Spring Fling

Lots of folks at the shack today, all of whom were treated to great views of up to 8 Red Necked Grebes, four Horned Grebes and 15 R B Merganser. A Common Loon also landed off the Point towards the end of the count and called a few times before heading off north. The total loon count was 104, and included 13 Red Throated. These seemed to become more frequent later on, the exact opposite of the Commons. Starting to wonder if a pattern might be developing there. Some nice diversity at the shack first thing with 2 Bufflehead, several L T Duck and Scaup sp and the first scoters of the count - 2 White Winged. A Pine Warbler flew around overhead calling for a few seconds and a Horned Lark showed well on the pebbles. 2 or 3 Tree Swallows headed east - good luck to them, hope the weather doesn't change! Nice to meet a couple of former counters too. On the way back after the count an Evening Grosbeak was showing superbly in a tree above the feeders, what a stonker!
Yesterday a good count of about 180 loons, many quite high due to the very light winds and good visibility. And great to see a Belted Kingfisher heading out over the lake.
A couple of evenings ago i had lovely views of 3 Hermit Thrush feeding by the roadside, what utterly gorgeous birds. Sadly Mike Fitz spotted one dead on the shoulder on the way home from last nights dinner at the Falls. A very enjoyable evening nonetheless in great company.

Loon fest

With the temp hovering around 4 deg C and a strong N wind, the windchill was off the scale and the only thing that kept me alive was the great movement of loons - over 300 of them! And as local birder Ken predicted yesterday, passage peaked in the second hour after sun up. At that stage winds were light but they quickly picked up and the loon flight stopped almost completely. Interestingly the vast majority today were quite low over the lake, mostly out beyond the Point, presumably due to the less sunny, cooler, windier weather with fewer taking the "short cut" across over the harbour. Otherwise hardly any other birds moving yet other than the regular trickle of R N Grebe. A few Sandhills came out over the Point and made a half hearted attempt to cross before wisely turning back in the strong wind. Cranes seem to be almost as hesitant as chickadees! Amazing to think up to 23 April last year there had been only 40 Common Loons but over 3000 cranes! Just goes to show the unpredictability of the natural world; who knows how many factors are involved in determining bird numbers - not just weather but weather the previous breeding season, predation of chicks, lemming populations, food abundance in the wintering grounds... a tangled web indeed.

Common Loon 272
R T Loon 47
R N Grebe 44
Sandhills 24

Yesterday evening after dinner i went for another walk down the top secret trail where i had the Spruce Grouse, and got lucky with my target bird - a Ruffed Grouse gave great views and eventually dropped back down to the ground to continue feeding. Got photos if you don't believe me.

Windows of Opportunity

One thing that i'm starting to learn is that birds know when to seize an opportunity. The last two days have had periods of thick fog; today for just an hour or so, yesterday for half the day. Both days, as soon as the fog cleared, there was a major pulse of birds leaving the bay and heading out round the Point into the main part of the lake. Today a wave of 54 Common Loons all in a couple of loose "flocks", yesterday the fantastic sight of 180 Red Breasted Merganser all departing at the same time. This requires continual scanning as being in the middle distance they could be surprisingly easily missed! I guess they were keen to get going after all the strong NW winds then fog holding them back.

Today also yielded the first 3 Red Throated Loons of the year, the first two were helpfully with a Common for comparison! Another 31 Common Loons spread throughout the day made a day total of 85, though it was very quiet for the last 3 hours or so. Also the first Greater Yellowlegs flew through calling, sounding very similar to its Old World counterpart the Greenshank. Fantastic views of an adult Golden Eagle spotted by a visitor brightened the last couple of hours, it looked somewhat different to the Scottish birds i'm familiar with, having broad pale bars on the upperwing and an even paler head - in fact looking rather like an Imperial Eagle! Always gives me a big thrill to see one.
Groups of chickadees came to the edge of the pines by the Shack before panicking and turning back; yesterday while waiting here for the fog to clear a Pine Siskin called and gave good views.
On the way home a good long check of the feeders produced the first three White Throated Sparrows, while yesterday a Common Redpoll showed well, a scarce bird this year. Good views were eventually obtained of its undertail coverts, where 2 broad dark streaks could be seen, thereby eliminating its congener Hoary from the equation.

