Last post to 16 September 2007
Since the Tadoussac trip things have slowed a fair bit. The L’Anse at Vaudreuil still produces a few shorebirds, six Pectoral Sandpipers on one visit, a Short-billed Dowitcher on another, incidentally my 18 species of shorebird there this autumn.
Warbler migration has been patchy, no obvious arrivals in bulk just a few relatively local species. One early winter arrival has been Dark-eyed Junco, they are in the garden, about six weeks earlier than any previous year since we have been here.
The weekend of 15-16 seemed set to follow the pattern with Saturday damp for most of the morning with the usual stiff breeze. A visit to Pointe Fortune failed to produce much, certainly no hoped for Sabine’s Gull and the back of what seems to have been an arrival in eastern Canada.
Sunday was better and an early morning watch at St-Lazare sand pits had Blue Jays, juncos and Rusty Blackbirds moving plus a few warblers, a bonus was a Barred Owl, new for my patch. Encouraged by this we went to the Lac St-Francois reserve at Dndee but, to be polite, it wasn’t very good. The Egret Trail was overgrown and tough to walk, perhaps one of the site employees could venture from their hut with a tractor or weed whacker sometime.
We toyed with going elsewhere but the day seemed shot. Once home I checked the soccer scores and email and poot, an immature Sabine’s Gull had been at Beauharnois barrage that very morning and we had been but 10km away at one point.
Twitching for us in Quebec has usually been fraught with disappointment but we went anyway. After ten minutes and having picked out a winter adult Little Gull the Sabs arrived. It fed at range but gave scope views and I also took a few shots of the water. If you look closely you can see an obscure blob with white triangles in the wings, that is the gull.
Sabine’s is my favourite gull, just pipping Ross’s to the title. This little beauty was Quebec tick 300 so extra special. The year list is at 263, I still need a mockingbird, Carolina Wren and Tufted Titmouse but I still have three months left to find them so all is not lost.
Below a few miscellaneous shots, no apologies for the record shots.
The record shot of the Sabine's Gull and the original below. Feel free to click on it, the image is still lousy though.
I'll put all of the really terrible photos at the front although, to be honest, they don't improve any. This is a flight shot of the Red-Necked Phalarope on the Chemin de l'Anse, the light was shocking.
Stilt Sandpiper from the l'Anse, probably up to six different birds so far.
Woodpecker heads, you don't need me to tell you which species is which.
I've not bothered captioning the last few photographs as they are not too hard to ID (well onemight be tricky) If you don't know what they are, get your book out, its good practice. Just a hint, the last one is not a warbler.
1 comment:
Hi Mark,
I think i guessed all the warblers: First is Black-throated Green, second is a Pine Warbler, third is a common yellowthroat and last 2 are yellow-rumped.The last bird is an immature Northern Harrier. If I am completely honest however, I should say that all I had to do is look at the name of the file at bottom of the screen to "guess" the names :) Seriously, I guessed them all at first look except the common yellowthroat because it's a female and the light is bad. With the help of the Sibley I probably would have find it.
Post a Comment