Four winter shorebirds in four weeks

It hasn't exactly been shorebird weather, but I'm now up to four species in Chatham-Kent in the last three and a half weeks. It has been the tale of two winters, with an unusually mild beginning up until late January, and then the brutal cold and freezing rain over the last few weeks. So the first two species of the new year, Dunlin and Purple Sandpiper, were late lingering ones and presumably left mere hours before the arrival of the polar vortex.

Dunlin is to be expected, as it is a regular and sometimes abundant spring, autumn and early winter migrant. The Purple Sandpiper normally comes through somewhere in Ontario in the late fall and early winter, but the latter part of 2018 was almost totally devoid of this species anywhere in Ontario. Only two birds were reported until I came across this one on January 18, at Erieau, traveling in the company of the Dunlin.

Wilson's Snipe is not normally a wintering species, but one has been found annually in a creek that never freezes southeast of Blenheim. It is not a guarantee anytime one checks on it. I have seen it less than half the time I've looked for it.

Yesterday, Keith reported seeing a Killdeer along Rose Beach Line, just east of Rondeau. As I was headed out that way anyway, it was easy to check it out. (I stopped to look for the snipe on the way out, without seeing it.) There are a couple of seeps in a low spot close to the road which even in the coldest weather seldom seems to freeze, although it might get snow covered. And there it was.

It was feeding in the saturated grassy area adjacent to the bit of ice. At times it would venture right out onto the ice, looking quite out of place!

The bird was seen shivering, which is not something I recall having seen before. Given the weather though, perhaps it was not such a surprise. It was there until at least early afternoon, but by mid-afternoon it had moved out of sight. Killdeer are typically an early spring arrival and often appear by late February or early March. However, maybe this one felt just a little too enamoured with the brisk southwesterly winds of the previous day or so, and decided it had jumped the gun on its spring migration and returned to a warmer climate.

What shorebird species will be next? Probably American Woodcock, although I had a Lesser Yellowlegs on Feb 27, 2017!

February Shorebirds!

It seems that oddities are the norm these days, thanks to the weather. My last post dealt with butterflies in February. Not to be outdone are shorebirds in February.

(Note: only the last photo in this blog post was actually taken in Feb.....the rest were obtained from my archived files.)

Killdeer have been around for a few days now; that isn't all that much of a surprise.

American Woodcock have also been around, and aren't too far off their normal arrival. Given that some stayed quite late in the fall (5 were recorded on the Rondeau Christmas Bird Count on December 18), is it possible that some of the handful that have been reported in the last week are actually winter survivors?

The most surprising shorebird arrival was one I unexpectedly saw yesterday, Feb 27. I was scanning a large, scattered flock of waterfowl at the head of Rondeau Bay. Some ducks and coots were close to the edge, which is piled up with black organic material, and appearing as mud flats. There were 4 Killdeer, and as I was scanning, a Lesser Yellowlegs popped into view! Unfortunately as I was scanning through my scope at about 45X or more, and with the sun shimmer, there was no way I could get a photo at all. But its size, (body size about the same as a nearby Killdeer, although slimmer) long bright yellow legs which made the bird stand taller than the Killdeer, and the long pointed beak were quite diagnostic, as was the habit of darting around in search for food.

As far as I am aware, the earliest record of Lesser Yellowlegs for the Rondeau Provincial Park checklist area is March 23, which occurred quite a few years ago (pre-1979). So this bird yesterday was more than three weeks earlier. According to the ebird database, the earliest record for Ontario was March 6, 1977 in the Hamilton/Royal Botanical Gardens area of Spencer Creek, so this record of Feb 27 is the earliest date ever for Ontario by about one week.

Still with the shorebird theme, but not one that I expect to see for quite a few weeks yet, is this Ruddy Turnstone. I feature it because the February, 2017 issue of Birding, published by the American Birding Association, has just declared it as the Bird of the Year for 2017. I photographed this individual from my kayak as the bird wandered along the edge of the sandy island in Rondeau Bay.

I did get a couple of other 'first of the year' birds yesterday, however, but no other shorebirds. I finally got the long-staying Orange-crowned Warbler along the South Point Trail, as it hung out with a group of Golden-crowned Kinglets, Tufted Titmice and Black-capped Chickadees. No photos, though.

The other FOY was a Turkey Vulture which flew low over the trees at the north end of the Campground, and enabled me to get only this one quick shot as it flew right over my head.

Happy late winter birding!