Rondeau Bay: Birding By Kayak!

 
Today I had the opportunity to kayak Rondeau Bay thanks to Mike Bouman.  We put in at Erieau at 07:00. It was a beautiful morning to head out.

I have seen photos from others who have been out and the shorebirds are up close and personal.  Today was an amazing experience.  The shorebirds did not mind.  You could almost touch them at times!
There are some sand/mud island on the west side of Rondeau park that attract a number of birds.  Not only gulls and terns, but shorebirds.

There were not a lot of shorebirds today, but no doubt the best bird was a Buff-breasted Sandpiper.  It has been there several days now.  Last week they had Western Sandpiper and Red Knot as well.

The buffie was indifferent to my presence.  At one point it was too close and the lens I had was useless....

Several Baird's Sandpipers, perhaps ten, were out there.  Here is a one-legged beast.

And, wouldn't you know it, 6 Red-necked Phalaropes.  Here again I managed to get right up close for full frame shots.

Not sure why we have so many Red-necked this year, but I stopped at Ridgetown on the way home, and two more were there as well!
Perhaps 10,000 Common Terns were out there with a few juvenile Black Terns mixed in.

Lots of gulls too, and I hoped for something unusual.  Rather difficult to get a look at all of them from a kayak bobbing around.
Well, maybe there was.  As we were coming back I got a cell phone call from Andrew Keaveney that he had just found a Black-headed Gull at the base of Rondeau Bay just outside the park gate.  After pulling out the kayak, I rushed over to the location and found the bird.  I was going to head into the park anyway, so a nice bird for the day.

Ruddy Turnstone (quite a few of them today)

Back on the Bay, we paddled over to the marsh and heard many Sora rails (different location than yesterday).  There must be hundreds of them in the Rondeau marsh right now!  Nice to hear.

In the park, I headed out marsh trail in hopes of finding butterflies.  Well, I started off with a Gray Hairstreak (which I initially thought was a White-M from a distance!), but very few butterflies it turned out.

I found a nice patch of warblers/vireos past the tower location.

Also heard a White-eyed Vireo (which were scarce in the park this year).  The one out marsh trail may have been the only one this year.  We heard it in late May as well.

All in all, a great day.  (except for my back).