After a two year hiatus, twenty OFO members and their guests joined me
Sunday (April 24) for the annual late April trip to Prince Edward County
South Shore Important Bird and Biodiversity Area.
The weather was excellent, although we didn't get the hoped for south winds
that southwestern Ontario had. After meeting in Picton, we headed for
Kaiser Crossroad but the normally flooded fields had dried up in the last
couple of days so there weren't any waterfowl or other waterbirds
concentrated here so we moved on quickly .
We moved on quickly to check the lake off the right-of-way at the south end
of Kaiser Crossroad and enjoyed a good flight of Bonaparte's Gulls but
sadly could not locate a Little Gull. There were a small handful of Horned
Grebes and waterfowl here as well.
From here we headed for Prince Edward Point and enjoyed a banding
demonstration from the helpful staff at the Prince Edward Point Bird
Observatory, getting close up looks at both kinglets, Brown Creeper,
Yellow-rumped Warbler, Brown Thrasher, and Eastern Towhee. Our walk to the
lighthouse yielded a good number of Yellow-rumped Warblers, a couple of
Black-and-white Warblers and Blue-headed Vireos and a pair of Purple
Martins. We all enjoyed excellent views of a singing Rusty Blackbird.
On our way out we stopped and walked the trail at Point Traverse Woods and
had more typical late April migrants including a Palm Warbler with
Blue-headed Vireos, Pine Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers and lots of
kinglets. On the lake we had good scope views of both Surf and White-winged
Scoters.
From here we headed to the opposite end of the IBA with a final stop at
Point Petre. We didn't add too many new species but did have good looks at
a hunting American Kestrel and we watched a Common Raven delivering food to
hungry chicks in a nest.
Despite missing many of our hoped for waterbirds at Kaiser Crossroad we
ended the day with over 80 species and everyone (seemingly!) went home
happy. Thanks to everyone who joined and helped make the day fun. To view a
trip report, visit https://ebird.org/canada/tripreport/49766
Mike Burrell