April 12, 2010: Beamer, Fisherville, Nanticoke, both Reesor Ponds

Headed off to Beamer in Grimsby for the spring Hawkwatch with Doug and John, returning home 12 hours later, and despite favourable thermals, the raptors were not taking the right flight-path! But we still had a great day, total ended at 51 species, with 6 new ones for the year. Raptor of the Day was the Turkey Vulture, whose numbers prove that they are far from being on any endangered list for the time being:

Here are Doug and John on the Beamer observation platform, I successfully persuaded them to NOT jump due to the poor raptor count:

We continued on to the Fisherville area, but dipped on the resident Short-eared Owls, but were fortunate to score some other beauties, including a few Horned Larks, a Savannah Sparrow, a Wild Turkey (not the liquid kind) and these four Sandhill Cranes flying overhead:

We then made our way south to Lake Erie, for these Bonaparte Gulls:

We knew it was late when we saw the afternoon school buses on the roads, so we made our way back home to the GTA, and diehards that we were, stopped off at both "Reesor Ponds" just before sunset, and were rewarded with our first Caspian Tern of the year, as well as Blue-Winged Teals.

Here are some Ring-Necked Ducks- for my non-avian readers with extremely good eyesight: yeah, I know, the bill is ringed, not the neck, welcome to Birding Hell:

The day ended almost 12 hours later, with the author having to lie to her Better Half as to how long the puppinskies had been left alone all day, she'll know better next time :-)