2010 Birding Festival...a Great Success

Day One, Dorion

Well, the weekend was FANTASTIC!
The weather couldn't have co-operated more, and some of us have sunburns to prove it!

Highlights for the birders this year, was Day One's Peregrine Falcon display. While the first group was at Ouimet Canyon in the morning, they watched 3 falcons flying around the canyon. One thrilled us by "stooping" down to catch a small bird.

When the second group was there in the afternoon, they watched a falcon catch a bat and take it to the rock face and snack on it! A great experience!

On Day Two at The Nipigon River Trail, we were able to watch a Marbled Godwit as it moved around the shallows at Sawmill Point. Another great bird was the Black-throated Green Warbler.

The total for this year was 97 species. A wonderful total, considering the migration hasn't completed yet. We were able to hear a lot of species, if not actually see them.

Hmmm, not sure...

Leaving Ouimet Canyon behind...

Great Prizes

Day Two, Nipigon

Black-throated Green Warbler

Marbled Godwit

One Week Away!

By this time next week, all the planning and organizing will be over for another year, and it will be another Festival in the books! We are very excited about the response, and now it is up to mother nature to accommodate us...birds and weather alike.

This past week or two we have been spotting birds returning to the area.
There's a group of 7 Sandhill Cranes staying in a field back of Dorion...we have been keeping an eye on them. Yellow Rumped Warblers are at Hurkett Cove,
as were some Meadowlarks last week.
The weather has been quite cool, and often very windy, so hopefully our checklists will be increasing this week, in preparation for the weekend.

A group of Sandhill Cranes...one must be hiding...

Lesser? Scaup at Hurkett

May 3...Hurkett Cove

A very windy day, following quite a windy weekend! Thought there might be some "windblown" birds hugging the shoreline, but nothing to report...yet.
Did see a flock of approximately 40 cormorants out over the lake, these Bonaparte Gulls, Ring-billed gulls, etc. There was a Horned Lark out on the spit last week, and the White-throated Sparrows have returned along with the Yellow-rumped Warblers.

No privacy! Very noisy, or I wouldn't have looked!

Ring-billed Gull

Bonaparte Gulls