Hey Ontbirders. I birded Essex County from Monday night through yesterday
evening. I visited a wealth of areas and put out an incredible 28 checklists
on eBird from it.
Most of the Sewage Lagoons in the area are filled with ducks of quite a wide
range of species. The Harrow Sewage Lagoons were by far the best. Hillman
Marsh's Shorebird Cell was also phenomenal with the COMMON TEAL still present
as of Tuesday morning. Both yellowlegs species were found here and there and
Dunlin and Pectoral were sparse but present.
Swallows other than Tree Swallows were very scarce with only 2 Barn Swallow, 2
N. Rough-winged (first of year for Ontario?) and 2 Purple Martins - all 3
species found around the Lakeshore just outside of Pelee.
Point Pelee itself had small numbers of Chipping and Field Sparrows, a Brown
Thrasher, Purple Finch, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, etc. There were hundreds of
Scaup in a huge flock from the tip most of the way down to the waters off the
Visitor Centre. Included were several Black Scoters and surprising singles of
stuff like Common Goldeneye, Long-tailed Duck and Canvasback (the first and
last species I saw nowhere else over the 2 days of much duck watching!). There
was also a good many Kinglets of both species, Brown Creepers and Winter Wrens
found throughout the park but only a pair of chickadees.
Green-winged Teal seemed especially abundant at most sewage lagoons, from the
Pelee marsh lookout, and at Hillman over 75 present.
Surprisingly I did not see an Osprey, Forster's Tern, Caspian Tern, House Wren
or the other swallow species.
Holiday Beach Conservation Area was absolutely chalk full of waterbirds and
Tree Swallows. I would highly recommend a visit to here. I recorded 92 Mute
Swans off Hwy. 20.
*** Something to be careful of is my observation of 3 Tundra Swans, 2 at the
Hillman Marsh Shorebird cell briefly and another off Hwy. 20 at Holiday Beach
C.A. that had virtually no yellow spot on their upper mandible. Trumpeter
Swans is very rare in Essex and those reporting as such on eBird should look
twice at their swans before drawing any conclusions as I noticed on eBird there
was a report of 2 said Trumpeters from Hillman earlier in the week.
Many more birds were seen but these were the most notable.
No Yellow-headed Blackbirds or Black Terns could be found back on territories
in the Lake St. Clair Marshes and Mitchell's Bay region. Still too early.
All of the locations to these places can easily be found on eBird Canada's
website using their Google Maps so please do so and get a feel for eBird at the
same time. I am closing in on the 1000 mark for 'County Ticks' in Ontario this
year and I finally pulled ahead as the top eBirder for number of birds seen in
Ontario this year... though I suspect it won't last long!
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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