With just over a week left in the season, the makeup of migrants counted from the waterbird shack has continued to change. Long-tailed Ducks are still being seen in triple-digit totals regularly, and are by far the top species counted with a current total of 20,960, but they no longer dominate each day’s flight quite [...]
Hello all: The banding season official came to a close on October 31. Since our last post on October 22, we added 11 Northern Saw-Whet Owls to our season totals. The biggest push for these birds came on the night of October 24 with 7 owls banded. In total this season we banded: 1 American [...]
Townsend's Solitaire. Harris's Sparrow Highlights: Townsend's Solitaire & Harris's Sparrow The season's second Townsend's Solitaire was seen on Oct. 20 and the second Harris's Sparrow of the season was seen on Oct. 25-26. As is typical this time of the year, the diversity is really winding down. There are [...]
Watching waterbirds is always an unpredictable endeavor, and can be quite the exercise in patience. The past week has held great examples of the days that make the seemingly endless hours of tedium all worth it. Last Tuesday began with a strong flight of Aythya and Scoters, along with an great smattering of dabblers for [...]
Hello all: Since our last post the weather has once again showed us who is boss, keeping us closed 5 out of the last 9 days. Last night, October 21, was the first night we were able to run a full night of net checks since the end of September. While it was a slower [...]
Say's Phoebe & American Avocet. Yellow-throated Warbler & Harris's Sparrow. Townsend's Solitaire. Highlights: Say's Phoebe, American Avocet, Yellow-throated Warbler, Harris's Sparrow and Townsend's Solitaire. October is often a great time for vagrants at WPBO, and it has been exciting in that regard recently. A Say's Phoebe and an American Avocet were seen on [...]
Today was the first day snow fell on me during the waterbird count! I saw snow across Lake Superior in Canada’s Algoma Highlands on September 29, over two weeks ago, and Saturday was the first day I brushed off my car before heading to the Point for sunrise, but today’s precipitation was my first opportunity [...]
Hello all: We are finally getting our blog access up and running here at the Point and thought we would give you all an update on our season so far. I'm not gonna lie, this season has been one of weather. We opened on the night of September 14th and since then we have been [...]
Highlights: Summer Tanager & Lark Sparrow (photo above) I don't know how I let so much time pass by, but I did and there's nothing to do for it now except to jump right in. A Summer Tanager was photographed on September 17 and was surprisingly relocated for the first time on the 25th. It was [...]
The season is just past halfway through, the weather has certainly changed, and with it so has the diversity of migrants being seen on the WPBO waterbird count. Perhaps the biggest constant this season has been the Red-necked Grebes. Though their peak day of 2,954 was well over a month ago they haven’t stopped yet, [...]
