Sunday, June 9, 2013

Birding North Lambton County

Somebody is looking at this blog....213 pageviews so far today!  I hope they are amused!

Today I headed up to one of my favourite nearby provincial parks--Pinery.  I used to go there quite often but in recent years that has dropped off.  I had an enjoyable day.  Still I think there should be more birds around, as some spots were rather quiet.
Pine Warblers are plentiful up that way.  I encountered over a dozen in Pinery and a few elsewhere in my travels today.

This female was gathering nesting material.

My first walk was on Riverside Trail which is one of the better birding trails for variety.  A male Hooded Warbler was constantly singing there, but never showed itself.
A Veery was singing along the riverbank.

The lake was dead calm.  I saw a couple of Common Loons floating around towards Grand Bend.

The Great Egret was all alone.


Not a lot of variety in butterflies, but Little Wood Satyrs were everywhere.  A few azures and a couple of Pearl Crescents were around too.  I encountered a Juvenal's Duskywing on Pine Trail.

After a while in Pinery I headed over to the Lambton County Forest at Port Franks.  It is a neat place I got to know while gathering data for the Breeding Bird Atlas.  Today I heard/saw at least four Hooded Warblers there and heard two Acadian Flycatchers.  Other warblers included several Ovenbirds and single singing Black-throated Green.  I would assume the Green is nesting there.
During one outing for the atlas back in 2004 we had Blackburnian, Chestnut-sided, Black-throated Blue and Black-and-White there as well.  Pine Warblers are there also.
I also stopped for a brief walk in the Karner Blue Sanctuary.  Of course the blues are long since extirpated, but it is a nice spot.  I encountered a couple of Wild Indigo Duskywings there.  They were tiny compared to Juvenals anyway.


On the way home I decided to check out Watterworth Road on the border of Middlesex and Lambton.  There is some prime forest some of which is Crown Land.

Not long ago Sean Jenniskens checked it out and found some decent warblers.  Years ago we used to go to this spot for uncommon warblers such as Blue-winged (not so uncommon anymore!), Golden-winged, Brewster's, Cerulean and Hooded.
I just did the roadside by car today, but came up with a singing Magnolia Warbler.



It could be on territory there.  Back in 2004 I had a singing male a few kilometres straight south on Limerick while conducting the butterfly count in the area.  The date was July 6. I recall Paul Pratt had one in the area about that time as well.

one of the gray moths!

A decent day to be as the weather was nice. (yes, the weather forecast was totally wrong again!).
Lots of these jewels out today

4 comments:

  1. Blake, great posting. You are lucky to have the Pinery in your 1-hour driving circle! Regarding Blue-Winged Warblers, I was under the impression that their population was on the upswing, at the expense of the Golden-winged. It seems even at Pelee, Blue-winged were just easily seen back in May.

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  2. Do you know what the rules are regarding entering crown forests? Are there general guidelines, or does it vary by site?

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  3. Dwayne,
    Blue-winged is certainly increasing. I don't consider it so uncommon anymore. Some birders get excited over them every spring, but I see lots!

    Kellie,
    I don't know that there are any particular rules, but of course nothing is to be disturbed or removed. ATV's are not supposed to be in those like the ones at Skunk's, but of course they are. They (ATV users) for the most part have no regard for nature obviously.

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  4. Hi Blake, thanks for your reply. I did a little researching and apparently bird watching is one of the permitted activities on provincially-owned Crown land. Here are the regs (for this aspect of Crown lands, anyway), if you are interested: http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/stdprodconsume/groups/lr/@mnr/@crownland/documents/document/mnr_e000078.pdf
    Thank you, your mentioning of entering your own nearby parcel of Crown land inspired me to see what the policies were, so now I might take a stroll through a parcel nearby to me.

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