Friday April 29, 2022 - A most excellent day at Long Point

It was a beautiful sunny day with a cool start to the morning and  it warmed up to around 12 degrees.  While we left at 8 am for Long Point, we really did not arrive at the Long Point Banding Station until 11:20 am.  We did some birding first at the dead end of Fanshaw Road in London.  We saw and heard Killdeer and Eastern Medowlark in the fields.  On the way to Long Point which is about about an 1.5 hour drive from London we stopped for a Bald Eagle, a Brown headed Cowbird and some Ring necked Ducks.  

At Long Point the feeders at the banding station were busy with Red winged Black Birds, Common Grackles, House Finches and Mourning Doves.  Here is handsome House Finch.

 

Further to the left there were bushes just coming into leaf and a Nashville Warbler and a Yellow Warbler seemed to hang out there all day.   Here is the Nashville Warbler.

We observed several birds being banded.  The birds were processed very efficiently by the banders.  We saw the birds fly quickly from the banding station and back into the wild.  There was a Brown Creeper, Brown Thrasher, a Hermit Thrush, a Blue headed Vireo and a Pine Siskin to name a few.   Here is a nice Swainson's Thrush

We decided to do a trail behind the banding station which included climbing up an embankment to view the marsh and the canals.  We saw Mute Swan, Northern Shovelor and many Tree Swallows flying over.  We continued on to the forest trail and saw the first of many Ruby and Golden crowned Kinglets.  We also heard the song of the Carolina Wren both at the banding station trail and the Long Point Provincial Park.  We had our lunch on the picnic table at the banding station and watched all the activity at the feeders.  No hummingbirds were seen yet even though there were several hummingbird feeders all filled up ready for the birds.  We went down the canal streets and we saw the Chip,Ship and Dill Pickel trailer shop and decided we would pick up supper from there at the end of the day.  

We continued on to Long Point Provincial Park.  It was not officially open yet but one could park outside the park and walk in.  We met several photographers and birders and heard that there was a Kentucky Warbler.  We started looking and a birder came over and said it was in the grass along the corner of the main road.  It was a beautiful warbler and it was very busy picking at probably some small insects and walking through the grass.  It was very tolerant of us watching it and taking photos.  This was one of the highlights of the day.  

We walked around the roads of the provincial park still looking for birds.  We heard a Grey Catbird and heard a Downey Woodpecker and located it on a tree in one of the huge beach parking lots.   

Also several times during the day, we saw a tern flying.  We tried to ID it and it took a while.  It was far away and usually flying away from us.  But after several sightings we determined that it was a Forester's Tern.  Later in the day at one of the marsh trails we viewed a far away gull which we named a mystery gull.  We have to study the distant photos we took.  There were European Starlings in a group.

We continued on to the Bird Studies Canada property in Port Rowan.  On the way we stopped and there were two Sandhill Cranes on a berm with two golden chicks.  We got out on the narrow road and took some photos.  This was another of the bird hilights of the day!  We had never seen small Sandhill Crane chicks before!   

We viewed American Kestrel at the BSC property along with a Merganser which we could not ID right away.  The photos will have to be studied.  Suddenly it was 5:30 and we figured that there was not enough time to drive to view Turkey Point and come back to the Ship Chip Shop.  

We decided to head back to the Ship Chip Shop for supper with a couple of stops along the way.  On our return trip down Erie Road we turned into another marsh lookout.  We had heard from birders that there was a new washroom.  Bingo, a brand new washroom!   We took a look from the lookout tower and there were many American Coots in the Marsh and some Pied billed Grebes.  More new birds for the day.  Here is a lovely Tree Swallow.

We continued on to the Ship Chip Shop and found that there were many other customers with little kids, big kids, dogs etc already in line.  The line moved pretty well and we had our fish and chip dinners to take away.  We went to the banding station to watch the action at the feeders while we ate our delicious fish suppers.  In the course of the day, we saw a live deer, a dead deer in a field, a gray snake, muskrats and several rabbits.  We walked a lot today, the day was beautiful and we had several highlights.  A perfect day at Long Point.  We took some country roads to get home in hopes of an owl sighting but did not see any.  We arrived back at Susan's in the dark.  Our trip count at the end of today was 80 birds.