Dovetown Birding and Tip Watching

 Friday, the mission was to check out Shrewsbury where some doves were seen recently.  On May 27, Ian Richards, Shrewsbury's newest resident, found a Eurasian Collared-Dove near his house.  It was relocated by some intrepid birders earlier this week.

On Thursday, Garry Sadler was looking for it but turned up a White-winged Dove!  He eventually saw the collared-dove as well.  You can see his photos on eBird.

Early Friday morning I arrived just after sun-up and took on the search.  There are an amazing number of Mourning Doves to sort through!  After some time, I left without any luck on the collared-dove, but then Steve Charbonneau found it at the west end of Metcalfe Street.  I raced back to find it singing in a dead tree.😉

There are few records for the Rondeau area.  For me, I only heard the one that was at the park in May 2003.  I was certain I had one fly over south point trail many years ago as well.  I never wrote it up though!

I suspect the White-winged Dove is still hiding in Lonesome Dove as well.

I then did some birding in Rondeau Park, just finding breeding birds.

Acadian Flycatcher

A stop at McLean Conservation Lands is always interesting, so that was next.  An amazing number of gulls has been present, but no rarities.

At least four Lesser Black-backed Gulls are amongst them.

The White-faced Ibis was not seen after Thursday.

Today, a change in scenery was needed so I headed to Point Pelee where I had a good feeling about seeing American White Pelicans.  They are regular there at this time of year since they now breed on the small islands in Lake Erie.

Upon arrival at the Tip, three pelicans were there to greet me.😄

Heading back, I took a look out the east side from the "42 sign" trail.  I saw two more pelicans for a total of five.  Where those two suddenly came from, I have no idea!

There was good gull action at the Tip as well.  I saw two first cycle Little Gulls early on, with one in an odd plumage.  A small percentage of first cycle birds will develop a full hood.

I have had Franklin's, Black-headed and Laughing Gull there at this time of year, but none were to be seen today.😢

Most bonies were immatures, but this one adult stood out.

I had the Tip pretty much to myself for almost two hours before the "tourists" arrived.

Little Gull (lower bird)

I did not spend much more time in the park.  As usual, butterflies were scarce.

Eastern Kingbird

I stopped by Hillman marsh to take a peek at the shorebird cell.  By this time of year it is always drained, but worth a look.  Nine Great Egrets and three Sandhill Cranes were there among some Mallards.

On the way home I stopped by the Camper's Cove field east of Wheatley where one would expect Dickcissels by this time.  Sure enough I heard one.

Mission accomplished for today!

Valentine's Day Birding on Rondeau Bay

I headed south today and started at Shrewsbury dock.  While Rondeau Bay has mostly frozen again, there are some open spots--one fairly close to the westerly side of Shrewsbury.  Here we had lots of waterfowl, including most of the Snow Geese!  Most were napping though.

Steve Charbonneau joined me and we spent about 1.5h there.  Nothing much moved, but every once in a while, the ice would crack and the geese and swans would wake up.

The Snow Geese were tightly packed and it was impossible to get an accurate count at that time.  At one point I though 170 (including everything there such as hybrids, Ross's), but we conservatively put down 160.  There were at least 40 blue morphs.

At the front of the flock were two obvious small ones, but one was for sure a Ross's.  Much too distant for photos, and the sun was harsh today.

Regarding swans, there were several hundred Tundras, about a dozen Mutes and the two aggressive Trumpeters.  The trumps were easy to pick out not only due to size, but their behaviour.  They nipped at the butts of other swans, ducks and geese!

There were some first year swans there with pinkish bills, and one perhaps a young Trumpeter, but I did not look too hard at it.  Luke Berg later reported a young Trumpeter.

Most ducks were Redhead, but a few Canvasback, a couple of scaup, two Ruddy, a male Ring-necked and a few Blacks and Mallards.

I headed to Rondeau Park and walked the campground to start with.  It was certainly the nicest day we have had this winter.  Totally clear skies and no wind.  It was cold, but that does not bother me.
There were quite a few birds in the campground, but nothing new.

Some Cedar Waxwings were present.  One of these days we will see a Bohemian.  There are only a couple of in-park records and a couple outside the park.  Last I saw some there was 30 January 2000 with a flock of 12 on south point trail.

There was not much activity at the visitor centre, but I saw the first Chipmunk of the year!

The VC was open this weekend for Valentine's Day and Heritage Day.

The east side had quite a bit of very smooth thin ice.

The whole sheet was moving and along the shoreline, it was flaking off making for some interesting scenery.

Shrewsbury Show

The waterfowl show at Shrewsbury in south Chatham-Kent has continued into this week.  Late afternoon seems to be the time to count Snow/Ross's Geese in the fields east of Shrewsbury or Raglan.  I am never there at that time of day, so cannot experience the show!  A large number of swans have still been on the Bay as well.

The numbers always fluctuate due to various reasons, but yesterday up to 175 Snow Geese were present according to Allen Woodliffe's observation.  As well, up to 6 Ross's Geese were picked out.
There was no doubt some Ross's Geese were present, but getting good looks was essential.
In recent years we have been seeing more of these geese, and more hybrids are becoming apparent. There are some hybrids among this flock, undoubtedly.
It is certainly an unprecedented number of Snow Geese for this part of the province.

Snow Geese Mid-day Saturday

The finding of apparent "Bewick's" Swans has been another highlight.  It was a strange event on Saturday which I will not get into detail here.  I had picked out a leucistic swan which otherwise struck me as a "Bewick's".  On the way home, I saw Reuven Martin's post about finding a "Bewick's" Swan.  I wondered what was going on!
In the end, there turned out to be two swans, both of which were still being seen on Tuesday.

