Ontbirders: Today was, very simply, an unprecedented day of birding at Van Wagner's Beach in Hamilton! The dozen or so birders that spent approximately 10 hours at Hutch's today (some who arrived pre-dawn) felt an Ontbirds post, in summary of such an outstanding day, was warranted. Here are the highlights:
75 Snow Geese (a single large flock) 281 Brant (several large flocks as well as a few smaller flocks) All three Scoter species 12 Red-throated Loons 37 Common Loons *1 Wilson's Storm-Petrel (spotted by Rob Dobos)* *1 Leach's Storm-Petrel (spotted by Dave Don. Photographed by Brandon Holden and David Bell)* * * *See Leach's Storm-petrel photos on Brandon's blog:* *http://www.blog.peregrineprints.com/* * * 2 Storm-Petrel sp. (not identifiable to species) 2 Purple Sandpipers (flying by) *88 Black-legged Kittiwakes ( flocks of 5-8 all morning,18 in view at one time, 2 adults)* 16 Bonaparte's Gulls 5 Lesser Black-backed Gulls 1 Glaucous Gull 4 Great Black-backed Gulls 6 Pomarine Jaegers 7 Parasitic Jaegers 1 Long-tailed Jaeger 2 Peregrine Falcons 21 Jaeger sp. (distant and unidentifiable) There were also quite a number of birders at Lakeland Centre, further down the beach from Hutch's, who had a similarly exciting day seeing the Storm-Petrels, as well as the staggering number of Kittiwakes, Jaegers etc. All in all, an absolutely amazing day of birding in the Hamilton Study Area that none of us will soon forget! We can only hope that the next few days and weeks hold even more excitement for Ontario's birders!! Cheers, Barb Charlton _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/
