Sarnia Lakewatch--Finally!

Today appeared to be the first decent day for lakewatching at Sarnia this fall.  Although I am sure there were decent birds passing through prior to today, the winds were fairly good on this day.
I arrived way too early ( could not sleep anyway!) and waited for it to get light enough to see birds.
Some ships went through early on.

Manitoba

Not much was seen early on, but things picked up a bit after a while.  Lots of Bonaparte's Gulls were going through.  Several Black Scoters were evident today.  In fact there appeared to be around 3 dozen or so throughout the course of the morning.

A couple of fellows (Scott Jennex, David Stimic) from Michigan joined me for the lakewatch.
At one point I spotted an adult Little Gull in a flock of bonies.  Not that unusual, but a kittiwake would have been better!

A little after ten, a jaeger appeared along the shoreline to the east. It put on a show by chasing gulls near the apartments and over the yacht club.  It flew right in front of us and then went up the Michigan side.  I got some record photos which are highly cropped.

Some time later, I spotted a jaeger way out, and it looked like the same bird.  I think this one was a year old bird.

Although the strong wind continued, things dropped off quite a bit.  Likely something of note appeared later, but one can only stand there for so long!  I left after five hours.

I had not done any birding in Sarnia this fall, so I went over to Wawanosh Wetlands.  Lots of waterfowl present and flying over.  It rained while I was there, so I did not pull out the camera.  Trumpeter Swans appeared there about a week ago and were still present.  They were a bit distant anyway.

The only warblers were a few Yellow-rumped and a single Nashville.  Lots of sparrows and kinglets.  Too bad the weather was horrible or I would have looked around more!

Timid White-crowned Sparrow

Down the road, and still raining off and on, I walked around Perch Creek.  A large number of American Robins were present and a few Rusty Blackbirds.  I flushed up an American Woodcock at one point.

Chickadee at Perch Creek

On the way home, I briefly stopped at Moore WMA and found this Great Horned Owl.  It was facing the other way, unaware of my presence at first.  I made some noise so it would turn around.

Horny Owl