Pelee Birds May 11

Colder weather! Clouds! Still not crazy numbers of migrants!


Tip -

The usual (Willet, etc).. Dave Bell et al picked out a female Blue-winged Warbler - in flight - against a gray sky. Crazy.

Actually the first warbler (first individual) that Dave Bell and I looked at was a male Cerulean at 6:10am along the tip road (20 feet away)...



In the middle of the day I had 90 minutes to play with a brand new Canon 600mm F 4 II lens ($13000 value) thanks to Chris Dodds (http://www.chrisdoddsphoto.com/Artist.asp?ArtistID=7452&Akey=HKP7BK55)  and am totally stunned with the quality....  Will have to talk more about that later...


Dave Bell, Josh Vandermeulen and I walked from outside the park to the Visitor's Centre along the east beach and had very few "living" birds to show for it (really not much at all... 3 Clay-coloured Sparrows were the best)..

But what we DID have was an incredible collection of bird feathers that had washed ashore (and bird parts) thanks to the east winds we had for days last week... We ended up with MORE DEAD SPECIES THAN ALIVE on the hike.. Like 25+ species we were able to ID from parts or feathers... Some notables:

Hermit Thrush
Vireo Sp
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Eastern Towhee
Eastern Meadowlark
Brown Thrasher
Tundra Swan
Long-tailed Duck
Common Loon
3 Gull species
Red-breasted Merganser
Hooded Merganser
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Cardinal
Blue Jay
Northern Flicker
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
DC Cormorant
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Greater Scaup

Annnyways those are the ones I remember in 30 seconds of thinking...

Highlight was a NIGHTJAR feather that we think might be a CHUCK-WILLS-WIDOW primary!!! I'll  photo it and put it online later... Could be a Whip too - research needed. Sleep needed more though!

Thrasher Tail 

Towhee

Tundra Swan

Hillman - did a check in the evening. Had a Long-billed Dowitcher again... Common sense would say 2 different birds - but I would like to believe it is one bird ferrying information back and forth to the nesting stilts (who are in hiding)...


This was a pretty short write-up! And I'm probably forgetting something - but probably nothing too exciting.... More cold for a day or two... The damn will start to break on Tuesday morning and then totally shatter on Wednesday!!!!!! Weather right now looks AWESOME!!! (for then)