Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Weeks 35-38 Paul's Update

I am having trouble keeping up my birding updates, though it shouldn't really be that hard to write a bit on my birding and tally up what I have recently seen. But I look up, and then I am nearly a month behind on the posts. Maybe this is ok because I find that I write my most interesting birding adventures into separate posts anyways. So now I will be posting every month on my recent progress. And each of these will be a nice summary of the birds and the seasonal changes.

I found September to be a hectic birding month; I knew the migration was in full effect and I starting feeling like I needed to be out there. I made a couple of trips down to Lake Ontario and spent a lot of time in the marsh behind my house, and all of this birding yielded a handful of new species.

Don't get me wrong, I saw a lot of birds. With eBird keeping better track of my bird sightings, I can tell you that I saw 78 different species in September, which is a pretty good tally. Of these, the new birds included the Winter Wren, which I probably saw earlier in the year but definitely saw this time. I also saw a couple of new warblers including the Bay-Breasted and Nashville Warblers, and I thought I saw a Orange-Crowned Warbler (or at least Damon had convinced me that I had) but it was just a Palm Warbler. I also saw a Sora, which was a bit exciting for me. I flushed the Sora into flight near the marsh behind my house and I got at least 3 seconds of good viewing it before it disappeared into the cattails. I have also seen a whole repertoire of sparrows recently including Song, Swamp, White-Crowned, White-Throated, Lincoln's, Savannah, Chipping, and Nelson's. Of these, the Lincoln was a new species for me. To round out my September birding, I spotted an America Golden Plover, which was an event in and of itself.

With these birds, I am now at 259 for the year.

254 Winter Wren 9/1/2013 McGlaughin Wildlife Reserve, Oshawa, ON
255 Bay-Breasted Warbler 9/1/2013 McGlaughin Wildlife Reserve, Oshawa, ON
256 Sora 9/2/2013 Loggerhead Marsh, Peterborough, ON
257 Nashville Warbler 9/2/2013 Loggerhead Marsh, Peterborough, ON
258 Lincoln's Sparrow 9/14/2013 Loggerhead Marsh, Peterborough, ON
259 American Golden Plover 9/26/2013 Loggerhead Marsh, Peterborough, ON


Here is a Lincoln's (left) and Swamp (right) sparrow hanging out together.

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