Sharon and Jacques’ Excellent Blog

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Ontbirds (an excellent birding mailing list for Ontario) reported a Ruff, a shorebird and also a bird I’ve never seen before just outside of Angus, Ontario. I decided that I would give finding it a try rather than going to Long Point as the weather was a little on the rainy side further south.

The birds were located in a very large swamp called the Minnesing Swamp, home to excellent shorebirds and waterfowl habitat and it didn’t disappoint. Its about 100km from Toronto and was certainly the best natural shorebird habitat I’ve seen in southern Ontario. The only drawback to the location is that its right next to the Canadian Forces Base Borden and in the background was the sound of large explosions from the various ranges on the base.

The birds were located along McKinnon Street. Thanks to my handy GPS, I had no trouble finding the street and slowly cruised up looking for birds. In a large field of grass, I found 3 birds but not the ruffs. In the next field over, I started to scan and there were shorebirds everywhere. Most were lesser yellowlegs but mixed in with them were long-billed dowitchers, dunlin, solitary sandpiper, greater yellowlegs.

I started scanning and was able to find the birds. One had a rufous head, the other black. Neither was in full breeding plumage but it was great to see them as I’ve never seen them before. I pulled out the camera and snapped a few hundred shots hoping to get a few goods one which I did. While I was watching them, other birders arrived and I was told of a hudsonian godwit in the area, another bird I’ve never seen before.

Once I was done with the ruffs, I drove up the road in search of the godwit. I came to a large stretch of very dubious mud, but being a fool and having had my car serviced and washed the day before I drove into the mud with the car lurching from side to side trying to find purchase. I don’t recommend anybody do what I do unless you have a 4-wheel drive or want to push yourself out of axle deep mud. I didn’t get stuck (this time) but have in the past. If only Acura knew what I did with a CL Type S. My service advisor keeps asking why I have all these scraps and nicks on the car…

I managed to find and photograph the godwith fairly easily and also some yellowlegs that were much closer than the ruff. I finally drove out and on the way out I found a solitary sandpiper and greater yellowlegs right by the side of the road which yielded some excellent photos.

Here’s a gallery of pictures of the birds:

Current Album: 0503 Minnesing Swamp Shorebirds
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 If you are into virtual birding and want to try and identify shorebirds in flight, try these two images:

Current Album: 0503 Minnesing Swamp Shorebirds
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All of the images are GPS encoded. If you want to visit the area, click this link for a Google map overlaid with the pictures.

For me, it was a great day as its not very often that I get to see a new bird in Ontario. Two was just icing on the cake.

Good birding!

Around this time of April, the broad-winged hawks start migrating north in large numbers and the right conditions can produce movements in the thousands of birds. In some 15+ years of hawk watching, its one of the few migrations I haven’t seen and every year I try my luck with usually poor results. April 19, 2008 was no exception. The weather looked great with southwest winds. The previous day, with similar weather, had produced over 1,700 birds with around 800 broadwings, an excellent day for Beamer Point.

 I arrived early at Beamer and the first bird that I saw was a broadwing sitting in a tree just as I drove in which I thought was a good start to the day. I went for a walk in the woods to see what passerines (song birds) I could find migrating and I managed to see a good collection of mid-April migrants which also helped set an expectant mood.

After I finished setting up the camera and started looking around, I noticed another broadwing. By about 9:30 AM there were 3 broadwings sitting in the trees waiting for it to warm up. As usual, Beamer was freezing with a north east wind blowing off the lake. While the rest of Ontario enjoyed warm weather in the low 20C range, Beamer was around 10-15C.

The raptors appeared to be migrating to the south of the park kettling just outside the park, mostly along the road. Once in a while a bird would come overhead which I dutifully photographed. After watching the birds migrating low over the road and not being able to get any pictures, I moved out of the parking lot and eventually set up outside of the park and managed to get some good shots of migrating broadwings and sharp-shinned hawks. I took about 700 photographs during the day and managed to get about 15 decent pictures.

