Summer Series of Birding 2009 - Trip #8 Report

It seems like it took until our eighth week into this year's Summer Series to actually encounter real summer birding. Today was certainly the day. Sunny and hot, with a high temperature noted of 32 degrees!

Thankfully fairly regular breezes throughout the morning made the majority of the outing very pleasant, keeping down the humidity, but as we made our last stop of the day at St-Timothee, we were at the noon hour, the wind had died down and the heat quickly took the wind out of all of us!

Seven birders participated in today's trip which began at Ste-Martine, where the water level was finally down, exposing shorebird habitat but, other than Yellowlegs, Killdeer and Spotted Sandpipers, we were shut out of any other shorebirds for the day. We moved on to the water purification ponds at Mercier where we added 5 species of swallows, only missing out on the Rough-winged. It was here that we had our definite "Bird of the Day", a single adult nonbreeding Bobolink, a spectacularly colourful bird, much different though that the adult breeding bird that we usually encounter.

We moved on to Maple Grove where the Caspian Terns arrived right on cue. We headed on to St-Etienne-de-Beauharnois and then ended the day at St-Timothee.

Here is our species list of 51 species for the day.

Canada Goose, Wood Duck, American Black Duck, Mallard, Blue-winged Teal, Green-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck, Pied-billed Grebe, Double-crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Green Heron, American Kestrel, Common Moorhen, Killdeer, Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, Spotted Sandpiper, Ring-billed Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Caspian Tern, Common Tern, Rock Pigeon, Mourning Dove, Chimney Swift, Belted Kingfisher, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Kingbird, Blue Jay, American Crow, Purple Martin, Tree Swallow, Bank Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Barn Swallow, Marsh Wren, American Robin, Gray Catbird, European Starling, Cedar Waxwing, Yellow Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Indigo Bunting, Bobolink, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, Baltimore Oriole, American Goldfinch, House Sparrow.

We wrap up the Summer Series for 2009 next Saturday with Joel Coutu leading us
on a trip through Parc de la Visitation. Details of the trip will be posted
later in the week. Hope to see many of you there. Joel has already seen a
number of fall warblers at the park this month, so we look forward to an
interesting morning.

Thanks to those who braved the heat to come along for the outing today - Sheldon