Target Bird Found

(not the target bird)

As you may have predicted, I went to Rondeau today.  I met up with Steve Charbonneau at south point trail and off we went.  Several Mourning Warblers and Blackpoll Warblers were heard, but not seen along the way.  We even had one Mourning way out the south beach.
A strange warbler song caught our attention, but it turned out to be a Yellow Warbler.  It was singing a very odd song!
The lake was dead calm again, so we decided to head out the south beach.  In fact it was so calm and clear we could actually see across the lake!  I had never witnessed this before at Rondeau and we could see high rises of Cleveland and things sticking up on the far shore.  Lake ships were even seen far out.  A novelty indeed.

Not much was seen far out, but the two Least Bitterns were once again in the usual spot.  Several Semipalmated Plovers were around, and in fact many were all over today.
A couple of Black Terns were flying around, perhaps nesting somewhere out there.
There were several flyovers including Bobolink and Eastern Bluebird.
When we got back, we heard a Blue-winged Warbler singing.  Likely nesting in the area as they have before.

Eastern Pondhawk (f)

The target bird for today was Acadian Flycatcher.  We checked all the usual spots and in our last spot near a trail on Rondeau Road, we found one!  Even better, it was building a nest!  It looked typical as it was on a forked branch over water, and looking very flimsy and loose with hanging material.
Obviously I could not get very close but with my 300 mm lens with 1.4 teleconverter, I managed to get some record shots.

A few warblers were scattered throughout the park including the aforementioned Mourning (8) and Blackpoll (15), several Black-throated Green, several Blackburnian, several Wilson's, a Canada....






Later, I headed over to Erieau and saw 2 Whimbrel on the north point of the Rondeau spit.  (Now I am up to a grand total of 3 for the year!).  A Ruddy Turnstone was the only other shorebird visible.  Lots of gulls out on the lake.

The R/R track trail had a few warblers including Mourning and Canada, plus a Black-billed Cuckoo.
An Indigo Bunting was singing by the viewing stand.