Erie County weekend weather forecast: sunny Saturday, rainy Sunday. Hopefully a great day for birding/nature tomorrow!

---

Before moving on to Long Pond from last weekend, here’s some fun shots of blue-headed Mallards off Leo’s Landing. Fun fact: depending on age and time of year, males will display varying colours of classic green, black, mottled, or as here, dark blue or purple-blue:

---

Over to Long Pond w/ the view(s) at Boat Landing 5, starting w/ 2 Bald Eagles in a distant tree (one on right, one upper left slightly obscured):

Lots of Dark-eyed Junco activity. Following two shots include ‘bird on ground’ and ‘bird in flight,’ the latter being background/blurry, but still good examples of the distinctive white side tail feathers = a great way to ID these fast-moving birds in the field:

---

Following shots all Dark-eyed Junco:

---

Finally, just to get the weekend off to a good “birdy start,” here’s bonus Ruby-crowned Kinglet w/ flowers:

Whatever else is happening in the human world or life generally, the BirdingPI.com editorial staff hopes these ok photographs of a cute Dunlin & friends at Presque Isle State Park make your day a bit brighter. (Being out in nature = even better.) This is Beach No. 11 & (for the Junco & Warbler) in the trees along Beach 11.

Finally, a Common Merganser in landing mode on Thompson Bay:

Bunting that is. Temps remained near record highs yesterday in Erie County, Pennsylvania (around 24 deg C / 75 deg F) = no snow in sight. (Soon to change, most likely; this is Erie after all.) Following shots all Snow Bunting, except where noted, all at Leo’s Landing.

Interesting to see a 1-legged Dunlin, shown at center in the following shot. Happy to report it seemed to be getting along just fine.

---

Another view of Stumpy the 1-legged Dunlin, on left:

---

Before more Snow Bunting from this past weekend, going back a couple weeks to a late afternoon drive around Presque Isle State Park with a visiting dignitary. (Yes, even w/ visitors there is time for bird photography. There is always time for bird photography. #more_bird)

Following are the view from Leo’s Landing of an amazing/large raft of Double-crested Cormorant on Presque Isle Bay. It’s a lot of Cormorants!

---

Following two shots are the view east-ish towards the entrance channel to Presque Isle Bay (North Pier on left, South Pier on right). The dark line of dots under the horizon is another raft of mostly Double-crested Cormorant. It’s a lot of Cormorants!

---

Always great to see a Belted Kingfisher exhibiting “hover fishing” behavior, e.g., flapping to stay in place high above the water, followed by periodic dives; this individual flew off before ever entering the water.

---

Over at North Pier now w/ a Ring-billed Gull in vocalization mode:

---

Beautiful weekend at Presque Isle State Park, with sunny/cool weather and dry trail conditions. Bird activity fairly moderate; as always, though, plenty of birds to watch.

These shots from Saturday afternoon at Leo’s Landing, starting w/ Ring-billed Gulls:

---

“Bird of the weekend” definitely Snow Bunting, spotted both here on Saturday and at Gull Point on Sunday. Qualifies as BirdingPI.com’s ‘earliest fall sighting ever,’ and also our first sighting of this species at PI anywhere other than outer Gull Point. (Following shots Snow Bunting except where noted.)

Also nice to see lots of American Pixie Gulls, a.k.a. Bonaparte’s Gulls:

Here was a Dunlin, furtively trying to make its way on ground through the gulls:

Nice to see a small flock (6+) of foraging Dunlin:

---

---

Coming up next time, more Snow Bunting, more gulls, more Dunlin, & return of Mr. Stumpy! #more_bird

With the end of daylight savings time as of 2 AM this morning (for applicable US states), time to check in with everyone’s favourite star, the sun. Except where noted, all shots are a recent sunrise over Presque Isle Bay:

Later in the day, deployed the solar filter again for checking on sunspot activity, in conjunction (in some shots) with passing clouds:

Nice view of sunspot activity w/o clouds @ 600mm (slightly cropped):

---

Another nice view of sunspot activity @ 1200mm, slightly cropped:

---

---

Beautiful afternoon yesterday at Presque Isle State Park once the clouds burned off. “Bird of the day” – a great/surprise sighting of 5x super cute Snow Bunting @ Leo’s Landing! More on this in tomorrow’s post.

Cloudy weather yesterday in Erie County, Pennsylvania, but the forecast calls for sun later today (Saturday) + the next few days. A reminder that as of 1 November, outer Gull Point is open for human access for the ‘off season’ = good time for an extended hike on the outer beach. But for now, back to the duck theme (+ misc. bird further below) w/ juvenile Wood Duck (@ Leo’s Landing) x what’s probably Greater Scaup in flight over Graveyard Pond:

---

“Bonus birds” along Graveyard Pond at the Lagoon Boat Launch:

---

ID note: the ID as Greater Scaup is based on overall colouration (for fall birds) + the white-ish stripe on the back of the wing that extends almost to the primaries (tips), as pointed to by the arrows in the following annotated excerpts:

These aren’t the best views, however, so also possible these are instead Lesser Scaup.

Seems like waterfowl migration season’s off to a slow but steady start at Presque Isle State Park. Here are some recent shots at Long Pond, + plenty of other birds like copious Blue Jays.

Amazingly, a BirdingPI.com contributing editor recently obtained “conclusive photographic proof” of the existence of Bessie, the Lake Erie Monster (!):

These photographs were taken off the Sunset Point area recently at Presque Isle State Park, with the back profile of the elusive creature seen briefly before disappearing back under water, or something like that. (Wow!)

BirdingPI.com’s resident cryptozoologist conducted a “thorough scientific review,” with the following comments in reference to the annotated view below. “This is amazing. Frankly. That such a large-ish creature has existed in Lake Erie for so long, with so few sightings since the 1800’s [when folks on ships were regularly drunk on rum]. Just wow. Based on these photographs, overall length ‘L’ at least 10 meters [30 feet]. Larger than any known eel or American Alligator or gar or carp, by a significant margin. ‘2’ and ‘3’ below point to what are clearly dorsal fins. [See also view above.] ‘4’ points to what appears to correlate to a caudal fin, while ‘1’ appears to be a bony ridge at the rear of the head, perhaps a post-orbital structure of some sort.”

Following artist’s rendition based on historical records:

Or maybe it’s a floating log. Happy Halloween!

---

Bonus Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger) & Erie foliage content. Happy fall!

This is Robert, a beautiful male Downy Woodpecker, named after his sire whose given name was also Robert. All recent photos @ Presque Isle State Park.