Pelee Report - Oct 21 - THIS PLACE STINKS

STINKS OF RARE BIRD!!! (see what I did there?)


I may not have found any rarities today, but dang I could sure smell them... They're out there... Lurking...


Again I had multiple Bald Eagles (3-4) pre dawn... Nothing starts your day off right like following an eagle down the road...

(All 3 photos I took today appear in this blog post) - this one was testing my exposure... I'll snap a few more tomorrow... 

I had one of the best problems a birder could ever have this morning - TOO MANY BIRDS... They were pouring down both sides of the point for the first two hours. Looking at anything meant 10 birds slipped past unidentified. I decided to ignore small gulls in favour of trying to get a Mew Gull or something. It didn't work, and I probably missed a Sabine's or something - ah-well...

Some highlights:

1 ad Little Gull

2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls

1 Bank Swallow

2 Long-tailed Ducks

1 Herring X Great Black-backed Gull hybrid

plus a host of divers, dabblers and scoters. 

Several large feeding frenzies were awesome to watch... Just huge numbers of birds. SO awesome!

SO many birds..

I decided to work the shrubbery for a rare passerine. I checked the tip, west beach, sparrow field, east side back to the tip loop... Lots of birds, no rares.

A fortunate turn of events meant I could park my car in the right place - and WALK the EAST BEACH baby... Visitors Centre outside of the park! It only took 4-ish hours. Moving fairly fast looking for big-sexy rares. Again - it didn't happen - but it sure felt like rare.. 

Anyways - you get the theme of the day... Tons of birds, no megas. I checked Hillman and then Wheatley Harbour in the evening. 

Wheatley had LOTS of gulls, but only 1 Lesser BB and ANOTHER freakin hybrid (Herring X Great BB Gull)... Nearby fields had a few thousand gulls (mostly Ring-billed) until gunfire scared them away (seriously). 

Rare shade of gray - means a hybrid in Ontario (the tip bird) 

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Rare birds moved into SW Ontario today -and cold west winds will hopefully push them into the park tomorrow. I've got 2/3's of a day to find it before I need to work a bit... I have a feeling there will be some epic movements at the tip early tomorrow - so check back for what I manage to find!

(side note - there was a negative report for the Booby today - think it decided to leave on these SW winds?! Flew to Lake Ontario maybe?!?! Or will it just be back tomorrow?)