Our September 11th bird walk was held at Colonel Samuel Smith Park. It was a beautiful sunny, calm day: great weather to be outdoors, but not generally good weather for birding. It’s great weather for migrating, so most birds would keep on flying rather than rest on the north side of the lake. Despite that, our leader Glenn Coady, managed to find a nice assortment of birds: 46 species in total, including many warbler species.
Near the beginning of the walk we found a pair of Semipalmated Plovers on the beach (below).
This Pied-billed Grebe was a surprise find in the harbour area.
A little further along we had great views of several Northern Mockingbirds.
Most of the warblers were found high in the trees at the north end of the park. This Magnolia Warbler near the lake was a little easier to see.
This Green Heron gave nice views, perched in the sun.
Despite several nesting attempts, the Red-necked Grebes had no breeding success in the park again this year, but Glenn speculated that this juvenile was probably hatched somewhere nearby.
These two showed a nice comparison of an eclipse plumage Mallard (foreground) and a female Gadwall (background)
Also at the pond, this Mink put on a nice show.
We saw several Flickers. The black “mustache” identifies this one as a male.
Birds weren’t the only migrants. There were god numbers of Black Saddlebags dragonflies as well.
And of course no September bird walk would be complete without those other migrants, the Monarch Butterflies.
