Saturday 31 March 2018

Ross's Goose - Dufferin County

Today I decided to do a little local bird watching and check a few spots in the area.  After checking the Grand River near Fergus and not finding much I decided to go to Hillsburgh to see if I could find any interesting waterfowl.  On the way there, just southeast of Marsville I came across a large flock of geese and stopped to check for anything unusual.  I quickly spotted a Ross's Goose among the Canada Geese!  This is very likely the same bird that was reported from the Hillsburgh ponds in nearby Wellington County.  Dan Macneal let me know that this appears to be the first one reported on ebird within Dufferin, and checking on ebird I see that he is correct.  Neat!




Wednesday 21 March 2018

Caribbean Nature Highlights

Last week I was down in the Caribbean and visited a few islands, when I wasn't floating on a giant piece of garbage (a cruise ship) with my brother, sister and Caitlyn.  Although I am starting to get sick of the Caribbean (imagine that), I still saw some cool things.  The biggest nature surprise of the trip was walking through the pool area while on the boat at 11pm at night and spotting a Tennessee Warbler fly into some artificial flowers! Clearly a migrant that thought it quite nice to take a break on a cruise ship while island hopping way out in the Caribbean.

Our first stop was Grand Cayman, where it rained nearly the entire day.


Smooth-billed Ani

White-winged Dove (On its way back to someones car in Rondeau?)
 Our next stop was in the Mayan Riviera to see the Chacchoban Ruins.
Chachobben Ruins in Mayan Riviera
 Bat Falcon was my highlight here, but I was also happy to see Keel-billed Toucan, Yellow-throated Warbler, White-eyed Vireo, Dusky-capped Flycatcher and several others.
Bat Falcon
 Baccalar Lagoon was quite scenic, highlights were the Ringed Kingfisher, lowlights were cutting my foot on a rock within 30 seconds of entering the water and tracking blood across the nicely kept dock.
Baccalar Lagoon

Great Kiskadee

Yellow-throated Euphonia
 Cozumel was a nice little island, we went to the south end of the island to a nature park and saw some cool stuff.





Bananaquit


Roseate Spoonbill


Gecko? species


Highlights were the many egrets. Within this one swampy estuary I saw Snowy Egret, Great Egret, Reddish Egret, Great Blue Heron, Green Heron, Little Blue Heron, and Tri-colored Heron!
Reddish Egrets

Clapper Rail
American Crocodile



Tropical Kingbird