Point Pelee Part 1

Taking a writing break from Mexico, I think I'll interject a couple posts about my six day trip to Point Pelee with my friend Nathan. I had never been to the Point, because my mom and her coworkers always went to the Island, which arguably is just as good, just way more under-birded. But I got an offer to go down for a full six days at the point, and no matter which one's better, I'd rather have 6 days than 3, which is how long my family goes down for. I would also get to go earlier, and a ton of rarities were already popping up that we could potentially get.

Day 1:

We left Waterloo at about 3 am, in order to arrive at the Visitor Center by 6, for one of the first trams to the tip. We got there almost exactly on time, and we rode the tram down. The Tip was packed with warblers, and we racked up a good list in the first 30 minutes. Highlights were a Grasshopper Sparrow, Surf Scoters, a pair of American-white Pelicans cruising over the tip, and a very rare bird for the area- a Pileated Woodpecker, which reversed off the tip, along with hundreds of Orioles, tons of Indigo Buntings, and many, many warblers. At one point (point, haha get it), Nathan called out a sparrow sp, which was interesting because we'd barely seen any sparrows that morning. He snapped a few flight shots, and I got a crappy tail end look, of what appeared to be a weird looking House Sparrow. Once the bird was out of sight, we quickly reviewed pictures. As soon as we saw the image, we looked at each other and said "Eurasian Tree Sparrow". We quickly showed others the picture, who agreed, and silently cursed. We stayed at tip for a while after, and it flew over twice more while we were there, the third time I managed a photo, but it's nothing to brag about. What a crazy bird (in more than one way). Only the second record for the park, and decides to reverse of the tip 3 times! We spent the rest of the day meandering around, seeing good birds such as Hooded Warbler, Yellow-throated Vireo, Prothonotary Warbler, Black Tern and Grey-cheeked Thrush and others. We then checked out Hillman, which was pretty empty, and then high tailed it back to the park when someone reported a male Kirtland's Warbler at Pioneer. We came up empty, but with the Tree Sparrow and abundant warblers, it was still a great day!

 

American White Pelican

Prothonotary Warbler

Black Tern

Day 2:

Today we pretty much followed our steps from the day before around the park, and came up with a high number of good quality birds. Red-headed Woodpeckers were abundant in the park, and we saw three White-eyed Vireos! Other good birds included the continuing female Kentucky Warbler, likely the same pair of pelicans as the day before, a male and female Cerulean Warbler, seen at separate times, the male was an absolute jaw dropper! He was amazingly photogenic, and quite low to the ground. We also got a roosting Common Nighthawk, and Hillman was much more productive. We got a breeding plumaged female Wilson's Phalarope, and a couple Long-billed Dowitchers mixed in a flock of Short-bills. The Phalarope was very interesting, because it was my first of that family group in Ontario, and the fact that the females are brighter coloured than males, and this bird beautiful! The Dowitchers provided us with killer comparisons, something that can be hard to get in Ontario, as Long-bills usually come through earlier than Short-bills. We made a quick trip to the onion fields north of the park to pick up some Whimbrels and a male Snowy Owl that had been found earlier, and we were succesful on both! We stopped in at the male Cerulean again, because the light was better, and we were well rewarded! Probably my favourite warbler now, too bad they have declined so much!

(female) Kentucky Warbler

(male) Cerulean Warbler

Long-billed Dowitcher

(female) Wilson's Phalarope

Day 3:

It rained pretty good today, so birding was a bit slow. Word of a Mississippi Kite circulated around the park, but it was only seen briefly by a few people. We got a red morph Screech Owl camouflaging with some red oak leaves, which I thought was pretty cool, as well as a flyover Peregrine Falcon that made us think it was the Kite! We twitched a young male Summer Tanager at Hillman and were successful, although I got my camera pretty wet, so it started acting up... but it's okay now. Just have to press the up button a couple times before it works.

Northern Parula

(red morph) Eastern Screech Owl

More Pelee, Mexico and Big Day (that's starting super early tomorrow!) to come!

Birdathon Fundraising

Taking a little break from Mexico, spring has sprung in Ontario! And as a result, the annual passage of many thousands of thrushes, sparrows, tanagers, orioles, and everyone's favourite- the warblers, has begun! I'm already up to somewhere around 15 warbler species in Ontario already, without even going close to Pelee! And pelee, I leave super early Wednesday morning, and I'll be there straight until Tuesday. Let me know if you're there at the same time, I can add you to my big list of people who I'm trying to bump into, crazy how many people go to Pelee! Interesting thing is, this is actually my first time to the point, I've always gone to the Island. We'll see which is "better". And then the next weekend (on the Saturday), I'm doing a team big day in the Long Point area! Being related to the Great Canadian Birdathon, somewhere around 25% of funds go to Bird Studies Canada, then 75% goes to a place of your choosing. I have chosen Ruthven, the banding station I regularly go to, which is also where all of the team members came from. Ruthven relies pretty much entirely on donations, specifically this Birdathon, to pay for banding supplies and other vital things. I know not too many people read this blog, but if any of you anonymous readers are feeling particularly generous, I'd really appreciate a donation, every little bit helps! We expect to see in the neighborhood of 150 spexies, and are shooting for 155! This would set a new team rexord, and it is sure going to be hard! Even if you don't donate, secretly cheer us on, and read my summary post!

You can donate specifically to me here

Thanks so much!!!!

