Then There Were Three

I headed down to Rondeau and area early this morning to check out the sights.  It turned out to be rather soggy a better part of the morning (yes, it is the weekend!), but some good birds were around.
There was a break in the rain, so Steve Charbonneau and I scoped the massive number of ducks on Rondeau Bay (20,000?), at the old pier area.  I had just started scoping and I put myself right on a male Eurasian Wigeon!

Usually Steve finds these things each year, but my ducks were aligned today (pun intended!).  Lighting was not the best at times, but there were thousands of ducks to sort through.
While there, we noticed lots of birds streaming north along the shoreline (most were juncos), so we thought a walk out marsh trail was in order.  Just after we got out of the cars, it started raining again....so much for that idea!


It looked like a long rain, so we headed our separate ways outside the park.  I went over to Ridgetown Lagoons and saw the Cattle Egret that Jeremy Hatt reported on Friday.  It was as far away as it could possibly be!

This IS a Cattle Egret!

Next stop was Erieau where the pier area seemed rather dead.  I did not get out to scope the rocks though, but I see that Steve "spotted" a sandpiper.  Also a Ruddy Turnstone.

I walked the rail trail to the viewing stand and some birds were present including a Gray Catbird and a Marsh Wren.  The wrens often are present on the CBC in December, so it may stay.

Blenheim Lagoons was on the agenda next.  Right away, I saw two Cattle Egrets on the main berm.

Along the edge of the middle pond, were three Wilson's Snipe and about 100 Dunlin.

I also picked out a single Pectoral associating with the Dunlin.

Over at the sprinkler cells, were a few more Dunlin, 11 Greater Yellowlegs and 4 Lesser Yellowlegs.

On the way back, the two Cattle Egrets had cloned another.  There were three!

The number of Cattle Egrets seem to fluctuate, so who knows how many are actually around.

Down along Stefina Line, I saw an adult Golden Eagle heading west over the pasture.

Feeling shortchanged from the morning, I went back to Rondeau and walked out marsh trail.  I saw some different birds from the morning including Vesper Sparrow perched in the Willow tree along the marsh boardwalk.  Seemed like an odd spot for one!
I also had a Marsh Wren near the tower.

I did not try to look at ducks as they were farther out than in the morning.

It was a good weekend and certainly a very exciting Saturday at Point Pelee (see previous blog post).