On June 4th I was doing a boat trip on the south
shore of Long Point. When doing such trips I’m always on the lookout for
shorebirds and there’s always something to be spotted. On this day I was very
lucky to spot an unbanded Piping Plover feeding along the water’s edge. Had it
been further up on the beach I almost certainly would not have spotted it. This
species had been a nemesis bird of mine having never seen one before in
Ontario. I have never bothered to twitch any of the breeders in other parts of
the province and seem to miss them each year by some stroke of bad luck.
Ghostly colouration makes them hard to spot on the beach - particularly from a moving boat!
A note on some cool band recoveries: In late May I had a
Ruddy Turnstone that was carrying a leg-flag on one leg and a geolocator on the
other. I was able to read the leg flag and it turned out the bird was banded in
Brazil back in February of this year! Then I saw a Caspian Tern with a white
band and I could read the 3 letter code of that band as well. Turned out it was
banded in Hamilton Harbour back in 2009 as a hatchling. We even had a racing
pigeon turn up out here this spring and it turned out he was from the GTA. I
wish there were more legbands/flags out there to look for as it’s really fun
spotted them and getting feedback on the birds. It reminds me of when I was a
youngster and we used to spot neck bands on Tundra Swans around Long Point.
Nothing of note on the butterfly front...yet. Odes are increasing and I've seen 4 Painted Skimmer's so far but am hoping for something better...
