After a long, snowy winter, summer seems anxious to get going. With beautiful weather forecasted, I headed north to the Bruce this past weekend to finally get some dedicated birding time in. Temps were actually a little too high -- I like warm, breezy spring days, but 27 is a bit much for April.
Saturday morning was spent in the marsh at Isaac Lake, which was bustling. Lots of excellent birds -- Hooded Mergansers, my first spring warbler (a Pine), a pair of Bluebirds setting up house (or rather taking over someone else's flat, as the angry swooping and chattering of a pair of Tree Swallows attested to), a ground-foraging female Flicker who didn't seem to mind me getting too close, and the constant winnowing of Wilson's Snipe displaying overhead. Best was a Sora that I flushed from the roadside, a rail that I'm quite familiar with by sound but had never before seen in the flesh.
I'd planned to hit some flooded fields in Grey county on my way home that were reported to be harbouring a Eurasian Wigeon (would've been a lifer), but with the warm weather the ponds had disappeared and the waterfowl had vanished with them. No matter, as my consolation prize was a lone Sandhill Crane, who gave me a few minutes before strutting off behind a hill.