August birding forecast?

Here's a quick look at the first 20/25 days of August..... In my humble and somewhat odd opinion

August shorebirding should pick up, with more rare and uncommon things to find (and more diversity).. Although the OBRC records show that mega-crazy vagrants (like stints, redshanks etc) are clearly lacking for the first ~20 days of this month. Not that it couldn't happen still at anytime, but it's just what the patterns currently show. At the very least, you'll have more fun with the higher diversity. 

James Bay could still turn up just about any shorebird species, if you're up there!

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As August gets rolling, banding stations have turned up some really rare passerines in August... I'm not sure if it's because most of us aren't looking? Or they're too hard to find without nets?? But lets look at two sites quickly:

Thunder Cape: has August records of Townsend's Warbler, Common Ground Dove and Virginia's Warbler.

Long Point (Tip) has August records of Cassin's Sparrow and Cassin's Finch

Obviously not a lot, but those are some mega-rare passerines! Just something to keep in the back of your mind... A few passerine species move out in huge numbers by mid August (eg, Yellow Warbler, Baltimore Oriole) - Long before most people notice passerines are moving at all!

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And hopefully the southern dispersal of waterbirds is a good one this year. Little Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets have been recorded in good numbers on/around Lake Erie already this summer... Now hopefully some cross into Ontario. Just about any southern Heron is possible!

(one of the easier birds I still need for ON)

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The last week of August seems to be when things really start happening with full-blown migration. Hawkwatches, Lakewatches (Jaegers!) and an obvious increase in mega-rare birds on just about every front. 

It usually really starts to switch over (in the Great Lakes region) in the August 23-25th time frame... so I'll ignore it for now!! It's a totally different beast.