Point Pelee Day 2

Well today wasn’t THE day but it was a good day. As soon as I had parked the car up at the Visitor Centre there was some movement at the edge of the wood that borders the parking lot and we had 2 Swainson’s Thrushes and a 2 male Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. Nice! Joining the crowds down at the tip isn’t my idea of fun, but it was unavoidable and proved to be totally worthwhile. What fascinated me was seeing high-flying warblers and flocks of jays and blackbirds all heading south back across the lake, when they should be pushing on north. I’d never experienced this reverse migration before. 

Anyway, there were lots of birds in the woodland down at the tip and we spent the morning sifting through all the goodies. My approach is always to take it slow and see what happens and this paid off as at one spot we had a Common Yellowthroat, Yellow Warbler, Least Flycatcher, Blackburnian, Magnolia and Nashville Warblers and several Ruby-crowned Kinglets. 

Yellow Warbler

Magnolia Warbler

Wandering around the network of trails right down here at the bottom of Pelee Point then produced superb Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, Chestnut-sided, Palm, Wilson’s, Black-and-white and eventually a Cape May Warbler – yahoo. Oh and also a wonderful male American Redstart. 

American Redstart

Black-throated Blue Warbler

Black-throated Green Warbler

Chestnut-sided Warbler

I also had a brief view of a Mourning Warbler and a few of us got onto a skulking Veery as well. Bright blue Indigo Buntings added yet more splashes of colour to proceedings as they headed south with flocks of White-crowned and White-throated Sparrows. Offshore we had drake Greater and Lesser Scaups side-by-side and all the usual gulls flying by. Keith & Margaret brought us back coffee and cookies for our mid-morning snack before we carried on doing circuits of the trails, getting better and better views of everything. But a roosting Whip-poor-will was most excellent!

Whip-poor-will

 After lunch up at the Visitor Centre and a quick look at a day roosting Eastern Screech-owl, we dived up to one of the parking areas in search of a reported Hooded Warbler, but to no avail. So got the tram-thing back to the point where it was actually very quiet and picked up nothing new. From here we got our car and called into a few of the parking sites higher up the promontory and had an enjoyable last couple of hours checking out some new scenery etc. An Eastern Phoebe was new, as was American Black Tern from the Marsh Boardwalk, but I also enjoyed cracking views of a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak that came very close and a male Scarlet Tanager, and there had obviously been a fall of these birds today as they are everywhere. 

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Scarlet Tanager

We also saw American Goldfinch, more Warbling Vireos than you could wave a stick at, a Bald Eagle, Northern Harrier and other bits ‘n’ pieces as Viv would say.