Monday was our 46th wedding anniversary and what better way to spend the day then birding. The winds were favourable for a lake watch on Lake Huron at Kettle Point. I had contacted James who regularly watches from there and so we joined him and Bill in gusty northwest winds with a temperature of about 8C. I had my long underwear on and I still felt chilled after 4 hours of standing.
Sadly, the birds we wanted did not materialize but we happily counted lots of ducks, checked carefully through lots of Bonaparte’s Gulls and had many Red-throated and Common Loons fly over. James and Bill are fantastic birders and were happy to share their vast knowledge with us as we are sadly lacking in the ability to identify most flying ducks. There is always more to learn!
The lake watches on Lake Huron are better in the morning which is opposite to Lake Ontario where the afternoons tend to be better so we packed in our watch around noon and decided to check out HawkCliff on Lake Erie where they count the hawks migrating through. Northwest winds are usually great for hawk migration. When we arrived Dave was just going to pack up at the spot near the lake to head inland a bit as the hawks were not coming through that spot. We moved north a kilometer or so and set up on the side of the road with an open field and we had lots of Turkey Vultures right away. Over an hour or so we had some Sharp-shinned Hawks as well but it was not too busy. Dave was quick to share his knowledge and we enjoyed chatting with Michele and Dave as we kept our eyes on the skies.
The next few days were not good for any lake watching and no other birds I needed were showing up. At the end of the week the first Brant reports started coming in from Ottawa and Eastern Ontario. Brant’s will be starting their migration down from the Arctic and I hope to catch up with some either up in Ottawa at the end of the month or along Lake Ontario at one of our lake watches. While the birding was slow many birders amused themselves with the Northern Lights displays and our Discord server was taken over with reports of where the lights were being seen and many pictures were shared. I went out in the backyard a few nights and managed this one phone picture.
Friday the winds looked interesting for some activity back at Fort Erie and so we decided to take a drive out and check the area for the Black-legged Kittiwake we need. Despite the winds being good there were only a few gulls around. We drove along the Parkway and stopped at various spots but the wintering population of gulls have not arrived yet but it was still a nice outing.
Sunday the winds were favourable at Van Wagners in Hamilton but we had some caregiving to do before we could get out. Around 1pm the birders there had two Kittiwakes go past, and adult and a juvenile. Unfortunately we did not arrive until 3. Markus was back and had missed the Kittiwakes by seconds so we stuck out the cold and rain until 5 hoping for another pass from them but it was not to be. The sunny days on the wooden platform over the beach are finished I think and instead our future lake watching will look like this:
Two other reports of note came in on Saturday and Sunday. A Purple Sandpiper was seen at Presquile PP and there was another “pretty sure” report of the Common Eider on Lake Ontario in Hamilton. So all three birds plus a rarity I need have now been reported which is good news. Now I need to track some of these sightings down and add the birds to my list. It was a ho hum week with no new species but it looks like things will be ramping up as we head into a cold spell.
Week 41 no species added 324 J&E