Great Northern Diver!...

...or Common Loon as it's known over here, was definitely the theme of todays Count. I was hoping that there might have been some waterbirds held up in the bay by the strong NW winds round the Point yesterday, and while duck spp were almost non-existent, i was very pleased to see no less than 93 Common Loons re-starting their migration after an enforced lay-off! Most of these were migrating quite high and taking a major short cut by flying over the harbour, cutting across the peninsula and completely missing Whitefish Point! They could have been easily missed but luckily they were spotted using this sneaky tactic by Chris; i kept a close watch on this route and would estimate that about 2/3 of the total number took this flight line.

Yesterday, Sat 17th produced snow showers early morning; the advice was not to try counting - i went to the Point for a look and yep, the advice was good, i couldn't see the lake! I waited round the gift shop for a while for the snow to stop and had 2 Purple Finch, RB & WB Nuthatch and the female Chaffinch again. No change in the weather so went to see if anything was sheltering in the harbour. On the way i decided to try for woodland grouse so picked a disused-looking forest track, and after a 15 minute walk had excellent close views of a male Spruce Grouse.
The weather cleared in the afternoon so i did the last 2 hours of the Count but waterfowl were very few, though a Snow Bunting perched on the roof of the shack and called away, obviously feeling a bit lonely!

15th & 16th April

Well i finally arrived after a long journey!
Nice to meet the rest of the WPBO team and some of the Board - thanks to Jerry for picking me up in Newberry at 6.15 a.m!
The weather started out warm and sunny and it was great to see a good hawk passage on Tuesday, especially so many Kestrels. An Eastern Phoebe was seen twice by the road, on Wednesday there was an excellent number of Flickers, some Lapland Longspurs, and a pair of Blue Winged Teal on a forest pool plus some Ring Necked Ducks and a Tree Swallow.
Yesterday was the first day of the Count, and with the wind switching from the West to the East, it was "in at the deep end"! A good passage of waterbirds at first light tailed off after a couple of hours but produced the following:

Canada Goose 3
Mallard 8
Pintail 4
Green Winged Teal 30
Greater Scaup 17
Scaup sp 3
LT Duck 31
Bufflehead 37
Goldeneye 12
Common Merg 7
R B Merg 7
Common Loon 7
Horned Grebe 1
R N Grebe 27
Sandhill Crane 364
Killdeer 1
Boney's 1
Tundra Swan 1

Today the wind had switched to the west again and passage was much lighter. Three Bald Eagles showed well for me and Tom and it was really nice to see a male Merlin on the Point most of the day, and a steady stream of Harriers continued to head out over the waves just like yesterday - really impressive stuff, they just aren't fazed by the strong winds, big waves and not being able to see the other side!

Canada Goose 22
G W Teal 8
Scaup sp 1
L T Duck 9
Bufflehead 7
Goldeneye 1
Common Merg 2
Common Loon 3
Horned Grebe 4
R N Grebe 12
Sandhill Crane 250
R B Gull 1

Most of the birds were in the first couple of hours, except the Cranes and even they stopped flying as the wind really picked up towards the end. There were more waterbirds sheltering on the lake than yesterday including a lovely pair of Bufflehead (rather small and cute), 4 summer plumaged Horned Grebes, several summer plumaged R N Grebes and a sum plum Common Loon. Overhead a Snow Bunting called and showed its diagnostic wingbars. A female Chaffinch was behind the Gift Shop and on the way home a female Hooded Merganser showed well in the harbour.
Will be interesting to see what the NWerly gales and snow bring tomorrow...Snowy Owl perhaps?

Fall 2009 Summary

101611 individuals of 73 species of waterbirds were seen during this fall's count. The number of individuals is about 20 thousand birds above average. This was the second-highest amount of individuals seen in a fall and only the third fall with 6-figure individuals. This includes all of the "reasonable" ducks such as uncommon species like Eider species, Harlequin Duck, Canvasback, Hooded Merganser, and Wood Duck.

