May Migration at Tommy Thompson Bird Park Research Station

White-rumped Sandpiper

Semi-palmated Sandpiper

Taking a break from African birds I went across the pond to see my Charlotte and catch Shorebirds and Raptors!
 The most incredible thing was having to deal with Lake Ontario being 1.5m higher than last time!! There were 30lb Carp swimming along the net rides and in the car park!! We even had a Solitary Sandpiper feeding in the car park! So Shorebird catching was a challenge, but managed a really nice little net set with just 2 two shelf 60' nets.

Eastern Bluebird

Indigo Bunting

Shorebirds were coming through in nice little manageable flocks of 3 to 20 and one big flock of 100+ Semi-palmated Sandpipers, of which i got 35! We did 260 birds over the 4 weeks, including 200 Semi-palmated Sandpiper with the rest being Semi-palmated Plover, Least Sandpiper, White-rumped Sandpiper, Dunlin and Spotted Sandpiper.

Road trapping was hard, but amazingly we managed to catch 2 Broad-winged Hawks! Such awesome little Buteos and hardly ever caught on BC's.

Red-tailed Hawk

Charlotte with a RTHA

We also got 2 Red-tailed Hawks and 5 American Kestrels. We also popped into a rehab place and ringed an adult Osprey, that was stuffing itself with local fish, and was released successfully a week later.

A few choice birds from the Station including a Bluebird and Pine Warbler, both firsts for me!

Osprey

Broad-winged Hawk

Summer plumaged Dunlin

The decoys ready and waiting

a catch of pipers!

The ringing lab car park!