JAGUARS

Well its been like... forever since I did a blog post. Its been a very busy year. The top natural history moment(s) of the year all involved JAGUARS! I guided several trips to the Pantanal with good friend Edson Endrigo. Those trips involved four days on the water all together searching for jaguars. During that time our groups had a total of ELEVEN jaguar sightings. Below are some of my favourite images of these truly impressive kitties.

YUKON - Part 3

Our second full day at Watson Lake, the weather was much better. The day before in the drizzle and cold we had seen four species of loons including two YELLOW-BILLED LOONS. Regardless it was still great to see a gorgeous COMMON LOON close to shore.

HARLEQUIN DUCK - St Clair River

After fantastic views of the ELEGANT TERN in Buffalo (and Ontario), I headed over to spend the weekend with Kathi. The drive along the 402 was marked by strong north winds so once across the Blue Water bridge I stopped in at the end of Riverview for a quick look at the gulls and the coast guard station. I was surprised to see another birder there, who quickly introduced himself as Ken Mettie. Once he told me about a HARLEQUIN DUCK he had just seen and photographed at Marysville I was on my way. He gave me some quick and excellent directions and I was soon at Marysville River Park.
As soon as I pulled my naked eye detected a single small dark duck that looked to have the right jizz. The binocs soon revealed a female/imm HARLEQUIN DUCK swimming just a hundred yards south of the parking lot! I grabbed the 500 mm and knocked off a few hand held frames which hopefully can be improved on if the bird sticks around for the winter.

 

If you are looking for this bird it was seen on the Michigan side of the St. Clair River, along River Road. The park was just south of the intersection of Huron and River in Marysville. On the Ontario side of the river this is opposite the Shell gas station just north of a small creek north of Guthrie Park and the town of Corunna.

ELEGANT TERN - border fun with a rare bird

I'm not much of a 'chaser'. This fall though three great Canada birds have prompted me to get back in the game. The first was the BROWN BOOBY at Fort Erie. After several tense hours of no show that stunning seabird gave me 502. Then Brandon Holden found an equally improbable SNOWY PLOVER at the tip of Pelee in early November. I was one of the lucky few who managed to get there in the nick of time, for #503. Then on Wednesday an ELEGANT TERN was found tantalizingly close once again to the Ontario border in Buffalo, NY. Paul Pratt and I deliberated heading down on Thursday but damn work commitments made that a no go. Despite predicted horrible weather we opted to head down to Niagara Falls that night and try early Friday morning for yet another crazy bird. After reading the posts from Ontario and New York we decided it made the best sense to head over to NY where we could likely get better views and also better follow the bird if it did make it into Ontario.

When we arrived at the north end of Squaw Island, there was literally a blizzard of bonies in the harbour. Walking out to the pier, we soon found several Common Terns and then Paul spotted the ELEGANT TERN! Amazingly there was no one else present, though we could see about six or so birders on the Ontario side scoping the bird. We were only about 50 yards from the tern and able to get stunning views over the next few hours as it fed off the end of the dock and in the harbor.

Here is a pic of the ELEGANT TERN with Bonaparte's Gulls. It spent a lot of time resting on the end of the pier with bonies.

The ELEGANT TERN would take off periodically and spend some time feeding in the harbour and off the very end of the pier - diving so close it would disappear over the edge of the pier. We had superb views and studies of the bird as it fed like this. 

The Ontario border was very close to where the tern fed and on a couple of occasions early in the morning it swung west a hundred yards into what was likely Canadian waters. However we continued to wait hoping we could get a definitive view of the bird in Canada  which would leave no doubt. While we waited a nice adult basic LITTLE GULL put on a great show in the harbor.

Alan Wormington joined us after about an hour and each time the gulls flushed we would watch with great interest to see where the tern would take off. It always seemed to head back into the harbour almost immediately. After we had been there for about two hours the tern started once more to feed actively. This time though it made ONE long pass to the west, where it DEFINITELY reached CANADA!!!! After this the drizzle picked up and we headed back to Canada for a well deserved celebration breakfast at Coras!

 Above is the 'Canada bound' ELEGANT TERN!

NWT Big Day - PART 5

Our last bird as we left Hay River was a group of 13 AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER walking around a vacant lot filled with trash! Below is a pic of one of the group.

We left Hay River with 133 species and knowing that we really had very few gaps left in the list! Our final destination was Yellowknife, which was almost 450 km or about 5 hours straight driving to the north. As there was now a bridge over the west arm of Great Slave Lake, we didnt need to worry about the ferry over this site! The road was in excellent condition with virtually no traffic and we made good time. Several speculative stops along the way added TUNDRA SWAN, CANVASBACK and WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW.
The next key stop was km 90 of Hwy 3 on the way north to Yellowknife. A report on eBird mentioned a marsh here with BLACK TERNS so we thought it was worth a shot. When we arrived at the appointed kilometer marker there was the marsh, and it was full of BLACK TERNS!!! Unfortunately there was only a narrow viewing angle to the wetland by looking down an old flooded road bed that led to the lake and marsh. I decided to grab my rubber boots and walk the hundred meters along the flooded road to where it provided a full view of the lake. Paul waited to see what I would find. I was thrilled to find 13 WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS, 2 SURF SCOTERS, and several pairs of RED-NECKED GREBES! I returned to the road and Paul donned the one pair of rubber boots and now repeated the process while I watched. Below is a pic of him wading back from a successful mission!

  

We finally arrived in Yellowknife around 10:30 pm but the sun was still up and there was lots of light for finding birds. Unfortunately we had few possibilities left to find here! Nonetheless we did enjoy a wonderful view of the harbour and below are some pics of a cottage in evening light and the sunset when it finally came after 11 pm! It was a beautiful way to end a fantastic day with our final total being a record Big Day for the NWT of 145 species!!!!

 

NWT Big Day - PART 4

We arrived at Hay River just before noon, with a great total of 103 species! Our first stop was the Nuisance Grounds (the local name for the town dump!). Here we tallied four gull species, and our what was certainly our rarest bird of the day - a flyover AMERICAN GOLDFINCH! This is certainly one of the few, if only, records for the NWT!! The nearest eBird observation is nearly 800 km to the south and the NWT bird list does not include this species.

Our real target in Hay River was the mouth of the river, where it empties into Great Slave Lake. When scouting there was still lots of ice here and we were hoping that some still remained. Ice is often a magnet to north bound migrants. When we arrived at our first view point we could see a large floe of ice to the west so we quickly moved there. Next began an amazing string of new birds for the day as flocks of shorebirds dropped in to the ice edge, along with loons, gulls and terns, and many waterfowl feeding busily along this area. We added 31 species in just two hours of scanning this area! Conditions were perfect, though it was extremely cold with a light wind off Great Slave Lake. Highlights of the birds here included RED-NECKED PHALAROPE (10), STILT SANDPIPER (5), SANDERLING (10), WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER (2), and EARED GREBE (1). The last species is quite rare in the NWT. Below are some pics of these same species taken in the days before while we were driving through Alberta.

Female RED-NECKED PHALAROPE

 STILT SANDPIPER in breeding plumage

 SANDERLING in breeding plumage

 A mixture of SANDERLINGS, WHITE-RUMPED and SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPERS

EARED GREBE displaying in full breeding plumage!

NWT Big Day - PART 3

From Ft. Smith we now began the long drive to Hay River. This trip is about 320 km and takes about four hours of solid driving. Our target was to get there by noon with a few birding stops along the way. Not long out of town we passed a long wide area of low stunted spruce and both screamed when a medium sized raptor flew along the roadside and landed on the top of a tree. We were thrilled to see that it was a NORTHERN HAWK OWL!! Despite the time pressure we stopped to take a few pics. The photos below were actually taken the next day, of a different hawk owl we found later on the big day near Yellowknife!!

Not long after the Hawk Owl we stopped at a roadside site in Wood Buffalo National Park known as the wetland pulloff. Here we had an incredible string of luck with HOODED MERGANSER, FOX SPARROW, OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER, COMMON GRACKLE, PEREGRINE FALCON, RUSTY BLACKBIRD, EASTERN KINGBIRD and BLACKPOLL WARBLER (our 16 warbler for the day) all being added within minutes!! While scoping Paul spotted a LYNX at the edge of the highway digging in the sand bank for some tasty morsel. Speaking of mammals, we saw lots up here and during the Big Day other highlites included no fewer than 8 BLACK BEARS, a RED FOX, the LYNX, BEAVER, WOODCHUCK, and over a hundred BISON!  The pic below as taken a few days before of a BLACK BEAR grazing by the roadside at dusk. In four days here we spotted at least 25 bears.