning constantly for the bird to show up. After four and a half hours we hadn't seen the bird or much else, but at about 1:45 pm Rohan van Twest motioned me over to his scope and there it was, sitting on the pier 2 km away on the New York side of the river. Although we got adequate looks through scopes, the distance made photography impossible. Here's my best effort:
It isn't really identifiable from this shot, although you can see that it is a somewhat smaller bird with a horizontal posture and brown plumage compared to the black plumage and upright posture of the nearby cormorants.
Jim Pawlicki got some much (much) better pictures from a boat on the New York side.
For a better idea of what it actually looked like while we were watching it, check out Mark Dorriesfield's video.
After watching it for a while, it suddenly took off and flew incredibly quickly out to the lake. From the distance it covered I'd estimate it was going well over 100 km/h!
What an incredible bird!
No comments:
Post a Comment