Vindicated!

According to eBird, other people have since spotted my mystery bird at Presqu'ile and come to the same conclusion I did, so I think it's safe to say that I did indeed find a Prothonotary Warbler. Well outside of what is considered its usual range, as far as I know. But as a friend recently reminded me: it's migration, weird crap happens.

The obligatory bad photos:











A warbler with a bright yellow head and breast, grey wings, white undertail coverts, and no other visible markings (e.g., eye ring, wing bars, streaking). It probably should have been a no-brainer from those clues, but hey, when you find an Endangered species in a place where it really shouldn't be, you can't help but second (and third, and fourth) guess yourself.

Can You Call This Luck?

Since I was headed to the Prince Edward County area this past weekend, and since the weather was absolutely lovely, I left early on Friday and made a stop at Presqu'ile Provincial Park. The Marsh Boardwalk trail was lovely, if a bit quiet from a bird perspective (unless you count all the Mallards out on the open water). It was the Owen Point trail, though, that was my real objective.

Now, I'm no expert at shorebirds... no, that doesn't quite give the full measure of things, say rather that my experience to date with shorebirds is limited to Killdeer. So I'm not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to go out to the lakeshore during fall migration and dive in headfirst, so to speak. I think fall shorebirds are actually worse than fall warblers. Still, I took a stab at it.



This one might be a juvenile Black-bellied Plover? Mostly due to that stout, stubby little beak, in combination with the dark legs and the overall coloration.





Pectoral Sandpipers, I think? With Semipalmated Plovers running across the back of the second shot, those ones I know at least. The Pectorals have the clean line separating the dark neck from the white belly, are bigger than the Semipalmated, have yellowish legs, and the faintly downturned bill. Maybe.



I think these are all Sanderlings. The ones to the left are juveniles, and the darker one to the right is a male that hasn't quite lost his breeding plumage yet? Still a stubby, dark beak, but it looks longer than the Black-bellied Plover's. The male seemed to have redder overtones and a straighter, shorter beak than the Pectoral, even though it does have that clean line across the chest.



Another Semipalmated Plover on the left, with the full breast-band, and another possible-Sanderling on the right. Not too much difference in size between the two.





So, the one in the back with the long, downcurved bill might be a Stilt Sandpiper?  Though it looks bigger than the other bird, which might be another Sanderling, so I'm not sure... those two are supposed to be similar sizes. (CORRECTION: actually a Dunlin, pretty sure.)



These guys were really tiny, I think they're Semipalmated Sandpipers (not to be confused with the Plovers of earlier). Dark legs means they're not Least, anyway.



...yeah.  Yeah, I don't even know, they all started to look the same to me by this point. I think I need a better shorebird ID book, and also to practice a lot more.

On my way back to the car, I finally got my Blue-headed Vireo, in a mixed flock of mostly Chickadees and Yellow-rumped Warblers. I also saw something that looked like... well, I know what I think it was, but I also know that that particular bird really shouldn't have been there. So I've put out a plea for a second opinion, and will wait to speak further on that one until I've had a sanity check.

Changing Seasons Means...

Oh god, fall warblers.  Why do I do this to myself.

Places To Go, Birds To See

Just got back from a whirlwind tour of Scotland - from Stirling up past Cairngorms National Park and around Loch Ness on the way to Skye, then finally back through the Trossachs area on the way to Edinburgh. Added a grand total of 21 new species to my life list while I was there... very common species, but they were all new to me. Sadly, no really great photos of any of them - I only brought my little (waterproof) point-and-shoot camera, not my bigger one with the extra zoom.

One one hand, it was frustrating being right back at square one, hearing things singing in the brush and not having even the beginnings of a clue on how to identify them. But on the other hand, every bird was a brand new bird - it was like seeing a Cardinal again for the first time.  With a little application of basic principles (size, colour, behaviour, etc) and a little help from the locals, I think I managed to muddle through.

Spotted throughout the trip were Common Wood-Pigeon, Rook, and European Robin. The Eurasian Magpies I saw were mainly around cities (Stirling and Edinburgh).


Magpie taking in the sights at Stirling Castle


Wood-Pigeon

I did two short trail walks with the specific intention of birding, on a section of the Great Glen Way near Drumnadrochit and at the David Marshall Lodge/Queen Elizabeth Forest Park (lovely place, A++ would go again). On those two outings, I got:

- Mew Gull
- Hooded Crow
- Common House-Martin
- Great Tit
- Eurasian Blue Tit
- Eurasian Wren
- Eurasian Wigeon
- Carrion Crow (pretty sure - smaller than a Raven, but with a stouter, less pointed bill than an immature Rook)
- Coal Tit
- Common Chaffinch

With a bonus Eurasian Jackdaw in nearby Aberfoyle, which posed very nicely while I got a good look at its stubby little beak and paler grey nape.


Chaffinches

Our B&B on Skye was right near the coast, which meant that I could see Northern Gannets, Great Cormorants, Common Buzzards, and even a pair of White-tailed Eagles from my bedroom window. More eagles were found on a short boat cruise out of Portree. White Wagtails were all along the roadsides - adorable little things, they certainly live up to their name.


White Wagtail


They were there, I promise

And last but not least, Manx Shearwaters on the ferry from Armadale to Mallaig. I admit to resorting to eBird records for that area to help me narrow down the species on this one; I was taking the ferry at the time and didn't have my binocs handy, so all I really saw was a black and white bird with long, narrow wings flying agilely right along the water's surface.

And of course there were Rock Pigeons and House Sparrows and I'm pretty sure a pair of Ravens somewhere along the roadside in there (the initial reaction of "holy crap those are big birds" certainly suggests Raven to me), and various other gulls - Great or Lesser Black-backed, probably also Herring? And things that were present but wouldn't show themselves. As is always the case with birding, no matter where in the world you go.