Shorebirding in Bruce County

 

   Well, there has certainly been a lot of movement since my last post! The last week has been crazy on the Bruce... 5 days of weather that could have been passed off as a week in the summer, with temperatures climbing up to 27 degrees! There weren't many record early birds seen but a lot arrived around a week ahead of normal. A massive surge of sparrows came in, as well as the first large push of Yellow-rumped Warblers. An exception was Palm Warbler, with a few birds seen along the Lake Huron coast. Palms typically arrive in late April (my earliest record is the 20th), so they certainly pushed north early. The highlight of the week was a Eurasian Wigeon at Isaac Lake, which was a one-day-wonder on April 8.

On the finch front Purple Finches have started popping up around the county and the first apparent migrant Evening Grosbeaks were seen. Previously this year the few evenings that stuck around were spread out at feeders, but the sighting of a few northbound flocks hopefully is the beginning of the big return flight of them. 

So today I want to try something a little different than the last few posts (forecasts) and focus a bird on the bird finding side of things, specifically shorebirds.

For Bruce County listers like me, shorebirds are the bane of our existence. We see reports from neighbouring Huron County of all the species we want but never get (turnstones, godwits, dowitchers, knots etc) and wonder why we can't get them here. Now Bruce used to be better, when Lake Huorn was down and there were large, shorebird-filled mudflats all along the coast. But in recent years the lake levels have been crazzyy and the water is much too high for waders in most places. Modelling suggests that there should be a drop this year, but I doubt it will be enough to get the shoreline back.

So what's the point of this post? Well I have some ideas on what we could be doing better and thought I'd share.

Generally shorebirds migrate high & fast, and by that I mean at least a kilometer above the surface. In the spring they pass through our area quickly, as they're trying to get to their northern breeding grounds as fast as they can. The MOTUS towers in the area pick up Red Knots annually.. and we get nothing. A lot of shorebirds have already fattened up for migration and just keep flying, passing overhead undetected. And the small numbers that do stop usually stay for no longer than a few hours. 

Currently these are the main shorebird locations in Bruce 

Birders typically check these sites whenever they are out in the area, so what else can be done? It's luck right? They are there or they aren't. Well weather actually plays into it a lot, particularly "bad" weather .

 As I said before, shorebirds typically migrate high up, so they won't stop unless they  have to. If a rain system passes through shorebirds often drop down and wait it out until it clears before they can continue on. A good example of this was a Long-billed Dowitcher I found at Oliphant last year. It was a very rainy/windy day in late April so I decided to check out the coast. There really wasn't much habitat at Oliphant due to high water, but the heavy rain forced down a massive flock of yellowlegs (150), as well as some peeps and the dowitcher. I had checked that same site all month and had seen basically nothing. So it goes to show that bad weather = birds. And as soon as the weather improved that day the birds left!

So especially in April/May, if you want a higher chance of seeing shorebirds, watch the weather maps and when it rains check your local flooded fields/shorelines/ponds. Now not all rain is equally good at dropping birds. If the system is covering all of southern Ontario, the migrants may be way down at Hillman marsh and Bruce will be relatively  quiet. So the "best" setup (in my opinion) is an isolated band of heavy rain coming in off of the lake, which migrating shorebirds flying north would "hit" and be forced to drop down. I know a lot of birders don't like birding in the rain, but when the rain clears the birds are often gone... so go out while it's raining or just after the storm passes and check areas with water!

As far as rarities go I really like fast paced low pressure systems, which could bring things like Willets and American Avocets into the county. I think the best bet would be to start with a lakewatch as the front approaches, as I've sometimes seen shorebirds arrive at the same time as the rain or slightly before the it hits. Then when the rain is overhead, check out spots like ponds to see if anything has dropped in.

So there's some confusing/maybe helpful information!

I'll post another forecast sometime this week, though the weather for the next 2 weeks looks cold/not too exciting. Hopefully that will change!