Shorebirds at Penn Lake Park

I did a quick check of Penn Lake for shorebirds this morning and was pleased to find the following:

• Least Sandpiper 3
• Pectoral Sandpiper 1(photo below)
• Stilt Sandpiper 1
• Killdeer 1
• Semipalmated Plover 3
• Lesser Yellowlegs 1
• Wilson's Snipe 1(photo below)

[click on images to enlarge]

An odd bird in the yard

For some time I've wanted to write something about our encounters with Wilson's Snipe. We see them regularly in migration and, more interestingly, in the middle of winter. Indeed one or two individuals have been tallied on six of the last eight Christmas bird counts. Evidently these birds find sufficient food and shelter along a small, densely vegetated creek in Peninsula Harbour, not far from the mill. The phenomenon of snipe overwintering in northern Ontario is so unusual that the regional compiler of the CBC simply didn't believe the first report back in 2002.

The Snipe Seep in Autumn

Until today I had put off profiling our ice snipe as I had yet to get a decent photo of one. Just about all of our snipe sightings involve brief views of fast-flying birds we've flushed.

The Snipe Seep in Winter

This morning, I looked out our kitchen window expecting to see the usual Rusty Blackbirds, Common Grackles and White-crowned Sparrows, and I did...in the company of a Wilson's Snipe! The bird was fairly active, foraging over a patch of turf where I had been scattering mixed seed - not acceptable snipe fare, evidently.

Certainly an unusual bird to observe from one's kitchen window.

Saturday bird notes

A tide of the usual March migrants - American Woodcock, Killdeer, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle and Song Sparrow - has washed over southern-most Ontario but few have made it yet to the north shore. Today's balmy weather, with temperatures in the mid-teens, seemed at odds with the dearth of spring birds. Martha and I walked along the harbour and observed a dozen Common Goldeneye and a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers but no other waterfowl. We flushed a pair of Wilson's Snipe from the marshy seep where they likely overwintered. Around town, Herring Gull numbers have doubled through the last week so we are keeping an eye out for some of the less common gulls.

At the LaFarge plant, near Heron Bay, there were five Ring-billed Gulls, most certainly new arrivals from the south.
Four of five newly arrived Ring-billed Gulls near Heron Bay
It was a good day for those who'd hoped to see the Gray-Crowned Rosy Finch. A contingent from Thunder Bay - Nick Escott, Myles Falconer and Brian Moore - arrived in the late morning and found the GCRF in a matter of minutes. Later in the afternoon, local birder Nolan Pelland had great views. I saw the bird again at 5:30 pm.
Photo by Nick Escott