At about 3:05 pm this afternoon (Sat. Nov. 10) I had a juvenile Northern Gannet fly west past Fifty Point Conservation Area in Winona. I had been scanning the lake from the point for about 45 minutes prior to this without anything too exciting and had packed my scope away and was doing some land birding at the adjacent wooded area, and while walking back to my vehicle to leave I had one final scan of the lake with my bins and spotted my earlier hoped for bird, the Gannet, flying west towards Hamilton not too far off shore. I only had it in view for about 10 seconds before it disappeared behind the shoreline, so I decided to get in my vehicle and quickly head towards Van Wagners Beach. I made it there and had set up my scope by 3:20, and within a couple minutes I spotted a very distant Gannet straight out heading east and being harassed by a gull, which drove the Gannet down to the water and out of sight. I presumed that the bird had landed on the water and kept viewing that spot on the lake hoping to see it take off again. About a minute or two later, I had a very close juvenile Gannet fly through my scope view heading west! The bird was about 500 m offshore and I watched it head steadily westward along the shore towards the Burlington Ship Canal, eventually seeing it rise and fly over the QEW highway and out towards Hamilton Harbour at about 3:35. Presumably this latter bird was the same one I had off Fifty Point, but it seems there was a second bird farther out.
About five minutes after the Gannets at Van Wagners Beach, I had a nice in close view of an immature Pomarine Jaeger harassing the gulls. Earlier in the afternoon at Van Wagners, around 1:00 pm I had two juvenile Black-legged Kittiwakes right at the beach in front of Hutch's Restaurant which briefly landed in with the Ring-billed Gulls. Directions: To reach Van Wagners Beach, take the Centennial Parkway (Hwy.20) exit from the QEW in east Hamilton and proceed north to the North Service Rd., turn left and continue west as it turns into Van Wagners Road. Continue to the parking lots at either Hutch's Restaurant or the Lakeland Centre viewing tower and view the lake anywhere near here. Rob Dobos Dundas, ON [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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