3rd time wasn't really a charm!

A final survey to SW Ontario meant maybe a final trip to Pelee for a while. I didn't have very much time, and there wasn't anything too crazy, but still fun birds:

Ruddy Duck     80
Common Loon     1
Pied-billed Grebe     2
Horned Grebe     450  -- calm as glass water allowed for a mega count near the tip!
Double-crested Cormorant     55 - more and more everday
Great Blue Heron     8
Turkey Vulture     15 - at the tip early, with 15 wild turkeys!
Greater Yellowlegs     1 - my first real shorebird of the spring, near the marina at sturgeon creek
Wilson's Snipe     21 - behaving like real shorebirds at hillman
Tree Swallow     8
Brown Creeper     4 - migrants at the tip
Carolina Wren     2 - 1 was singing at the shorebird cell at hillman!? Odd place
Golden-crowned Kinglet     20 

annnddddd yeah? Can you find the yellowlegs?


That's all I've got from Pelee


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I then ended the day at Townsend Sewage Lagoons. Not many people realize, but if you visit places like this as the sun is setting, a massive number of birds will sometimes arrive at dusk to roost.... There's just one problem! It's DARK! 


I stayed well after sundown, and watched 4000 geese and 600+ Swans arrive to roost. There is always a huge variety of waterfowl at Townsend, and today was the same. Nothing too unusual though (at first). 3 Horned Grebes were a bit odd for a sewage lagoon!


As the flocks of Geese arrived, I did pick out a single blue morph Snow Goose (adult), but the real story was the Cackling Geese ... First it was a flock of 5, then 8, then several more, then another flock of 4... By the end of the night, I had seen a minimum of 25 Cackling Geese! Possibly more, as the poor lighting and huge numbers of birds kept me too busy. Two of the Cacklers appeared to be leucistic, with paler than normal plumage. 


It was a really exciting time watching the birds come in, but in the end of it all I was a bit dissapointed. No White-fronted or Ross's Geese arrived, and yet I didnt' really get a chance to study the Cackling Geese to see how many there really were. 


Anyways, not a bad day! But it sure has me itching for late April ... Or heck, just a decent migration. Maybe Monday? Where are the kinglets and phoebes and tree swallows!?










By the end of the day, I was at 27 species of waterfowl! A trip to Hamilton would have put it above 30 since I missed some "easy" ones (Black Scoter, Long-tailed Duck, Trumpeter Swan etc)....