Slow Niagara Birding - Dec 19th

A little behind schedule on updating the blog!

Best I can muster right now is a delayed and short birding report from the Niagara River. Teamed up with Barb "wire" Charlton to get some gulls...


1st stop - Adam Beck... Several Iceland Gulls and 1 young Lesser Black-backed Gulls were the notables...

 Next stop - roosting rocks! Not much of note if I remember correctly.. Maybe another Iceland?

Next stop - Whrilpool - shoulda skipped it! Altough we did have a Peregrine Falcon on our drive to the next locale:

Next stop - control gates... A few distant Iceland Gulls and a few distant Lesser Black-backed Gulls..

Next stop - above the falls - 1 Glaucous and a few more Iceland... Where are the birds? Lots of ducks though such as Wigeon, Gadwall, Goldeneye, etc

Nexts stop - below the falls... 2 BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKES were putting on a freakin show! The birding was pretty slow, and we ended up watching them for a while. Really awesome birds and the scenery was provided a fantastic backdrop...

As per usual, the area below the falls had all sorts of oddballs such as Loons, Mergansers, Goldeneye, Scaup, Wigeon, a Coot, Cormorants etc - but no mega's were among their ranks...

Next stop - back above the falls! - we may have had another Iceland or LBBG - but I don't really remember all that much new. Did have a Kingfisher.

Next stop - control gates area again! - More Lesser Black-backs and 2 more Glaucous had arrived, which was nice - but still pretty slow overall. It was reaching that "late afternoon" period so we just hit the road and went out for some grub!

It was a nice day to catch up (fairly warm) and we still saw some birds.... Barb and I are trying to deal with the insanity of OBRC secretary work - and it was a good chance to let her know just how far behind I am...

Speaking of which - if you have any reports from 2013 - please send them in soon! I think sooner or later we may have to have a "cut off" and say that anything not received by XX date will be held back for the 2014 report (published in 2015).