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!