[Mich-chat] Belle Isle Birds - February 9, 2011

[Allen T. Chartier]

Birders,

This morning I once again conducted eight 15-minute point counts around the periphery of Belle Isle, and visited the Nature Zoo feeders briefly. Clearly, we're in the middle of winter! The ice cover is the greatest it has been so far this winter (and snow the deepest), and the number of birds, especially gulls, is greatly reduced. Large numbers of ducks are still present in the main area of open water extending from the southeastern end of Belle Isle southeast to Windsor, Ontario. Fully 90% of the ducks today were in this one area. Highlights included a juvenile Black-legged Kittiwake sitting with about 30 Ring-billed Gulls about 50 yards off the South Fishing Pier near the Coast Guard Station. One has been reported off-and-on in adjacent Windsor for at least a month, so this wasn't totally unexpected. It was first seen at about 8:45 a.m., again at 11:15 and 12:00, though during the second and third observations it was sleeping among the other gulls (also sleeping) and difficult to pick out. This is only the second Belle Isle Record as far as I know. A total of 9 Bald Eagles was nice too; 4 of them were in the trees on the east end of Blue Heron Lagoon, three were on Peche Island (Ontario), and two were on the ice in the river. A complete list, with counts follows.

31 species.

Canada Goose - 441
Mute Swan - 80
American Black Duck - 10
Mallard - 143
Canvasback - 3929
Redhead - 251
Greater Scaup - 182
Common Goldeneye - 2133
Common Merganser - 14
Bald Eagle - 9
Ring-billed Gull - 60
Herring Gull - 503
Glaucous Gull - 1 ad.
Great Black-backed Gull - 13 ads.
Black-legged Kittiwake - 1 juv.
Rock Pigeon - 60
Mourning Dove - 3
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Blue Jay - 23
American Crow - 19
Horned Lark - 1
Black-capped Chickadee - 3
Tufted Titmouse - 3
White-breasted Nuthatch - 1
European Starling - 32
American Tree Sparrow - 13
Song Sparrow - 2
White-throated Sparrow - 16
Dark-eyed Junco - 17
Northern Cardinal - 10
House Sparrow - 2

Allen T. Chartier
amazilia1(at)comcast.net
Inkster, Michigan, USA
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