Greetings all,
Further to Don Shanahan's posting, Bill Gilmour and I just got back
(31 Aug 2005) from birding the Owen Pt to Beach 4 stretch of
Presqu'ile and also had amazing numbers of adult White-rumps. We
figured there were about 640 waders of 14 spp. present. They are
B-b Plover 21a,2j
Semi Plover 2a,80j
Killdeer 6u
G Yellowlegs 1j
L Yellowlegs 7j
R Turnstone 4a,6j
Sanderling 15a,61j
Semi Sandpiper 1a, 155j
Least Sandpiper 32j
White-r Sandpiper 152a
Baird's Sandpiper 12j
Pectoral Sandpiper 60a,21j
Stilt Sandpiper 1j
Buff-b Sandpiper 1j
The only time I have ever seen so many adult White-rumps away from an
ocean coast was when we had a similar fall-out on Beach 1 after the
last hurricane about 2 years ago. This group of shorebirds seems
quite different than the 150-200 that have been here for the past
week or so. One of the most interesting finds was a colour-banded
adult Ruddy Turnstone that Bill picked out. The combination is as
follows: Left Leg: green flag above joint, green band above red band
below; Right Leg: metal band above joint, green band below. Other
birds of note were 2 Horned and one Red-necked Grebe off Beach 4, and
finally Bill also spotted a second summer Herring Gull nail and eat a
Least Sandpiper off the mudflats. We got on it just as it had
grabbed the Least so we don't know the status of the Least prior to
the gulp - it may have been a sick (botulism) bird.
Cheers,
Doug McRae
Directions: Presqu'ile is south of Brighton on the shore of Lake
Ontario. It is well signed from Hwy. 401 and 2.
