rb_stern
Monday 20th September 2004, 00:37
Hi,
I had a great afternoon birding locally today, with a birding friend, Judy Tufts. Today was, weather-wise, the first real day of Fall here, after a heavy rain storm yesterday (the remnant of what was Hurricane Ivan, now just a strong occluded front), with strong N.E. winds, scudding gray clouds, intermittent rain, and the coolest all day temp. since May (never got above +9C.). We decided to go to some of the local shorebird spots around the Minas Basin, here on the Bay of Fundy shore of Nova Scotia (Atlantic Canada). We started at a farm pond with muddy, reedy edges, where there were 10 GREATER YELLOWLEGS, 1 LESSER YELLOWLEGS and a distant N.HARRIER and an imm. BALD EAGLE that lazily flew by.
Next stop was Windsor Sewage Plant, where the only shorebirds were a group of 18 SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS flew over, but we found a F. RUDDY DUCK* amongst the GREEN-WINGED TEAL ans AM. BLACK DUCKS. We hit the Windsor mud-flats just right, just before high tide, and through the scopes were able to get good looks at about 100 BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER, several more Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, and myriads of "peeps" way out on the flats. 1 MERLIN stayed perched on a post.
After that we checked out the fields at Grand Pre, initially thinking it would be a quick stop on the way to the beach, where the "peeps" gather on the rising and falling tide. But we soon realizes that the sky was full of flocks of birds displaced from the beach by the high tide, and spent about an hour watching the spectacle. there were flocks of AMERICAN GOLDEN and BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS, some still in gorgeous alternate (breeding) plumage, a few RED KNOT and RUDDY TURNSTONE, and clouds of SEMIPLAMATED PLOVER, SEMIPALMATED and LEAST SANDPIPERS. It soon became obvious why the birds were so spooky, as 4 different N. HARRIERS, including 2 beautiful silvery adult males, appeared patrolling the fields. We scoped one field to check if there was anything different amongst the Semi. Plovers, and found 2 BAIRD'S SANDPIPERS*. I lazily checked a small flock of gulls in the same field, and there amongst the usual HERRING and GBBs was an adult LESSER BLACK-BACKED!*. In the next field,Judy said "what's that lump sitting on the ground?" and when I swung the scope around to check, it was a PEREGRINE. Within a moment, one of the male Harriers swooped in and tried to attack the Peregrine, briefly zooming around each other in a circle, and then flying off, scaring away all the shorebirds in the process.
As the rain got harder we had to leave, so we drove back along the dirt road, displacing SAVANNAH SPARROWS on the way. The final good bird of the day was an adult BALD EAGLE that flew across in front of the car.
For an un-prepossessing start, we had a great few hours, and I can't remember the last time I found 3 "RBA" birds without going on a twitch.
* = Rarity for Nova Scotia, reportable to NS-RBA (Rare bird alert).
Richard
I had a great afternoon birding locally today, with a birding friend, Judy Tufts. Today was, weather-wise, the first real day of Fall here, after a heavy rain storm yesterday (the remnant of what was Hurricane Ivan, now just a strong occluded front), with strong N.E. winds, scudding gray clouds, intermittent rain, and the coolest all day temp. since May (never got above +9C.). We decided to go to some of the local shorebird spots around the Minas Basin, here on the Bay of Fundy shore of Nova Scotia (Atlantic Canada). We started at a farm pond with muddy, reedy edges, where there were 10 GREATER YELLOWLEGS, 1 LESSER YELLOWLEGS and a distant N.HARRIER and an imm. BALD EAGLE that lazily flew by.
Next stop was Windsor Sewage Plant, where the only shorebirds were a group of 18 SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS flew over, but we found a F. RUDDY DUCK* amongst the GREEN-WINGED TEAL ans AM. BLACK DUCKS. We hit the Windsor mud-flats just right, just before high tide, and through the scopes were able to get good looks at about 100 BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER, several more Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, and myriads of "peeps" way out on the flats. 1 MERLIN stayed perched on a post.
After that we checked out the fields at Grand Pre, initially thinking it would be a quick stop on the way to the beach, where the "peeps" gather on the rising and falling tide. But we soon realizes that the sky was full of flocks of birds displaced from the beach by the high tide, and spent about an hour watching the spectacle. there were flocks of AMERICAN GOLDEN and BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS, some still in gorgeous alternate (breeding) plumage, a few RED KNOT and RUDDY TURNSTONE, and clouds of SEMIPLAMATED PLOVER, SEMIPALMATED and LEAST SANDPIPERS. It soon became obvious why the birds were so spooky, as 4 different N. HARRIERS, including 2 beautiful silvery adult males, appeared patrolling the fields. We scoped one field to check if there was anything different amongst the Semi. Plovers, and found 2 BAIRD'S SANDPIPERS*. I lazily checked a small flock of gulls in the same field, and there amongst the usual HERRING and GBBs was an adult LESSER BLACK-BACKED!*. In the next field,Judy said "what's that lump sitting on the ground?" and when I swung the scope around to check, it was a PEREGRINE. Within a moment, one of the male Harriers swooped in and tried to attack the Peregrine, briefly zooming around each other in a circle, and then flying off, scaring away all the shorebirds in the process.
As the rain got harder we had to leave, so we drove back along the dirt road, displacing SAVANNAH SPARROWS on the way. The final good bird of the day was an adult BALD EAGLE that flew across in front of the car.
For an un-prepossessing start, we had a great few hours, and I can't remember the last time I found 3 "RBA" birds without going on a twitch.
* = Rarity for Nova Scotia, reportable to NS-RBA (Rare bird alert).
Richard