In the past week, our temperatures have remained well above freezing, sometimes moving into double digits. Rain arrived, the snow melted, and the river overflowed its banks.
Monday’s forecast was for sunny skies and a temperature reaching the mid teens by the afternoon. Our friends offered to take us on a grand tour of the Long Point area in search of migrating birds.
Long Point is a sandy spit that extends into Lake Erie. According to Wikipedia, “Habitats on and surrounding Long Point include woodlands, sand dunes and bluffs, marshes, ponds, meadows, beaches and lakeshore. The complex is the largest biophysical formation of its kind in the Laurentian Great Lakes of North America.” The area is designated as a Biosphere Reserve that hosts a variety of flora and fauna and serves as a waterfowl staging area and a migration stopover area for land birds.
At this time of year, early migrants are arriving from the south, stopping to refuel on their way farther north. At our first stops in marshy reserves, we found flocks of Common Grackles perched in the trees.
Male Red-winged Blackbirds were in full cry while Killdeer quietly foraged on the ground. American Robins had arrived in considerable numbers.
A small flock of Tundra Swans flew overhead. We were in hope of seeing a few more.
We also heard the distinctive, rattling cries of Sandhill Cranes overhead.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Sandhill_Crane/sounds
On our way to the waterfront, we came across flocks of cranes grazing in the distance.
At our first stop along the shore, we were happy to see that Tundra Swans had arrived in good numbers.
We moved on to Port Rowan for another view of the lake.
From the dock, we saw the full meaning of “waterfowl staging area”. Most of the birds were far offshore, diving and swaying in the waves. There was a stiff, cold wind that shook cameras and made our eyes water. Good photos were mostly out of the question, but these will give you an idea of the thousands of birds of so many kinds bobbing in the water.
Counting the numbers of the different species was a challenge! Here are shots of some of the species we saw that included Mute Swans, Tundra Swans, Redheads, Canvasbacks, Ring-necked Ducks, Lesser Scaup, Gadwalls, American Wigeons, Buffleheads, Common Mergansers, Northern Shovelers, and more.
We made another stop at the small pond at the Port Rowan Wetland.
Here we had slightly better looks at Gadwalls, American Wigeons, and Buffleheads.
As we left, we were treated to a flyover by a Red-tailed Hawk.
We decided to make one more stop at Aylmer Wildlife Management Area on our way home. We wondered if Tundra Swans had arrived there yet, but the pond was largely empty.
We found many Canada Geese, a few Mallards, two American Wigeons and four Common Mergansers. No doubt, the Tundra Swans will arrive soon.
Seen on the streets of London…
Come From Away
This is a great story about kindness to strangers at a time when there is so much hostility. We saw the musical live in Toronto. Apple TV+ has a recording of the first performance once Broadway reopened after the pandemic had shut everything down. We have tickets to a touring company version coming to London, Ontario, this May.
The songs are the ones I could find on YouTube.
