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2006 MIGRATION REPORT #5
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
As usual, the middle week of May had horrendous weather. We needed rain, but not this week! It seems to be the trend of recent years. With the changed weather patterns, we do not get the big fallouts of birds anymore. This year was no exception. They came in dribs and drabs, flew right over, or did not stay any length of time. However, many birds are late which has something to do with the weather. There were still large numbers of early type birds this past weekend that should largely have departed.Birding was fairly good at the beginning of the week if you did not mind the rain. At Rondeau, the big news was the discovery of a female Painted Bunting on south point trail on Monday (15th) afternoon. This is Rondeau area's second record of that species – the previous was also a female in early May 2001.
Late Tuesday afternoon there was an unconfirmed report of a female Blue Grosbeak near the park store.
The week saw a good variety of warblers, with a number in the high twenties being seen. Monday saw a large number of Hooded Warblers. It was probably a record day with ten being reported in the park. No doubt there were a few others that went undetected.
There have been a number of Little Gulls around Rondeau mixed in with other species. A couple of Lesser-black-backed Gulls and a Glaucous Gull were reported at Erieau as well. A Laughing Gull has also been seen off and on from the east side.
The Chuck-Will's Widow continued to call every night near the Rondeau Visitor Centre. This is probably the rarest (and consistent) bird in Ontario right now.
Farther afield, Hillman Marsh reported some White Pelicans on Wednesday May 17 and some Whimbrel on Thursday. A Kirtland's Warbler was reported on May 21 in the south end of Point Pelee.
Point Pelee has not reported any super rarities as yet. As well, the poor weather, fewer numbers of birds and hordes of birders have made birding less desirable at Point Pelee. In fact, I would not hesitate to say that birding at Rondeau has been much better than Pelee this year. Rondeau Park sees only a small fraction of the people, and has had some excellent birds. The scenery is better, and the birding area is larger.
The holiday weekend was fabulous for birding, especially at Rondeau Park. (And yes, the winds switched to the north and made things cool! Did you think I would get away with not saying that?). However, Saturday was a nice day weatherwise despite the traditional cool weekend weather. Bird numbers were up, especially with warblers.
The bird of the month was found by Steve Charbonneau and Your's Truly on south point trail early Saturday (20th) morning. A Bell's Vireo had us stumped at first, as it was a bird that neither of us had ever seen before. What made it even more unique, was the fact that it was the gray form of the southwest, probably never before seen in Ontario. I do not know when the last Bell's Vireo was reported around Rondeau, but it has not been recently.
The following day (Sunday) was incredible for birds. Despite the unseasonably cool (but expected for weekends) weather, bird numbers were the best so far this year. Warbler numbers were very high. No outstanding birds were seen, but it was nice to have a real birding day for a change! Olive-sided Flycatchers were finally reported. Cape May and Northern Parula Warblers were present in very high numbers.
There is nothing new to report at the wetlands locally. The heavy rains have raised the water level at Stewart and made it less desirable for shorebirds. However, there have been lots of Black Terns.
Below is a detailed writeup of the Rondeau Big Day Birding competition. You get the details here only on CKTimes, as certain newspapers are not interested in these human interest type events.
The 2006 Rondeau Big Day Competition was held on the weekend of May 13-14. The 4th annual event was hosted by the Friends of Rondeau and Rondeau Provincial Park. It is a friendly event where teams of birders select a twenty-four hour period in which they try to see and hear as many birds as possible within the official Rondeau birding circle. This circle is actually the Christmas Bird Count Circle that is fifteen miles in diameter and encompasses various habitats surrounding the park.
The circle was created in 1939 and has recorded 348 species of birds to date. Some of these are historical records such as Passenger Pigeon and Eskimo Curlew.
The 2006 competition saw three teams of two compete for the title. The team of Steve Charbonneau and Mac McAlpine once again took the prize with 152 species this year. They have created a dynasty by the fact that they have won every year! Last year they tallied a record 158 species.
Second place this year went to Ross Wood and Scott with 147 species. Third place went to the team of Blake Mann and Craig Anderson with 140 species.
No outstanding species were really tallied, but as always, some interesting species were recorded. The rarest bird was the Chuck-Will's-Widow near the visitor center at dusk, recorded by Ross and Scott. The other two teams did not make it there in time and the rainy weather did not help matters.
It all comes down to luck and being in the right place at the right time. A team can miss a species by minutes. There is no time to wait around at any particular spot while doing a big day. The weather is always a factor, as rain, fog or wind at any time can make a difference. This year the weather was less than ideal and huge numbers of birds were not to be found in the cool and damp weather.
The combined species list of all three teams totaled 170 species. It is interesting to note that there were at least eight other species recorded in the circle by other birders during the designated count period. Therefore a total of 178 species gives one an indication of the number of different birds within the Rondeau circle on May 13-14.
Hopefully others will get involved in the future to make the results even more interesting.