As we know, "Bewick's" is the Eurasian version of the Tundra Swan, sometimes seen in North America.  Just last year, one was seen at Point Pelee in the Onion Fields area.
The yellow blob on the bill is variable and has been seen in several forms.  They are given names according to shape.
Here is  a link to a website/blog that Alan Wormington provided:
https://ousewasheslps.wordpress.com/tag/swans/

I copied one of the photos here for detail where you can see the different types.

Unique bill patterns of Bewick’s swans. Information panel at WWT Welney. Photograph: Cambridgeshire ACRE.

The Point Pelee bird, first seen by Richard P. Carr, was of the Pennyface type.  Maybe the "P" stands for pennyface!  lol. Kudos to Richard for picking out the swan, as I had just been at the spot 15 minutes earlier and then saw Richard just after, as I was heading towards Wheatley!

I am not sure if anyone got a good look at bill pattern of the Shrewsbury swans, but it would be interesting to know what type they are.

With rather cold weather upon us, Rondeau Bay will be refreezing and many of these waterfowl will depart after an early "spring" migration.

Waterfowl Insanity on Rondeau Bay

With all the reports of crazy numbers of Snow Geese around Shrewsbury this week, I was anxious to get down to Rondeau Bay today.  I arrived at Shrewsbury at first light.

Jim and I could only pick out 9 Snow Geese at that time among the thousands of other birds.  Most ducks were Canvasback with some Redhead, scaup and only a few Mallard, Gadwall and a pair of Northern Pintail.

The Snow Geese constantly move around.  Late in the day they head to fields east of Raglan.  Late yesterday Allen Woodliffe estimated 160!!  Certainly a modern-day record for Rondeau.

The number of swans and geese is crazy for this time of year.  If it was mid-March it would be more normal.  Lots of Canvasback on the Bay.  Virtually none on the St. Clair River this winter!

The bulk of the Snow Geese were somewhere else first thing, so we moved on.
Ridgetown Lagoons was a good stop early in the day, and we found the 12 Greater White-fronted Geese in the southerly pond.  Lighting was not good for photos.  As luck would have it, they flew to the pond near the treatment building after we left for good close views.

Photo by Sharon and Deryl Nethercott

Four Snow Geese were in the north pond among a few Canada Geese.

We checked out Rondeau Park--mainly the campground where we finally found a Yellow-rumped Warbler (certainly not an "Audubon's"!) at the north end with some Golden-crowned Kinglets.  A Fox Sparrow was also further south in the campground.
Some waxwings were around, but they were Cedars.  The cinnamon butts remain absent....

The rest of the park was somewhat quiet.
Rondeau Bay is almost completely open, highly unusual for this time of year.  No ducks on the Rondeau side.

Late morning I went back to Shrewsbury.  Right timing!  About 120+ Snow Geese were circling to the easterly side of the dock, and finally landed.

I tried counting, but an accurate count was impossible and I could not get the whole flock in one photo.

I did notice a couple of smallish ones, but too distant to tell if they were Ross's.
Once the flock land on the ice with the swans, it was even worse to try and count.

A lone American Coot was off the dock end.  They are not rare in C-K anymore for winter.

On the other side of the dock, I watched swans for some time.  Strangely enough, Bewick's Swan was on my mind.  Suddenly I found this bird....

(highly cropped)

Very weird.  The yellow on the bill's base matches "Bewick's", but the rest of the bill was pinkish-orange.  Later, Jim Burk found the bird and said the legs were yellowish.  Could this be a leucistic swan?  Even rarer, a leucistic "Bewick's"?  Opinions are welcome.

To knock your socks off, later, Reuven Martin and Pilar Manorome apparently found a real "Bewick's" Swan to the easterly side of the dock! I got that email while I was in Chatham.


I also briefly checked Erieau since late yesterday a photo of a Harlequin Duck was posted on Facebook.  We found the bird today in Rondeau Bay, viewed from the government dock.  It was quite distant when I saw it though.  It is a young male and likely the same bird from a couple of weeks ago.

Lol

What to do tomorrow?  St. Clair River looks boring.

Spring in January (?)

I started at Rondeau Park this morning on a cold south wind.  The day actually turned out to be quite balmy.  At times it seemed like March.  Given the weather tomorrow, we may see some "spring" migrants in the waterfowl department.
Many waterfowl never left!  At Shrewsbury this morning, it certainly seemed like March with 300-400 Tundra Swans and twice that in Canada Geese taking advantage of the many spots of open water on Rondeau Bay.

I looked at all the geese I could, but nothing different was with them.  The Trumpeter Swans were probably still present, but they were certainly not close like they were yesterday.

Swans of the Tundra

At Erieau, there are still over 30 American Coots trying to stick out the winter.

Lawn Coots

A nice male Long-tailed Duck was in the marina near the coots. Sun was in the wrong direction though.

Lots of gulls are near the Blenheim Landfill, but I could not pick out anything other than Herring, Ring-billed and Great Black-backed.  They were quite spread out though.

Earlier at Rondeau Park, it was rather quiet.  Some Pine Siskins are still around, as well as Purple Finches.

After lunch in Chatham, I headed up Bear Line to its very end.  It turned out to be a good choice as there were quite a few birds along the Snye.  I found more coots!  At least 15 were there along St. Anne's Island.

Also present were a few different ducks and a Great Blue Heron.

Some blackbirds/starlings were in the trees, but I never got a good look at all of them.  Rusty and Red-winged Blackbirds were present.  It was near here that we also had the Yellow-headed Blackbirds around New Year's.
I could hear lots of geese and swans over on St. Anne's.

Too bad it was not a CBC day.  Bear Creek is where I start my sector of the Wallaceburg CBC!