Hello Birders. Hugh Currie and I travelled to Long Point today and had
wonderful weather other than it perhaps being a tad bit cold and windy - I was
fine but Hugh was complaining a bit ;)
In the back end of Big Creek marsh there were a LOT of waterfowl. We spotted 4
Greater White-fronted Geese and 6 Snow Geese.
Later in the afternoon when many of the birds came out to feed in the corn
fields adjacent to Port Royal we spied 2 of the White-fronted Geese and a
further dozen or more Snow Geese. Both Lesser and Greater Snow Geese were
present and amongst the six present in the marsh were 2 ad. blue morphs, 1 juv.
blue morph, 2 juv. light morph and 1 ad. white morph. Later on the added group
of a dozen comprised of mainly adult light morphs with the only somewhat
obvious size difference between the Lesser/Greater.
We could not come up with yesterday's reported Ross' s Goose despite an aweful
lot of effort.
The male Spotted Towhee was present for a while (though not seen by 2 observers
this afternoon) before noon.
Sandhill Cranes were present in the hundreds with the largest single flock size
at ~120 and several others with perhaps 30-50 individuals.
There are thousands of American Widgeon in Long Point Bay, seen easily from the
Port Rowan docks with a scope. We looked for a short period at the end of the
day but I suspect that a Eurasian Wigeon must be looming somewhere out there!
There were just so many!!! ***We have also formerly changed the location of
Coote's Paradise to Long Point Bay because clearly there are more coots there!
Other odds and ends:
1 imm. Bald Eagle over Port Royal
3 Northern Harrier
1 Rusty Blackbird near Port Royal in a flock of cowbirds, starling, redwings.
Directions: all directions have already been referred to this week in the
SPOTTED TOWHEE and ROSS'S GOOSE posts.
Andrew Keaveney
Field Biologist/Ornithologist, Bird and Wildlife Guide
519-835-8894 (cell)
"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of
the world"
~ John Muir
"Live, eat, breathe birds"
~ Twitcher
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