Unfortunately, the expected big push didn’t happen and the birds were few and far between. Most people spent more time watching the purple finches than watching raptors. A gallery of pictures is available:

Current Album: 0419 Beamer Point Raptors
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The birds seen included:

Common Loon, Double-crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Turkey Vulture, Canada Goose, Wood Duck, Mallard, Bald Eagle, Northern Harrier, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, American Kestrel, Killdeer, Herring Gull, Rock Dove, Mourning Dove, Belted Kingfisher, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Eastern Phoebe, Tree Swallow, Northern Mockingbird, Brown Thrasher, American Robin, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Black-capped Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Blue Jay, American Crow, European Starling, Song Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Northern Cardinal, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Purple Finch, House Finch, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, Brown-headed Cowbird.

I was back at Beamer Point CA outside of Grimsby, Ontario on April 6. Contrary to expectation, it was very sunny with a cold north wind blowing off Lake Ontario. This created perfect blue skies which made it extremely difficult to see any birds. The birds that were seen were generally very high. The net effect of the wind and clear skies was about 200 migrating hawks observed, something of a let down from April 5 where almost 1,300 raptors migrated. The wind was so cold that I was wearing 4 layers of clothes including a hat and gloves and was still freezing.

Despite the lack of numbers, a good number of species were seen including northern goshawk (juvenile), red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk (juvenile), American kestrel, osprey, Cooper’s Hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, northern harrier and turkey vulture. Excellent pictures were taken of juvenile goshawk and red-shouldered hawk. It is easy to see how a juvenile red-shouldered hawk can be confused with a red-tailed hawk.

I took the strangest picture of a migrating turkey vulture, it’s the first picture in the gallery. When I first looked at it, I was dumbfounded trying to figure out what was going. Either the turkey vulture is deformed, imps do exist or the angle makes it seem like the vulture has no head. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The best bird of the day was a wild turkey that flew across the parking lot and into the field south of the parking lot. After seeing the gracefulness of the hawks dancing through the air, the turkey looked like a cannonball with wings. It did provide some much needed relief and laughter could be heard all around as people watched the bird violently flap to its destination. I was laughing so hard, I didn’t get any pictures of it.

Other birds seen included fox sparrow, lots of song sparrows, eastern phoebes, tree swallow, red-bellied woodpecker, and several flocks of cedar waxwings. No kinglets were seen in the forest.

Current Album: 0406 Beamer Point Raptors
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The spring hawk migration is in full swing with good numbers of birds migrating. Between 1200-1300 birds were seen. In total, 13 species of raptors were seen including golden eagle, bald eagle, red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk, northern harrier, rough-legged hawk, Cooper’s hawk, northern goshawk, sharp-shinned hawk, peregrine falcon, osprey, turkey vulture and American kestrel.

 Pictures of some of the raptors are available here:

Current Album: 0405 Beamer Point Raptors
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I’ve added a gallery called Virtual Birding which features pictures that approximates the view of birds typically seen through binoculars.

 If you are an armchair birder, stop by the gallery and see if you can pick up a few species that you haven’t seen before.

The gallery can be found at:

Current Album: Virtual Birding
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I’ll keep up adding to the gallery as I find pictures that would provide a good challenge for people.

Every spring and fall tens of thousands of birds of prey migrate along fixed routes that they have used for centuries. In the spring, they migrate along the Niagara Escarpment before heading north searching for nesting territory. Just outside of Grimsby, Ontario, there is a park situated on the escarpment called Beamer Point Conservation Ontario, home to the Beamer Point hawkwatch.

View Larger Map

Every year from March 1st thru the end of May, the site is monitored at least 8h per day and an official counter counts the number and different species of hawk that migrate past. How many hawks? Over the course of the watch, tens of thousands of birds move through and its uncommon to see a 1,000 or more hawks in a day in April when the broadwing hawks start moving.

 I’ve been attending the hawk watch for more than 15 years and have spent many pleasant and not so pleasant spring days waiting for hawks to fly overhead. I’ve also established casual friendships with the people who frequent the hawk watch on a regular basis and its always a reunion in the spring as we meet again after a long winter.

There are 15 species of raptors that are commonly seen in Ontario and on Sat Mar 15, I went out for the 1st time and managed to see 10 species in about 4 hours. That’s considered a good day in terms of species.

One of my favourite pastimes is photographing hawks on the wing and Beamer is an excellent place to do it. The recent photos I took:

Current Album: 0315 Beamer Point Migration
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Much better efforts from previous outings:

Current Album: 0419 Beamer Point
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If you are interested in spectacles, come out to Beamer when the wind has a southerly component and see what all the excitment is about. To check the weather in the area, click on this link.