Summer Has Come to an End (For Me!)

Well, Summer Vacation is over. Tomorrow I will be back to school, and time for birding will become scarce. Although I am a bit sad, I am looking forward to the trips planned later this September! On the weekend of the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th, Nature London is sponsoring me to go up to Orillia for Ontario Nature's Biodiversity Youth Summit. Then, a week later, I will be up in Algonquin Park for a weekend of birding. It should be fun!

This past summer has been quite awesome. With my family, we've travelled over 5000 km (3000 just for the great Violet-green Swallow dip). We've birded four of the five Great Lakes. In the last 2 months I observed an incredible 195 bird species (for comparison I saw 159 in my first year of birding), plus an astounding number of other organisms. I decided to compile a collection of photos from this past summer, highlighting all the great things I was able to see.

Compton Tortoiseshell 

Butterflies, Birds, and Mosquitoes

French River Photos

Ruffed Grouse

Superior Shots

Magnolia Warbler

Clay-colored Sparrow

Red Fox

Common Goldeneye

American White Pelican

Common Loon

Gitche Gumee: Exploring the North

Ring-necked Duck

River Otter

Gray Jay

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher

Common Raven

Moose

Olive-sided Flycatcher

White-winged Crossbill

OFO Young Birder's Weekend in Algonquin

C-17 (not a bird, but it was fun to ride!)

Semi-palmated Plover

Northumberland Birding

Lesser Yellowlegs

West Perth Shorebirds

Wood Stork (!!!)

Red-necked Phalarope

Wilson's Phalarope

Arctic, Plains, and the Everglades

Eared Grebe

Red-necked Phalaropes

Evening Eared

Common Gallinule

Green Herons

Long Point Adventure

Yellow-headed Blackbird

American Bittern

Twitch to Mitchell

Well, there you have it. Two epic months spent observing nature in Ontario.

Just another 10 months before I get to do it all over again!

It will be time for the Christmas Bird Count before we know it....

Evening Eared

This evening I decided to check out the Eared Grebe (first in Middlesex since 2013) that had been reported at the Strathroy Sewage Lagoons. The lagoons have proven to be a hotspot lately, as on Sunday there was a trio of Red-necked Phalaropes found. I was lucky to catch up with a pair of them later that night. Only two days later I was back for another rarity and a potential lifer.

The Eared Grebe wasn't easy to find. It took close to 30 minutes before I found it with some of the many Wood Ducks. It was quite far off and hard to get a good look at.

Eventually, it came in relatively close (still 100m plus away!) for easy viewing and the occasional decent photograph. These are some of the better record photos that I've attained!

The Red-necked Phalaropes were equally hard to photograph.

But at least the photos were better than on Sunday, when I attempted taking photos using my phone and a cheap pair of binoculars! I was without any of my good equipment as I came straight from my grandmother's house after I got the news of Middlesex's first Red-necks since 2014.

Cell Pic from Sunday

I think that getting both the grebe and the phalaropes in the same shot is the icing on the cake.

Strathroy definitely deserves another visit in the near future!