Back at South Pier, Erie, Pennsylvania from a couple weeks ago. Here’s a view down South Pier looking east, with the entrance channel to Presque Isle Bay and North Pier on the left, and the enclosed pond on the right. Lake Erie and outer Thompson Bay are at the horizon. Lampe Campground is out of frame foreground right.
Rest of these shots feature Ring-billed Gull (maybe a Herring Gull or two, too), unless noted otherwise:
Speaking anecdotally re. Erie County, PA, USA, the ‘songbird’ (warblers/vireos) migration is certainly over for the fall, but that leaves the waterfowl migration fully underway. For example, multiple recent sightings of a fall favourite, Ruddy Duck (all immature/female unless noted):
[Editor’s note: Lake Melvin is at Flag Park at Fairview Business Park, Fairview Twp, PA.]
Lots of content forthcoming from City of Erie’s probably best birding ‘hotspot,’ South Pier. South Pier, of course, defines the entrance to Presque Isle Bay on the south side, with imaginatively named North Pier (+ North Pier Light + Coast Guard station) doing so on the north side.
These shots from a week or two ago, featuring a very interesting immature American Coot. (In the photograph above, the Coot is floating in the water just down from left center.) Immature = adult size, but w/ non-white bill and orange-ish spot at base of bill:
ID tip: lacks the white stripe that would be seen on the side of a Common Gallinule.
Looks like more unsettled weather this Saturday in Erie County, Pennsylvania. Time for a quick post of beautiful sparrows, mostly sunny, from a couple weeks ago near Marina Lake at Presque Isle State Park. All White-throated Sparrow unless noted otherwise.
Bonus post on this All Hallows’ Eve of breaking news in Erie County, Pennsylvania, with a recent sighting of the infamous Presque Isle Chupacabra! Or maybe it’s a North American Beaver. Hard to tell. Looks dangerous, whatever it is.
Celebrating the end of October with mostly migratory content from this past Sunday at Presque Isle State Park, featuring kinglets in the brush/trees by Thompson Circle, all @ 1200mm:
We were on the fence about posting these shady (early morning) pictures from near the stump in Waltham, Massachusetts, but the content was just too compelling to shelve:
With unsettled weather in Erie County, Pennsylvania late last week, the bird activity was quite active Saturday. Speculating many migrating birds ‘paused’ at Presque Isle State Park until conditions improved into Sunday. (Also, lots and lots of migrating waterfowl spotted on outer Lake Erie Saturday – stay tuned for a future post.) “Bird of the day,” a beautiful, rather late and “uncommon for this time of year” Northern Parula (male):
We now return to our normally scheduled programming of a stump in Waltham, Massachusetts:
We interrupt BirdingPI.com’s ongoing Waltham, MA stump coverage with breaking news coverage of a Dark-eyed Junco exhibiting grooming/preening behaviour yesterday at Presque Isle State Park adjacent Thompson Bay:
