What, nobody's tagging me? I'm still only 15 ya know! Soon to be 16, ahh, just the thought of being able to (legally) drive makes me excited...
Lots of happenings recently, including finishing Grade 10, a breeding bird survey near my chalet with some quality birds, I've recently gotten back into the iNaturalist craze, because sometimes birds just aren't enough! I can't remember how far back I've posted on here about, but in May I did a big day after my week at Pelee, and nailed down 154 species in a little less than 24 hours, the last bird being a Black-crowned Night-heron at about 10pm. Not called Night--herons for nothing! I've been hitting pretty much all my birding targets, recently adding Fish Crow to my Ontario list, a surprisingly rare but rapidly increasing bird in Ontario, as well as yearbirds Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Loggerhead Shrike (endangered here!), Golden-winged Warbler (also endangered!), Brewer's Blackbird (incredibly restricted range-wise), Piping Plover (my favourite all time bird- also endangered), and a couple others like Upland Sandpiper, Alder Flycatcher etc. It's shaping up to be a pretty fantastic bird year for me, sitting at 247 Ontario this year (my all time record is 259), and 362 world this year, which blew my last record of 273 out of the water (thanks Mexico and Florida!). In the near future, I hope to get Ontario birds Louisiana Waterthrush and Common Gallinule (argh!), and by the end of the month I'll be done Grade 11 physics in summer school, then I'll have a week to relax, then I'm off to James Bay for two weeks doing shorebird monitoring! James Bay is pretty legendary in Ontario, and probably the world. It's incredibly remote, starting with an 8 hour drive to Cochrane, which in itself is quite remote, riding the Polar Bear Express (a train) for 5 hours, then chartering a helicopter to our base camp, which is here. The area is legendary because of the thousands of shorebirds that pass through it every year, most being Semipalmated Sandpipers, White-rumped Sandpipers, Hudsonian Godwits and Red Knots. It's going to be awesome! A couple lifers would be nice, or at least a few Ontario birds. Here's a sample of the peeps:
Today I chased a group of "Eurasian Collared Doves" in Brantford, Ontario, and I was wondering if any pigeon experts (@Pigeon?) could help me with an ID. The original bird was reported as a Eurasian, but there was speculation about African or some domestic type, and then a group of 4 (and up to 5) were discovered nearby, which seems suspicious on its own (Eurasian is a good bird in Ontario as a natural vagrant, if you can call it that). I went today and saw 4, and decided for myself that they must be captive/escapees, they seemes reasonably tame, and the number of them seemed very suspicious, unless a nest had fledged nearby (which would be the first known succesful breeding attempt in Ontario, there has been other nesting attempts but I don't think the outcome was determined. The more I look at them and look through guides I confuse myself more, but my opinion is African/Ringed Turtle, not domestic Eurasian, but I'm not sure. Thanks for your help! https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S48702268
