Pelee area birding.

I had one of those funny days at work, 6/7 hours of driving for 1 hour of work... So I took advantage of it to do a little extra curricular birding in the Point Pelee area. Bumped into Ken Burrell, who is working on getting 300 species in Ontario this year on his list!

Pelee was, well, Pelee. We did some casual birding, and turned up tons of species you wouldn't easily see elsewhere in Ontario. Below is our ebird checklist for the whole area. We checked Wheatley, roads to the park, the national park, then a final check of Wheatley. The birds:!!!

Location:     Point Pelee Birding Area
Observation date:     12/16/10
Number of species:     55

Canada Goose     400  - no GWFG for me
American Black Duck     X
Mallard     X
Bufflehead     20
Common Goldeneye     50
Common Merganser     50
Red-breasted Merganser     300
Wild Turkey     10
Double-crested Cormorant     1 - Wheatley
Great Blue Heron     1 - at the tip of all places, on rocks/ice.
Northern Harrier     7 - migrating away from the heavy snow near London
Cooper's Hawk     1
Red-shouldered Hawk     1 - a fine adult at Hillman Marsh
Red-tailed Hawk     8
Rough-legged Hawk     3
Bonaparte's Gull     600
Ring-billed Gull     1200
Herring Gull     1000
Great Black-backed Gull     7
Rock Pigeon     X
Mourning Dove     X
Eastern Screech-Owl     1  - called back to my whistle in broad daylight
Red-bellied Woodpecker     10
Downy Woodpecker     20 - everywhere
Blue Jay     15
American Crow     X
Horned Lark     50
Black-capped Chickadee     40
White-breasted Nuthatch     10
Brown Creeper     4
Carolina Wren     2
Golden-crowned Kinglet     15
Eastern Bluebird     40
Hermit Thrush     20 - everywhere in the park!
American Robin     60
European Starling     X
Cedar Waxwing     1
Yellow-rumped Warbler     1 - what winter?
American Tree Sparrow     150
Field Sparrow     1
Savannah Sparrow     7  - where else would you see Sparrows like this?! (Long Point?)
Fox Sparrow     2
Song Sparrow     25
White-throated Sparrow     6
White-crowned Sparrow     2
Dark-eyed Junco     50
Snow Bunting     50
Northern Cardinal     20
Red-winged Blackbird     10
Rusty Blackbird     5
Common Grackle     1
Brown-headed Cowbird     100
House Finch     X
American Goldfinch     40
House Sparrow     400


Not bad! We also did a quick check of the Rondeau area, which didn't turn up much else of note, other than 2 Ross's Geese. We had heard reports of these birds a while ago? But had no idea they were still around. An unknown twitch if you will.

I have some distant pictures of the Geese, which I'll hopefully post later tonight!