Pelee Island Birds - May 3, 2012

Personal Highlights today was 3 Golden-winged Warbs, several Blue-wings, a backcross (2nd gen) Brewster's, Cerulean, Prothonotary, FOY Wilson's among many other warblers...

Peregrine Falcon and a juv male Northern Goshawk were also awesome..

Missed a Kentucky by half a second (I saw the bird fly away, but not well enough to count) and the reported Worm-eating Warbler....


Was a very busy day in the woods, as there was a spectacular reverse migration to start it off.... Ken put some details in his ontbirds posting (copied below) about numbers... I'll supply some photos!

Blue-winged!

Dickcissel!

Prothonotary!

Golden-winged!

Ken's ontbirds posting:




Hey Birders, An awesome day here on the island! 

High temperatures last night and through today coupled with strong SW winds couldn't have been better for an excellent day of birding today! Close to a 145 species were seen on the island today, with 29 species of warblers (plus 1 hybrid) seen! A good reverse migration of close to 2,600 birds was also seen. 

 Highlights: Dickcissel - 1 male seen reversing at Fish Point AT 8:06am. Brandon (Holden) was able to photograph this bird in flight. Check his blog out - http://www.blog.peregrineprints.com/

 Kentucky Warbler - 1 bird seen briefly at Sheridan's Point 

Worm-eating Warbler - 1 bird reported at Fish Point 

Prothonotary Warbler - 1 female seen reversing, 1 male seems to be back on territory at Fish Point in the large slough 

 Golden-winged Warbler - 2 males seen at Fish Point, 1 male seen at Lighthouse Point. 1 of the birds at Fish Point was seen to reverse 

 Cerulean Warbler - 1 male at Fish Point

 'Brewster's' Warbler - 1 male backcross at Sheridan's Point 

Least Bittern - 1 bird heard at Fish Point - same bird as yesterday 

 As I mentioned above warblers were in evidence throughout the island. Good numbers of warblers were seen for most species, with first of the year being Mourning, Wilson's, and Canada. 

 With the strong SW winds, raptors were concentrating at the NE section of the island - both Pergegrine Falcon and Northern Goshawk were seen to be migrating. 

 Also mentioned above, there was a good reverse migration from Fish Point lasting from sunrise to around 9am. Close to 2,600 birds were observed with some impressive numbers being seen. Most notable are listed below: 

 Yellow Warbler - 107 

Nashville Warbler - 105 

Baltimore Oriole - 479 

Orchard Oriole - 87

 Butterflies (and dragonflies) continue to impress as well. 2 Dainty Sulphurs, and 20+ Little Yellow's were the main highlights from a vagrant perspective. 

 Here's a link of my ebird checklist from today: http://ebird.org/ebird/canada/view/checklist?subID=S10624242 

 Good Birding, Ken Burrell