Long Point today = very birdy

I spent a  few hours this morning birding Long Point Provincial Park and it was really hopping. Streams of birds were moving from east to west - flocks of Robins, Myrtles, Pipits, Finches, Sparrows, etc were all on the move. It felt like a great day to find a rarity, but it's challenging when there are so many birds! Do you look at the sparrows on the ground, the warblers in the bushes, or the birds flying over? You can't do it all justice. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the remote field stations turned up something good. While I didn't find any rare birds, a late Red-eyed Vireo was probably my best bird. Brown Thrasher was a nice surprise and a Tufted Titmouse was my first for Long Point, a tough bird locally for some reason. A single Nashville Warbler was my most interesting warbler. At one point I looked up and saw a flock of Tree Swallows overhead - it made me wonder how long they had been there and how many Cave Swallows I may have missed.

Yesterday I checked Turkey Point beach - there was a large flock of Dunlin and Sanderling and good numbers of Black-bellied and Semipalmated Plovers. There had been a Golden-plover hanging around but perhaps it has moved on. I didn't look too hard for it. I then went over to Burwell for a quick jaunt where I bumped into Brandon Holden and his dad who had just completed a circuit in the park. Again nothing remarkable, the hybrid gull Brandon mentions on his blog, and a Blue-headed Vireo were my personal highlights.

A large flock of Dunlin and Sanderling feeding along the beaches at T.P.