Friday 24 May 2019

Erieau Birding - Franklin's Gulls, Neotropic Cormorant, Red Knot and more!

This morning I was down in the Chatham area for work doing some bird surveys and decided to go birding at Erieau after.  While checking out the shorebirds at the fields north of McGeachy Pond I bumped into Allen Woodliffe and Rob Palin, two birders that I am long overdue for meeting! 

We looked over the hundreds of Dunlin, Ruddy Turnstone, and Black-bellied Plovers and eventually spied a Red Knot, a nice treat and my first of the year.  While watching the shorebirds we saw a dark-mantled gull with a full hood which at first I thought was a Franklin's Gull due to what I thought was a slight pinkish hue, then I changed my ID to Laughing Gull due to the really dark black wingtips.  Alas I changed my opinion yet again and I now realize that all 4 of the dark mantled gulls I saw were indeed Franklin's Gulls.  Still a great bird!  Side by side this would be a simple ID, but way out in a field with haze is a bit trickier for me...I guess I need to see more Franklin's and Laughing Gulls in Ontario!  Apparently there was an immature Laughing Gull seen at this same location just yesterday!




I also checked the Erieau waterfront with Rob, and he spotted the continuing Neotropic Cormorant hiding in a small willow with some other cormorants.  Another great bird!

Neotropic Cormorant - note the white chevron near the mouth!
There were lots of shorebirds on the beach too, mostly Sanderling, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones and Black-bellied Plovers.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Nathan. It was great to have finally met another fellow blogger out in the field....long overdue! I would like your thoughts on a photo of the gull that I took. Contact me at awoodliffe@hotmail.com

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