Birds of South Porcupine and Timmins: Summer Highlights

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Summer Highlights

Since fall migration is starting, I thought I'd post a quick summary of summer 2019.

One of many Wilson Warblers
Porcupine Lake (4 June 2019)

Songbird migration was still ongoing in our area during the first week of June. We usually witness the best of warbler migration during the last 2 weeks of May but this year the biggest bulk of them arrived at the same time during the first week of June.

Blackpoll Warbler
Porcupine Lake (4 June 2019)

Porcupine Lake is always a great place to observe warblers. On June 4th, after a good stretch of south wind that had been lacking for most of May, we saw a good number of warblers and flycatchers. It was a great day to be out. In fact, I had never seen so many Wilson Warblers, Blackpoll Warblers and Canada Warblers in one day.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Porcupine Lake (4 June 2019)

June 4th was also the day that a Lewis's Woodpecker was found between Schumacher and South Porcupine (I only found the post on iNaturalist a few days later) On the same day, a Yellow-breasted Chat was also found near Cochrane. Both are very rare birds for our region and we tried to relocate them but unfortunately, we had no luck.

Summertime birding is sometimes slow but there's always other wildlife around to admire. We see a lot less Moose now compared to 20-30 years ago so it's always a treat to observe them.

Porcupine (11 June 2019)

My dad and I found a male Eurasian Wigeon at the Moonbeam Sewage Lagoons on June 13th. We had also found one here on May 2nd 2015 (that one remained until late summer 2015)

Eurasian Wigeon
Moonbeam Sewage Lagoons (13 June 2019)

On July 4th, we were notified that an American White Pelican had been observed by a fisherman on Abitibi River in Iroquois Falls so we drove there immediately and relocated it near an abandoned paper mill. Even though American White Pelicans are now observed on average once a year in our area lately, they are rarely documented so we were happy to document that one.

American White Pelican (Max 83X zoom and cropped with Coolpix)
The CoolPixP900 is great!
Iroquois Falls (4 July 2019)

Digiscoped photo of AWPE
iPhone & Vortex Razor HD 60X scope

The land belonged to a half-dismantled paper mill so we couldn't get close but we found a spot where we could observe the bird with a scope. Here is the photo taken from where we were standing. The Pelican was where the red arrow is, on a rock. The Nikon Coolpix P900 is great in these situation; it is sometimes even better than my digiscoped photos (iPhone through the Vortex Razor HD scope).

The only spot where we could view the pelican without
trespassing on mill property.

In July, we went on a camping trip on Manitoulin Island, Bruce Penninsula, Wheatley and Rondeau Provincial Park. I like going south for camping; it's an opportunity to see birds we don't normally see here and to enjoy the outdoors without the millions of black flies and mosquitoes we have here.

Southern Ontario is a great place to see birds we don't see often here
Indigo Bunting - Wheatley Provincial Park (13 July 2019)

The week we spent at Wheatley and Rondeau was unfortunately too hot to hike. There were heat warnings every day. But we did go see the famous White-winged Dove that has been observed in the same location for a few years now in Rondeau Provincial Park.

Rondeau Provincial Park's famous White-winged Dove
20 July 2019

Since I've been back home, I've been patiently waiting for fall migration to start while admiring the many butterflies everywhere. I only just started paying closer attention to butterflies a few years back and they are fascinating; a great way to make the slow birding days more interesting!