Sunrise at the Southern Tip of Canada

Josh Vandermeulen, Chris Law, Matt S-M and I were up hazy eyed and ready to see some birds as we took the road to Point Pelee National Park only to stop for a breakfast sandwich at Tim Hortons in Leamington.  We parked near the visitor centre where we spotted a sharp shinned hawk before walking down to the tip. There is usually a tram running that drives people there but we were a bit to early for it. At the tip we saw a hermit thrush, common loon, common mergansers, double crested cormorants, Bonepart's gulls, Forester's terns, barn swallows, tree swallows, and an Eastern phoebe. We heard a gnatcatcher but didn't track it down.

Hermit thrush

Young raccoon

A walk around DeLaurier trail gave us towee, cardinals, more swallows, chipping sparrows, blue-winged teals, house wren and a brown headed cowbird. Great blue herons were seen flying over.

Tree swallow

Sora

 In the northern part of the park the nesting great horned owl was seen close by the nest guarding a growing baby.West Beach proved to be a slower spot that day where we saw a flicker and a downy woodpecker.

Adult watching over their nestling

Fledgeling in the nest

Point Pelee isn't only a great place for birding though. Many butterflies were seen  throughout the day. Red admirals, cabbage white, spring azure, little yellow and question marks were seen around the park. There were a lot of reptiles hiding under logs.  A few five-lined skinks were seen with Dekays brown snake and a melanistic garter.  I was presently surprised to see the native species of wingless termites under a log.

Chris law and a five lined skink that though he was a good place to hide on (This was not posed at all! Believe it!)

Spring azure

Five-lined skink

Dekay's brown snake

Josh with a young melanistic (lacks colour pigment) garter snake

Dutchman's breeches

  We also witnessed a sad part of the circle of life where a raccoon eat a brown snakes tail off.  These creatures I will admit are very cute and can be very beneficial as scavengers that clean up the environment however, we have killed off most of their predators and the number of raccoons are supported by agriculture and city waste produced by humans. This means that there are too many of these creatures to feed and many turtle eggs, snakes and other things get eaten.

Josh at Hillman Marsh Conservation Area

We left the sad sight behind and went to Hillman's marsh. There were hundreds of  foresters terns, a few common terns, yellow warbler, barn swallows, tree swallows, rough winged swallow, greater scaup, mute swam, canada geese, field sparrow, white-throated sparrow, killdeer and goldfinch. Just a spot in the distance we saw what we suspected was a bald eagle. Driving back to Wheatly this was definitely confirmed as I shout to stop the car. The bald eagle was carrying a decently sized stick for a nest.  This fascinating bird was a great way to end our birding excursion for the day. We spent the rest of the day hanging out with friends around the campsite at Wheatly.

Mute swan

Killdeer