Mexico: Day #5, Troncones Birding Tour

During my research, I had found the contact to a guy who did local birding tours and lived in Troncones, a small town about a 40 minute drive from our hotel. I had originally tried to organize a trip to the mountains with him, but found out that he only local tours. As it turned out, they were very local- he did them in his backyard. I wasn't discouraged however, as it turned out his 'yard' was actually extensive thorn scrub, deciduous forrest and grassland, and a lot of it. I guess it technically wasn't his yard, but the space behind his house.
          We got up at about half-past 5, so that we could get there by 7. Things went pretty much perfectly as planned, and we got there a few minutes early. We met up with our guide, Wil, and parked out car at his house. We introduced ourselves, and pretty much started the walk right away. One of the first birds I got on was a White-tipped Dove, the last pigeon/dove I needed for the trip. I only got a pretty bad picture, so I won't put it in here. Right after the dove, we found a couple of Pale-billed Woodpeckers, which Wil said like to travel in family groups. The species is very similar to the Lineated Woodpecker, and is another close relative of the extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

A real striking resemblance to the Ivory-billed I think, seeing this species almost made me feel like I'd seen a ghost!

Further on in the walk, we found some more of those orange flowers that the birds seems to love, and spent a while watching them as the sun crept it's way up. We got much better looks at Tropical Parulas, Streak-backed Orioles and others. While watching, Wil also picked out the song of a Bright-rumped Atilla, a relative of the flycatchers, in the distance! Something I would have completely missed if I'm being honest. Further up the trail, he picked out another song, one that he said belonged to a Flammulated Flycatcher! This is actually an endemic to the area, and he said that lots of his... customers I guess? Come and search for. I had looked at them in the book a few times, and they are quite interesting because they are on the page with the confusing Myiarchus Flycatchers, which it looks similar to, but it's actually not one of them! Funny how taxonomy works. Later on, I identified my own Flammulated by call, so I felt better with my ID. Next we approached some grassy/shrubby habitat, where we heard several Stripe-headed Sparrows singing. And almost immediately after hearing it, a couple popped out onto the path in front of us! They are quite cool, and the name is totally appropriate, the head stripes are very prominent!

Even in this distant photo the head striped are pretty apparent

Although we didn't get any Crested Caracaras in the grassy field, we did see several Ash-throated Flycatchers, my third Myiarchus species for the trip! We were beginning to reach the peak heat of the day, so we decided to alter our course, and ascend a little bit into the foothills of the Sierra Madre, which had a little bit more shade. About half way up our ascent, Wil noticed two silent Amazonias (a family of large parrots) fly overhead and land somewhere uphill of us. White-fronted Parrots, which I had already seen several of, are noisy Amazonias, and squawk the whole time they're flying. The other two, Yellow-headed and Lilac-crowned Parrots, both of which are endangered species. We quickly got our bins on them, and through the dense underbrush, we got decent views of two Yellow-headed Parrots! This was by far my most wanted bird for the trip, but I had thought it was unfeasible, do to their scarcity. I had done some research on them, and their ENTIRE wild population is estimated at around four thousand. The population is estimated to have declined by 90% in the past two decades. I think that that is just insane, and I really wish I could something to stop the decline of these birds. It is known that poaching is the main cause of their decline, and the illegal pet trade business in Mexico is sadly very common. These birds were both amazing to see, but it was also kind of sad, knowing that in the next 20 years or less, these could be the next Ivory-billed Woodpecker. It really is chilling, and I'm super glad that people like Wil exist and manage this land to a degree, as well as attract eco-tourists and educate locals. I really hope that there is a future for this species, but I really don't know.

Really nice birds, I guess I can understand why people want them as pets so much...

We kept going, feeling slightly enlightened I guess after seeing the Amazons. The rest of the walk was quite hot, but we managed to get a few more Northern Beardless Tyrannulets, an endemic Golden Vireo, a pair of Scrub Euphonias, Blue-black Grassquits, a very fleeting glimpse of a Blue Grosbeak, and a handful of Blue Buntings. Pretty much all of the blue finch like birds possible!

Northern Beardless Tyrannulet, much better looks (I guess I could just say looks at all) then yesterday! 

A very pretty bird! Scrub Euphonia.

We began nearing the end of our walk, and only about 20 meters from Wil's house, he glimpsed a large brown bird land on the opposite side of a tree from us. He said it was a Woodcreeper! I was looking in a different direction, so I had missed it! I slowly approached the tree, and creeped around to the other side, but nothing was there! Funny how birds can do that... It definitely didn't fly across the path, so the only way it could have gone was left, over the vine covered fence... I stepped up onto a stump, and could just barely look over the fence. But there it was! An Ivory-billed Woodcreeper was picking it's way up a small tree. I managed a pretty bad photo, because I half of the lens was covered by the fence, and the rest was pretty much covered by vines. But hey, you can see a bird!

Also pretty chilling to put this one into eBird, has the same four letter code as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, pretty much the same name too!

And since we were so close to Wil's house, we didn't see many birds afterwards. But we did see this cute calf, only a couple of days old: 

Right as we were about to depart, a Ferruginous Pygmy-owl started hooting in Wil's yard! I walked over, and found it sitting on a pretty exposed branch. Another owl responded to it a little farther away, and it flew off, but not without letting me grab a picture!

After thanking him and finally breaking away from Wil's yard, we went to a nearby beach and played in the huge surf for a while. Troncones is a surfing town, and we could really see why! The waves were huge, and just continuous! It was fun diving into the waves before the crashed, and some Brown Pelicans looked pretty cool gliding only centimeters from the surface of the water in the wave troughs.

There was some much cooler times when the Pelicans got right down into some of the much larger waves, but I was in the water when that happened 

Sure would suck to get pushed up against these!

The big rocks really can hide in the massive surf. This one was particularly ominous and deadly looking!

An awesome, bird intensive day! If anyone would like Wil's contact information for a tour or questions, I can give it out individually. I don't really want to publicize too much because of the vulnerability of the Yellow-headed Parrots, because poachers have been known to use web sources to track down birds, so I'm being intentionally vague with places...

List: Troncones