What a pain it is to exhume my May notes and try to figure out certain events from the 16th that made it stand out from the other days of birding on my week off. A post that should have been made a month and a half ago now emerges after everyone has stopped thinking about spring migration and are now looking forward to the summer breeders, the first fall shorebird migrants, and those (like me) who are really overzealous, are already itching to get out to a hawk tower to witness the first trickling in of raptors in 2008!
However, I'm determined to finish this series of posts if it takes me till May 2009. Here we are at day 7 when my week was dwindling down and I was running out of time to get new birds for the trip. Days became longer, friends and family lost track of my existence, Pelee became my home away from home, and the Bobolink became my new nemesis (refer to future post: "May Misses"). You can't waste a single minute, see.
The day list:
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
American Wigeon
American Black Duck
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Redhead
Red-breasted Merganser
Ring-necked Pheasant
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Green Heron
Turkey Vulture
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Peregrine Falcon
King Rail (the story: earlier in the week, the first reports came out of a King Rail calling at the northeast end of Hillman Marsh. Of course, this meant business. The first evening I had free, my mom and I took a trip to the location and sure enough, the rail was calling not far from the road and a group of onlookers listened attentively. Of course, the bird never came out of the reeds it was hidden in - that would be too easy - so I can't list it as a lifer, even it was my first time being int he presence of the species. A little frustrating, but neat to hear the bird's call anyway, and it does count as an addition to my Pelee, Ontario, and May lists, all of which have far less stringent guidelines than my Life List).
Common Moorhen - another tick for the week, 2 birds were hanging out near the location of the King Rail at Hillman
Black-bellied Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Lesser Yellowlegs
Ruddy Turnstone
Least Sandpiper
White-rumped Sandpiper
Dunlin
Short-billed Dowitcher
Bonaparte's Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Caspian Tern
Forster's Tern
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Red-headed Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Least Flycatcher
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
White-eyed Vireo
Yellow-throated Vireo
Warbling Vireo
Philadelphia Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Horned Lark
Purple Martin
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Bank Swallow
Barn Swallow
Red-breasted Nuthatch
House Wren
Marsh Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
Tennessee Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Northern Parula
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Common Yellowthroat
Wilson's Warbler
Canada Warbler
Yellow-breasted Chat
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Orchard Oriole
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow
Total Species: 107 (Marianne and I had a discussion this spring recollecting years back when she and I went through great pains to try to get 100 species in 1 day. To think of this as a challenge now is almost laughable...it simply requires more time, more diligence, and a much better ear for sound identification).
Total Warblers: 19
No comments:
Post a Comment