With strong west winds Betsy and I headed for the Peace Bridge this morning and were pleasantly surprised by how much we saw. There were several thousand Bonaparte's Gulls, 4 LITTLE GULLS, many dark-winged scoters of both species, a few White-winged Scoters and Goldeneye, lots of Long-tailed Ducks, Scaup, and Bufflehead. Also 7 late CHIMNEY SWIFTS, 2 Tree Swallows, 2 RED-NECKED GREBES, and a few Horned Grebes and Common Loons, including one loon that wailed only 25 yards away from us! The biggest group of Bonaparte's Gulls were off of a marina on the NY side about 1/2 mile north of the International RR Bridge. Among them were an imm. PEREGRINE FALCON and 5 COMMON TERNS. Niagara Falls was even more impressive with Bonies, with thousands both above and especially below the falls. We had 1 LITTLE GULL and a MERLIN above the falls and three more LITTLE GULLS below. Also below the falls were a first-winter FRANKLIN'S GULL and a first-winter BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE, as well as a couple of COMMON TERNS, an adult PEREGRINE FALCON, AND 3 LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS. Another Lesser was above the falls as were 200+ Rough-winged and 2 Tree Swallows. After leaving Betsy looking into the gorge below the falls while I walked back to get the car, she had a brief scope view of a small gull that appeared dark on the underwings but paler than most Little Gulls and what appeared to be a wedge-shaped tail. She also thought the head did not show a cap. Unfortunately, she lost it amongst the dense flocks of Bonies and could not relocate it in the 15 minutes before I picked her up. It may have been just a subadult Little Gull, especially considering that it would be very early for a Ross's. Nevertheless, if you are birding in the area, you may want to keep it in mind. With the Sabine's Gull that Peter Yoerg had on Lake Erie at Athol Springs, there were nine species of gulls found in the region today - an early date for that many. I estimate that there were nearly 20,000 Bonies in Fort Erie/Buffalo and Niagara Falls combined, pretty remarkable for the date. Good birding! Willie ---------- Willie D'Anna Betsy Potter Wilson, NY [EMAIL PROTECTED] From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Oct 29 20:24:03 2006 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from taiga.com (mail.taiga.com [204.11.32.182]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E515D638A0 for <[email protected]>; Sun, 29 Oct 2006 20:24:02 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 15836 invoked by uid 30); 30 Oct 2006 01:18:30 -0000 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 29 Oct 2006 20:10:30 -0400 Subject: [Ontbirds]HSR: SMRR- Lake Erie Metropark (29 Oct 2006) 2699 Raptors X-BeenThere: [email protected] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 01:24:03 -0000
SMRR- Lake Erie Metropark Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 29, 2006 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 1825 67176 69067 Osprey 1 36 224 Bald Eagle 3 61 176 Northern Harrier 4 254 759 Sharp-shinned Hawk 254 3757 8030 Cooper's Hawk 46 406 552 Northern Goshawk 2 6 6 Red-shouldered Hawk 41 231 235 Broad-winged Hawk 1 2504 67956 Red-tailed Hawk 509 1883 2084 Rough-legged Hawk 4 7 7 Golden Eagle 4 15 16 American Kestrel 5 216 1851 Merlin 0 14 41 Peregrine Falcon 0 11 40 Unknown Swainson's Hawk 0 6 9 Total: 2699 76583 151053 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Jeff Schultz Observers: Calvin Brennan, Don Sherwood Visitors: Charlene Borchers Richard Naber Ron Harkness Gloria Harkness Tex Wells Pat Mulawa Tim Smart Bob Pettit Weather: Today was sunny throughout the day with little if any cloud cover. Winds were strong and gusty predominately from the west. Raptor Observations: There was a steady flight throughout much of the day although it took a little while before much of the Buteo movement got underway today. Red-tails continued to be the dominant species migrating with todays total being the largest of the fall so far. Other highlights of the day included some excellent looks at Red-shoulders as well as a particularly cooperative juvenile Golden Eagle that flew low and overhead. A juvenile Northern Goshawk seen late in the day also provided a grand view. A juvenile Broad-winged Hawk was perhaps unexpected at this late date. Non-raptor Observations: Tree Swallows were probably the most numerous migrant seen at the watch today with several thousand noted, although crows were also plentiful early in the day. Other swallows seen were 2 Barn and a single Northern Rough-wing. Three Chimney Swifts were also observed. Other non-raptor migrants included Red-headed Woodpecker, Purple Finch and Pine Siskin. An adult Lesser Black-backed Gull was also a good sighting. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Calvin Brennan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) SMRR- Lake Erie Metropark information may be found at: http://www.smrr.net/
