This was the rain day, and MAN did it rain.. Josh Vand, Jeremy Hatt and I decided to stand at the tip and get soaked for several hours in the morning... I then walked around getting soaked again with Josh in the afternoon... The birds:
Thankfully it was all worth it, as the tip was really active with huge numbers of RB Mergies... We guessed that we had seen at least 15,000 to 20,000 birds , and could have undercounted... One of those events that is just fun to witness, as they were almost all streaming down the east side (heading south)...
We also snagged 2 Long-tailed Ducks, several Horned Grebes, common Loons, Surf + white-winged Scoters, a Lesser Black-backed Gull (juv) and a FORSTER’S TERN travelling with 2 Bonaparte’s during the movement...
To get a break from the wetness, Josh and I toured The Onion Fields to Wheatley, then back around to Leamington, Seacliffe etc, where we had VERY little... Although there was still some highlights when we had 4 Long-eared Owls (new Pelee bird for me, I think) and twitched the Hooded Mergs at Sturgeon....
Another bird of note was a "green morph" Pine Siskin at the Pelee Wings feeder... It looked a LOT brighter against the dark background of the feeder (vs. the green grass and leaves where I got my record photo)... There were only 2 other siskins present among the goldfinches - so that was cool..
We headed back into the park, and a quick check of the Marsh Tower produced some rather late Blue-winged Teal (2) among a respectable collection of ducks...
Josh and I started our mega-walk of the day (back in the park), with very little fanfare (other than getting soaked)... Highlight came in the form of a big pocket of birds around the far northern end of the Chinquipin Oak trail with 25+ Bluebirds and 25+ Yellow-rumps... The birds weren't very cooperative, the light was bad and they were moving all over the place... It sure felt like a mega-rarity kind of time and place, but we just couldn't pull the trigger...
Another fun day, where it felt like we were doing everything right for a rarity, but it just didn't fall into place! Part of the fun of vagrant hunting I guess! J
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