3rd annual Monarch Trip to Point Pelee

Spent ~ a week at Pelee searching for butterflies and other goodies... It was HOT every single day! Excessive sunshine and often accompanied by light winds... Here are some highlights/rundowns:


Butterflies:


Silver-spotted Skipper - abundant... possibly more so than any previous trip to the park

Horace's Duskywing - 2 females near the tip on Wednesday

Wild Indigo Duskywing - irregular sightings... as expected, much more common outside the park

Common Checkered Skipper - 5+ obs inside the park... regular observations outside the park

Least Skipper

Fiery Skipper - regular observations both inside and outside the park (more common outside)

Black Swallowtail - a few inside the park

Giant Swallowtail - frequent observations. Some very fresh, some very worn. What generation are these???

Spicebush Swallowtail - frequent observations. More than I would have expected.

Cabbage White

Clouded Sulphur - less than expected inside the park. One at the tip.

Orange Sulphur

Little Yellow - one mostly white female at NW beach. Unexpected/exciting!

Cloudless Sulphur - male at the very tip on Tuesday. My first for Ontario (overdue?) but very exciting!!!

Gray Hairstreak - frequent sightings. Max count of ~25 on Tuesday (!!) Some very fresh.

Bronze Copper - 2 obs inside the park

Eastern Tailed Blue - abundant inside the park. Many more than normal.

Azure sp.

Crescent sp.

Question Mark - very few observations

Eastern Comma - several obs

Mourning Cloak - few/irregular sightings

American Lady - few/irregular sightings

Painted Lady - one

Red Admiral - few/irregular sightings

Common Buckeye - regular observations both inside and outside the park

Red-spotted Purple - one (worn)

Viceroy

American Snout - 5-10 observations over the week (fresh)

Hackberry Emperor - several obs (worn)

Monarch - NO clusters. Regular observations of low numbers everywhere (foraging, migrating etc). A lack of suitable winds may explain it... Also somewhat low numbers this year (??) but I did have a few thousand at Wheatley waay back on the 14th, moving along the lakeshore...


Odonata:

Sporadic casual observations. The highlights/notable species:

Common Green Darner - abundant, but (perhaps?) far fewer than I would have expected.
Green-striped Darner - 1
Swamp Darner - ~5 obs.
Red Saddlebags - irregular but near-daily observations
Carolina Saddlebags - perhaps 50% more than Red, but surprisingly close numbers
Black Saddlebags - abundant
Wandering Glider - regular/abundant
Spot-winged Glider - Abundant

(no striped saddlebags)


Birds:

Casual observation & notes:

Waterfowl: nothing unexpected. Sporadic observations from Blue-winged Teal to a (seemingly?) early Common Merganser

Loons/Grebes: A few Horned, but generally scarce. No loons??

Other waterbirds: A few Great Egrets and low-ish numbers of Cormorants around...

Raptor Migration: nothing spectacular but the point always had falcons, sharpies, osprey, harriers, eagles etc about... Often providing some excellent entertainment.

Shorebirds: limited habitat and observations. ~26-28 Sanderling at Wheatley Harbour, then later at the tip - were a nice bunch. 1 Am. Golden Plover flyby....

Gulls: 1 Great Black-backed x Herring hybrid and a max (daily) count of 10 Lesser Black-backed Gulls on our first day (Saturday). LBBG's were a daily occurrence. Small #'s of Bonies.

Owls: one day-calling E. Screech Owl near the tip, and one dusk-calling Great Horned Owl at the marsh tower were highlights.

Swifts/Hummingbirds - steady migration most days

Crow's/Jays - great views of the long-staying Fish Crow at the tip. Large Blue Jay migration underway, which seemingly started before Mid-Sept.

Passerine Migration: surprising numbers most days, given the seemingly poor conditions... Blackpoll Warblers outnumbered all other warblers combined. Careful observations would yield a steady selection of many families, but we often didn't put in the work to find them. A few days had sizable reorientation flights of Warblers, including a group of 100+ Blackpolls that left the tip together one morning... 1 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher also did the "reverse migration" thing one morning.


Herptiles:

Map Turtle - a few outside the park
Melanistic Garter Snake - only one
Fox Snake - one near the tip. Perhaps 2.5 to 3 feet long.
other expected species...


Mammals:

Nothing unexpected. Mink, bats, deer, etc.


Fish:

One mystery dead fish at the tip...  (see earlier post)
Several mystery living fish at the marsh boardwalk while hunting for Species at Risk... (stay tuned!)


Other notes:

The stable flies at the tip on Wednesday were BY FAR - the WORST I have ever seen... They were covering 50-75% of exposed pant legs and getting up into your hair... Not only that, but they were covering everything else - signs, garbage cans, the tram, flowers etc. (!!!)

By Friday, the tip was (perhaps) the longest I have ever seen it!

Uber-tame Fish Crow!

Foxxy!

I'll get some lep photos online next...