Like most other locations in southern Ontario, the huge influx of migrants
(hawks, vultures, swallows, passerines) contributed to the breaking of many
one day and even seasonal highs at the 9 year old Port Burwell migration
watch. Typically, this watch is held for about 3 or 4 hours over 6 Saturday
or Sunday mornings for campers and for day visitors. Rather than list all
the broken records here's some of the most interesting sightings from the
last couple of days.
On Saturday around 3:30 p.m., a single COMMON RAVEN soared up in a kettle
of Turkey Vultures but pealed off to the east rather than the west. This
is likely the same bird reported at Hawk Cliff, some 30 km to the west, on
Sunday. This is only the 5th record for Elgin County since 1954 and the
first for us in 20 some years of hawk watching. The 4 fall records are
October 9, 15, 17 and 22 and are of birds travelling with crows or vultures.
On Sunday about 12:30 p.m., a beautiful, crisply plumaged dark-morphed
adult Red-tailed Hawk soared over us with several other redtails for almost
10 minutes providing us with great looks including a bright rufous
tail. Hopefully it was seen at Hawk Cliff an hour or so later so we can
compare elapsed time.
Sunday's 29 Bald Eagles shattered our previous 1 day high of 8. Somewhat
surprisingly to us only 8 or so of these were full adults (5+
years). There were at least 6 fourth year birds (dusky white head, some
with smudgy line, black band on white tail) but no 3rd year birds, the
"white-bellied" bird. At 12:15 a 1 year old Bald Eagle circling low over
us was joined by a subadult Golden Eagle providing at least 20 watchers
with the spectacle of their life. Many of the people who come to our
migration watches have never seen a Bald Eagle, let alone kettles of 4 or 5
birds, let alone 20 + birds over 3 hours , let alone a Bald and Golden
soaring together low over head! Hopefully, there will be a few converts to
hawk watching among this crowd.
In the afternoon we decided to search the sparsely vegetated dunes in the
park for "rare" sparrows. We had two surprises. First, we flushed a
Wilson's Snipe from the driest, barest part of the dunes where it had been
hidden below a mini Scots Pine. Meanwhile there are dozens of wet
interdunal meadows nearby where one would most expect to flush a
snipe. And, instead of flushing many sparrows (only 1 or 2 each of
Lincoln's, Song, Savannah) we flushed at least 25 Palm Warblers from the
weedy foredunes and waste areas.
The Port Burwell Provincial Park migration watches are finished for this
season as the park closes October 10. The park is located on the west side
of Big Otter Creek in Port Burwell in southeastern Elgin County about 20
minutes south of Tilsonburg on Hwy 19 (Plank Road).
Dave Martin, Linda Wladarski, Ross Snider
Harrietsville and Ingersoll
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
