Pelee May 18th - there's something about this place....

Tip early - brought my scope for the first time this year and had 3 Lesser Black-backs (including 1 mostly-adult bird)... Highlight was a distant flyby RED-throated Loon (darn good pelee bird)...  But overall it was pretty slow. Oh, also 1 adult Little Gull..

I had lots of songbirds (in song) on my walk to and from the tip - so after a quick breakfast my Dad and I started working the west beach (due to east winds)... What did we get?

BAM!!! This beauty played a little hide-and-seek before we had a clear look and made the ID -

BAM! Female Kirtland's Warbler! Self found to boot. There aren't many more exciting finds in the bird world than a KIWA... After playing hard to get at first, she became very cooperative and gave stunning views down to a few feet away (and we were the only people there!)

She actually vanished for a while, but Karl Konze found here again in the same spot we first did - and she stayed there for the rest of the day - giving fantastic views... I think she is something like my 14th KIWA in Ontario, and every one is freakin awesome... 

KIWA and Pelee Cactus

Beaut.... 

We left her after a while and went for lunch (we had planned to walk the west beach for a while, but obviously we were side-tracked). On our way back to lunch we came across a young male Summer Tanager!!! Sa-weet! 

After lunch we started where we left off and had OODLES of warblers and other neotrop's along the west beach. Most birds I've seen all April/May - and many lookin pretty sweet. No real highlights, just great numbers of 20+ warbs, vireos, etc... It kept us busy long enough to bird until 6pm-ish, when I went back for my good camera gear and had a bit of a photoshoot with the Kirtland's in the evening... 

She wasn't terribly cooperative with the 600mm (tame, but hard to get shots of)... All the pics I've posted here are form mid-day with my point and shoot! I'll save the good ones for later when I have a chance to edit them... She really was a beauty (adult female I believe).. And I'll do her justice sometime in the future!