Sunrise At Rondeau

I arrived at Rondeau just before sunrise today and caught some photos of the sun rising off south point trail.

The wind was very strong out of the SW, but not the 60 km/h as predicted. As well, it was sunny most of the time, contrary to the forecast. By the way, I just checked tomorrow's forecast, and it has completely changed again. What's new?

Anyway, the birds were hunkered down. Most interesting was a flock of about 30 Eastern Bluebirds sitting in the trees beside the trail. This is certainly one of the larger flocks that I have seen here. We always hope for a Mountain Bluebird, as one has never been recorded in the Rondeau birding area. In fact, one has not been in Ontario for some time. Maybe this winter!

More Juncos have moved in with some more White-throated Sparrows. The Fox Sparrows remain scarce, as I only saw one today.

Merlin with breakfast

On the lake south of Morpeth were a large number of Surf Scoters with a few Black among the scaup. The scoters outnumbered the scaup 2:1. I did not see a White-winged Scoter, strange enough. A few Ruddy Ducks were mixed in as well. Lots of gulls moving, but once again no kittiwake or anything uncommon.

I then went to Erieau and scoped ducks on the Bay. There are thousands. Canvasback seemed to be prevalent, with a few thousand of them.

At Blenheim Lagoons, the imm. Black-crowned Night-Heron (been there a few weeks) was still present in the back corner of pond 3. In pond 5, shorebirds included 120 Dunlin, 3 Least Sandpipers, 4 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 1 Lesser Yellowlegs, 10 Greater Yellowlegs and a Killdeer. There were lots of ducks including Ring-necked.

Bonies at Blenheim

These strong winds will not doubt bring in some interesting birds, so you retired or non-working birders get out there this week!