Point Pelee...again :)

I headed to Point Pelee on the morning of October 1st.  It was a bright, beautiful fall day.  I don`t work Monday`s and I figured the housework could wait :) I had read Dwayne's blog over the weekend and he had found Virginia Rail and Sora at the Marsh Boardwalk, so I thought I would give it try...I haven't seen either of these birds before.  I didn't see them, but I did see the following birds, all of which are life birds!!

Eastern Phoebe

Swamp Sparrow

Rusty Blackbird

 The next three pictures are of the same species, but from different angles.  After a lot of time analysing these photos and thumbing through numerous field guides, I have identified this bird as a Nashville Warbler...please correct me if I am wrong...

Nashville Warbler or Common Yellow-throat?

Nashville Warbler or Common Yellow-throat?

Nashville Warbler or Common Yellow-throat?

Another pic showing yellow under tail.

The next life bird was the only one not found on the Marsh Boardwalk...it was found on the Woodland Nature trail...

Winter Wren

To say this was a great birding day for me is a total understatement!  I was all by myself and enjoyed the quiet time spent in God's creation.  I saw a bunch of other birds too....I will list them for you (and include pics when I was able to capture them):

Great Blue Heron

Red-winged Blackbird
Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Double-crested Cormorant
Blue Jay
Brown Creeper

Turkey Vultures...there are 17 in this picture.  There were about 50 moving over in total!

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Red-tailed Hawk

Downy Woodpecker

Dark-eyed Junco (there were a bunch on the Woodland Nature Trail entrance...I was surprised to see them so early)

Killdeer

Red-breasted Nuthatch

White-throated Sparrow

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Well, at least those are the ones I remember seeing...there may have been more.  I wrote down what I remembered as soon as I got home.  Such a great day and very happy I decided to skip the housework!

Pelee Island

I spent today on Pelee Island with Shooters Photography Club.  We were going there to shoot pictures of the winery, vineyard and harvest.  Unfortunately, we didn`t get to shoot a harvest, but we had a great time anyway.  I was also happy to get a few pictures of some birds that I particularly liked...I hope you like them too :)

Taken from the Ferry on the way to Pelee Island

I love groups of gulls....always makes me chuckle :)

Peek-a-book Nuthatch

Sweet :)

Upside down!

 We went to the vineyard after visiting the winery (where the Nuthatch was found) and to the area the machines are kept...saw these birds there:

Cedar Waxwing...there were several!  Most of them juvenile.

I also got a life bird today....

Horned Lark!

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 It was a great day!

More First from Mother's Day at Point Pelee

I have been reluctant to post all my "firsts" from Point Pelee because I fear I won't have any new bird pictures to post for a while.  However, here are some more firsts from Point Pelee, May 8, 2011. 

I am not sure what this is...we were walking along the beach to the Tip and saw about 10-12 of these beauties perched in the tree tops.  As we approached, they left.  If you know what it is, could you let me know?

I am pretty sure this is a Red-Breasted Nuthatch.  We watched as he (I think?) searched for food, however, he went up the tree trunk head first instead of coming down head first.  From my very limited knowledge, that is typical activity of a Creeper, but this bird doesn't look like a Creeper to me.

The best I can tell, this is a Yellow Warbler.  This is the second warbler I have ever seen in my entire life and was thrilled to get pictures of both (see my earlier post).  This is very cropped as I saw him out of the corner of my eye and had just enough time to snap a couple pictures before he flew away.  I am using "he" and "him" generically as way to refer to the birds.  I am still learning to identify the birds I see.  If any of my posts wrongly identify a bird, please let me know :)

If you are counting (not including the hawk-like bird), that is 31 birds!