Monday, September 29, 2014

Day 272 - 29th September 2014 - Beaches, Sanderlings, Whimbrels and Peregrine Falcon

Oh it's Monday again - back to work. The next few weeks are going to be full and busy. I'm winding down my summer hours and will soon be off for the season.
Wow what a great day Sunday was. It made up for the rather unpleasant week leading up to it. We had breakfast and then headed out around 8 am, I was wishing for earlier but let Larry sleep in. Off to Cape Sable Island in search of shorebirds. They've been talking about a few that I've yet to see, but birding is  take your chance kind of sport. First stop was Daniel's Head - no people so this is good but it's fairly quiet as we walk the beach - some peeps! Sanderlings and Semi-palmated Plovers are around. Then I spied a Northern Harrier over the dunes. Time to move on to the Guzzle and Hawk Beach. Of course on Saturday the guzzle was busy but not so much yesterday with what I was looking for. I did find some other birders. I guess we were all out. They had seen some Pine Siskins earlier. While I'm in the road talking Larry spies the Snowy Egret but he's too far away for good shots. I did take a few, he's a new one for my list. Tide is almost high and the Hawk Beach is mostly busy with Gulls.  Off we go again, quick stop at No Frills for turkeys, then down through Villagedale to Baccaro. A visit at the Baccaro Light yielded three Whimbrels, which I really enjoyed following along the shoreline. On the way out Larry spied what he was sure was a "hawk" sitting on a rock along the road. It was better - another new lifer, the Peregrine Falcon. Homeward we headed but the ponds through Thomasville, Reynoldscroft were quiet.
 We were at Daniel's Head Beach and you could see the Cape Light in the distance.
 These Sanderlings are so cute.
 Semi-palmated Plovers resting.

 Northern Harrier.

I thought this was pretty cool.
 My nemesis - Belted Kingfisher.
 Lots of gulls around.
 Someone has been busy at Baccaro.
 We were also fortunate to find 2 Monarch Butterflies today.
 I love the Cattails.
 There were three Whimbrels at Baccaro.


 Thanks to my excellent spotter - Larry, we also found this Peregrine Falcon - new bird for me!










Enjoy your day!

2 comments: