Birding in the morning at the Delaurier Parking lot in Point Pelee

 

Frosty morning at the Delaurier parking lot, Point Pelee.  Photo by Marianne Reid-Balkwill

 



Almost every birder has another birder friend they meet up with and know they are going to have a great day!  For me, that one person is Jeremy Hatt.  It seems that every time we go birding together we see some great birds! Today was no exception.

 

We decided to do a big sit from 7:00am to 11:00am at the Delaurier Parking lot in Pelee.  Later on, Mike Tate and Bob Cermak joined us.  In the end, we all got at least a new Pelee area bird, with some of us even having more than one new pelee bird!  Here is what we saw:

 

Carolina Wren- 3

Wild Turkey- heard

Pine Siskin- 16

Common Redpoll- 14 (or at least we are assuming they are all Common Redpolls)

Downy Woodpecker- 3

Common Loon- 2

Ring-billed Gull- 2

Black-capped Chickadee- 2

Dark-eyed Junco- 18

Northern Cardinal- 2

Herring Gull- 4

Red-bellied Woodpecker- 2

European Starling- 112

American Robin- 13

American Goldfinch- 30

RED CROSSBILL- 6 (type 3)

Mallard- 17

Blue Jay- 5

Canada Goose- 8 (others heard)

Eastern Bluebird- 5

American Tree Sparrow- 4

Cedar Waxwing- 20

Horned Lark- 5

House Finch- 1

Northern Harrier- 1

Tundra Swan- heard a flock

Bonaparte's Gull- 12

Hairy Woodpecker- 1

American Crow- 2 (though I think there may have been more..?)

White-winged Crossbill- 8

BOHEMIAN WAXWING-1

American Black Duck- 8

Sharp-shinned Hawk-1

Red-breasted Merganser- 8

Red-tailed Hawk- 1

Yellow-rumped Warbler- 1

Cooper's Hawk- 1

American Pipit- 1

Red-shouldered Hawk-1
Golden-crowned Kinglet- 1
Red-winged Blackbirds/Rusty Blackbirds/Common Grackles- plenty

 

 

We had one rule we followed, we didn't count birds that flew from south to north, as many birds (especially the Starlings) are notorious for flying up and down the peninsula.

 

One bird we were hoping to get was Cave Swallow.  Turns out we missed one at the tip this morning. I think for sitting on our butts for 4 hours (though we mostly stood) we did pretty good!

Another surprise was that we had no Evening Grosbeaks since they are around.  Tomorrow is another day, though with southerly winds predicted, it may be a Tip kinda morning once again.

The only butterfly I had was a Orange Sulphur in Ander's Field in Point Pelee