Appologies for the delay in this post... I cannot get out of the habit of
sending my posts to the old address of Ontbirds@hwcn!
Dave Purcell, Bob Cumming and myself birded the crap out of the Long Point /
Turkey Point Area waterfront today from about 9am to 5:15pm. We were met by
local birder David Okines, as well as Josh Vandermeulen, Barb Charlton, David
Bell, Matt Strimas-Mackay and Reuven Martin (all from Guelph and Hamilton).
Other than that there were very few birders we saw looking for yesterday's
reported Smew. Very odd indeed!
We tried our best to all cover different areas of the waterfront. Check eBird
for a full list of the birds seen today (I completed 17 checklists today!!!).
Our group spent most of the morning and early afternoon birding from the BSC
H.Q. waterfront in Port Rowan, east towards Turkey Point, birding Turkey Point
itself and then turning back and finishing off by birding the causeway
extensively, Big Creek Marsh and Lee Brown's.
There were lots of new year birds among the recent spring arrivals and several
interesting waterfowl. I'll mention the interesting birds below with the more
unusual ones highlighted.
Green-winged Teal - 6 (1 female) at Lee Brown's
Blue-winged Teal - 1 male at BSC H.Q.
Ring-necked Duck - just under 50 for the day!
Northern Shoveler - 2 along the causeway (if I say the 'causeway' I mean the
bay side)
Pied-billed Grebe - 9 along the causeway
Horned Grebe - 2 along the causeway, appear to be at very beginning of a moult
to alternate plumage with some brownish feathering appearing on necks and odd
head/facial patterning (don't confuse these with Eared Grebe!)
Swallow sp. - 2 along the waterfront at BSC H.Q. seen at great distance, though
likely Tree Swallows
Little Gull - 5+ basic adults along the beach side at Turkey Point
Eastern Towhee - 1 along fence line at marina in southwest corner of Long Point
Bay as the road turns east into the Long Point Prov. Park area
Eastern Meadowlark - 1 calling from tree out front BSC H.Q.
Merlin - (not seen by me but my two fellow birders!) outside Blazin' Burgers
just north of Port Rowan
Sandhill Cranes - 2 flying at Turkey Point and perhaps a dozen in a field on
way to Lee Brown's
Horned Larks - heard flying around every waterfront locale and seen commonly in
fields nearby
Killdeer - 3 in various places
Rough-legged Hawk - 1 light phase ad. bombing through at warp speed along the
causeway very late in the day, moving towards Port Rowan
Hooded Merganser - only 5 for the day (not many around!)
American Black Ducks - 15 from viewpoint above Turkey Point Marsh were the only
birds seen anywhere by us today!
***The highlight of the day were certainly the two cool divers we found amongst
the thousands of Redhead, Canvasbacks and Scaup in the Bay. I have photos of
both birds and will post them on a blog later tonight.
The first bird is a female Redhead with what looks like lots of white
feathering in the head. A partially leucistic bird would be anyone's guess.
Female Redhead have highly variable amounts of white in the head and if you
look at enough of them you'll realize this but this is past the extreme I would
imagine.
The second bird is another hybrid Aythya. This year has seen it's fair share
of these! My first guess was a male type hybrid of Canvasback x Ring-necked
Duck but after careful consideration I cannot say conclusively that this isn't
another Redhead x Ring-necked Duck hybrid like the one photographed and seen
well by many (including myself) at Bronte Harbour in February. The head shape
profile and the jizz/angle on where the head meets bill seems very steep and
keeps me thinking Canvasback but my photo does look very similar to the Bronte
bird. I will leave it up to the experts to debate. So not a Smew but a darn
cool bird nonetheless.
Again, I'll post the blog site once I get the 2 photos up.
Good luck on tomorrow's OFO outing to Long Point but I don't expect you'll see
a Smew because both groups looked pretty darn hard. The only sighting today
was of Stu Mackenzie's 7 a.m. fly by and Josh and his group were apparently
very close to Stu at the same time and even they didn't catch a glimpse so who
know's where this bird has gone.
I should mention that the large groups of Common Merganser (which the Smew was
seen with) were seen by us only on the north shore area between Port Rowan and
Turkey Point. Off of Turkey Point itself on the way to Port Ryerse was a huge
flock of Red-breasted Mergansers (500+) with perhaps 75+ Common Mergansers
among them. It looked like there were many more mergansers on the lake
eastward. I would suggest folks like further east in places like Port Ryerse
and Port Dover in case the Smew is now hanging out with mergs there... you
never know! It's not that far as the Smew flies...
Directions:
Hybrid Aythya - off of Forestry Farm Rd. which is south of Front Rd./Lakeshore
Rd. east of Port Rowan. This site is east of Marina Rd.
Female leucistic Redhead - take Front Rd./Lakeshore Rd. from Port Rowan, east
to Marina Rd. Drive south to the marina area and follow Bayside Dr. E.
Basically Marina Rd. ends at the marina. Keep left and follow to end of
development area and there were lots of Aythya ducks out here.
Turkey Point Area - reached by taking Turkey Point Rd. south from Front
Rd./Lakeshore Rd. and birding along the Lakeshore anywhere until you reach the
point and lighthouse.
Andrew Keaveney
Field Biologist/Ornithologist, Bird and Wildlife Guide
647-383-8894 (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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