For the most part, the weather was accommodating for observation. Fog, haze, rain, and snow only hindered possible observation a relatively low amount of days. September and November were unusually gorgeous and August was normal. October was colder and wetter than normal but most of the rain fell at night. Snow only fell a few days with accumulation once.

The five most common species were:

Long-tailed Duck- 32841 (2nd highest seasonal count)
Red-necked Grebe- 10407
Scaup sp.- 7504
Red-breasted Merganser- 7178
Canada Goose- 5792

The only record high seasonal count set this fall was for Harlequin Duck which tied the seasonal record of 7. Scoters were drastically different between species with 255 Blacks-- a second highest seasonal count, 173 Surfs-- a second lowest count, and 3163 White-wingeds, a slightly above average number.

Noteworthy waterfowl seen this fall were Snow and Cackling Goose, Canvasback, Eider species on two different days, Pacific Loon, Western Grebe, Long-tailed Jaeger, Franklin's Gull, Iceland Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake, Sabine's Gull, and Forster's Tern. Interesting shorebirds included Piping Plover (the first time they bred on the point in 23 years), 12 Whimbrel (2nd highest fall count), Long-billed Dowitcher (4th point record) and Red Phalarope. Noteworthy non-waterbirds seen from the waterbird count were Northern Hawk Owl, Boreal Owl, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, and Tufted Titmouse (1st point record). Mammals also provided some highlights including Bull Moose, Red Fox, and a canine that was either a Wolf or large unusually marked Coyote.

Finally, I would just like to say that I had a great time as the fall waterbird counter. I would like to thank Chris Neri for spelling me once a week and joining me during the afternoons. I would especially like to thank all of the birders and visitors who stopped by during the count. It was great to spend time with the regular point birders and it was wonderful to meet new people almost every day.

Have a great winter everyone!
Tom Prestby

November 15, 2009- BL Kittiwake

The 2009 fall waterbird count closed out with a much better day than any day the past week. The weather was much more typical of November with temps near 40 and winds out of the west at 30-40mph.

Waterfowl: Not large numbers by any means but better numbers than the past week and a steady trickle of birds throughout the day. Species diversity was up as well with 9 today. Highlights were a close flyby Red-throated Loon (one of three today) and 11 White-winged Scoters-- two of which officially represented the final birds detected during the fall 2009 waterbird count.

Gulls: An exhilarating highlight of the day was a juvenile BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE seen during the fifth hour of the count. We were able to watch the bird for several minutes as it effortlessly sailed NW straight into the 30mph headwind. This was the first of the season and great to see after I thought it may not happen this fall.

Other: A fun sighting was a Sharp-tailed Grouse that flew out of the woods near the merlin pole and flew a lap around the tip of the point before tucking back into the woods near the ponds.

Stay tuned for a season wrap-up post!

Tom Prestby
Waterbird Counter

November 14, 2009

It was another warmer than normal day (about 50 degrees) but cloudy all day. The pattern of extremely slow waterbird movement continued-- 16 total birds were seen. The highlight was a NORTHERN HAWK OWL that made its way out to the tree line after being banded earlier in the day. This was the second Hawk Owl in the past 3 days at the point.

Tom Prestby
Waterbird Counter

November 13, 2009

The November duldrums continue at the waterbird shack. Temps were in the upper 40's and a fairly strong wind blew out of the South all day. I could not even reach double-digit waterbirds today-- 9 migrating waterbirds were seen. Other highlights were a Northern Goshawk and the return of our pet Glaucous Gull after a one day absence.

Tom Prestby
Waterbird Counter

November 11 & 12- 2009

Chris covered the count on my day off today and had the same results as I had yesterday-- very few birds. I saw 16 total migrating waterbirds yesterday and he saw 13 today. The only birds showing with any consistency now are Goldeneye, Bufflehead, and Red-necked Grebe.

Fortunately, the weather remains very pleasant so standing on the point when no birds are flying by is much easier than it would be during a "normal" November.

The highlight of the day today was a NORTHERN HAWK OWL that was seen during the morning and seen again and banded at dusk.

Tom Prestby
Waterbird Counter