The Last Christmas Bird Count, Red-throated Loons, and a Great Egret!

 Last weekend was the Skunk's Misery Christmas Bird Count. The weather was not promising, but hey...it is winter and when you pick a day several weeks in advance, you have to take what you get. There was a bit of wet snow over night and into the early morning the day of the count. When I got to my first site, the St. Vincent de Paul Camp, this is what I saw.

I got a few birds, but as is often the case, the woodlands are a bit quiet this time of year. A few woodpeckers, such as this Hairy shown next, as well as some Wild Turkeys, Mallards and a single Herring Gull were among some of the species I came across.

I drove a few roads, checking out some places before I met Brett, who I typically team up with to cover a sizeable county forest in extreme southwest Middlesex. Even roadside habitat wasn't terribly productive, other than Am Tree Sparrows, a Black-capped Chickadee and some Mourning Doves, in the next photo, among other species. The day was quite overcast and even foggy, as the photo shows.

The county forest had a few things, such as Great Horned Owls, Pileated Woodpeckers, a Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Red-tailed Hawk. Other than crows, which could be heard off in the distance almost constantly, in the approximately 3-4 kilometres we walked, we had about two birds per kilometer! Not exactly what one hopes for, but it is what it is.

Due to the light precipitation and increasing fog where one could only see about 100 metres, I decided to call it a day around 2 p.m. I ended up with 22 species, not one of my better days on this count. The overall count ended up with 64 species.

The next day I met up with Kevin, a seasonal Rondeau staff naturalist member, who was home from university. Kevin and I did a lot of black lighting this past year. On this day, we were on the lookout for cocoons of some of the large silk moths, which are a little more visible when the trees are leafless. We found a few, including about 8 of the Promethea Moth, which looks like this. This photo was taken a few weeks ago, on a sunnier day than the day we were out. Unfortunately the pupae in all of the cocoons we saw had emerged, which left us wondering where the ones to emerge in 2021 were.

In addition to the several Promethea Moth cocoons, we saw this Cecropia Moth cocoon. It too had emerged. Undoubtedly there are many more, so hopefully there will be a few of these species come to visit our black lights in 2021. Who says you can't go mothing in the middle of winter!

There has been quite a number of Red-throated Loons off the east beach of Rondeau some days. On one day earlier this week, Steve counted about 143 swimming or flying by the Dog Beach access, in only a couple of hours! Very impressive! So the next day, I decided to check out the lake from various vantage points. The northern most access points in the park did not seem to have any loons, but there were a few things like American Tree Sparrows that popped out of the vegetation.

By the time I got to the Dog Beach access, there they were. They were about 300 metres or so south of the access point, so I started walking south to try and get better looks and, hopefully, some photos. Unfortunately there was a fish tug heading towards the loons, so I didn't have much time. I got a few photos from quite a distance. The loons were probably at least 400 metres off shore. Some were swimming and diving, while others were getting a bit nervous with the approaching tug, and started flying around. After just a few minutes, they all got up and headed southwest and out of sight. I got a few distant photos, and these are all heavily cropped. I counted about 45 birds altogether.

 As I left the park, one of the many resident White-tailed Deer was casually munching away on something along the roadside.

Today I spent a bit of time at first, roaming around the former Dover Township. I came across 7 Snowy Owls, including this one.

A male Northern Harrier was out hunting, and I managed this distant, quick photo.

At one point I came across an adult Bald Eagle out in a field, and clearly it was hanging on to something. In a matter of minutes, the eagle eyes of some of its compatriots arrived to see if they could get in on some of the pickings.

There was a bit of harassing going on, but the adult kept possession of its meal as far as I could tell.

A little later I decided to check out the area of the Thames River near its mouth, since there had been a couple of Great Egrets seen here over several days in late December and into early January. Undoubtedly they were present during our St. Clair NWA bird count, but due to the weather, were not seen so they will go into the record as a count week species. We had one on count day back in 2016.

I checked from the Jeannette's Creek boat launch. Looking downstream, I did see an egret on the Chatham-Kent side, but it was at a great distance, and even after being heavily cropped, this is the best photo I could get at this point.

It certainly isn't very clear, so I decided to try some better vantage points in the Lighthouse Cove area. I didn't see any sign of it there, but did see a few Double-crested Cormorants, considered a bit rare for the time of year according to eBird, but seeing how everything is open, it isn't all that surprising. 

Leaving Lighthouse Cove, I headed back to the Jeannette's Creek boat launch. The bird had moved across the river, and it stood out a bit more as it was in the vicinity of the marina there. The photo is ever so slightly better.

As I was mulling over returning to Lighthouse Cove, I slowly moved away from the boat launch, and suddenly got a glimpse of something white partially hidden by Phragmites along the small canal on the north side of the parking lot I was leaving. It was another Great Egret! I maneuvered the vehicle to a better spot and got a photo through a gap in the Phragmites.

And then I maneuvered even closer, getting some much better and closer photos from the truck.

No question that it was a great way to end an outing!