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By Jennifer Nantais

Every year, Nature Canada partner organisations across the country celebrate World Migratory Bird Day on the second Saturday in May. As part of the Bird Friendly City Certification process, Windsor has committed to acknowledge and celebrate this day annually.

2023 marked Windsor’s first WMDB event organized by the Pelee Island Bird Observatory, which featured 5 days of fun-filled, educational activities including in-person and virtual presentations leading up to the big event – a family-friendly birding challenge to spot the most birds in the city during a 24-hr period. Prize winning categories included the biggest species list, most nocturnal birds and most aquatic species to align with this year’s theme of Water.

All events were free and designed to provide opportunities for new and experienced birders. Opening and closing ceremonies offered refreshments and the chance to connect with other bird lovers.

This first event was small and had to compete with the Global Big Day. Birders had an abundance of wonderful birding locations to choose from, but many chose to bird in the City and help showcase the diversity of birds in Windsor, and why we are a Bird Friendly City!

The WMBD event will evolve as residents decide how they want to celebrate, so speak up! Keep an eye out for next years event, and the opportunity to participate or help volunteer. We want to showcase the incredible bird species that can be found in our city and look forward to this event getting bigger and better every year!

By JoAnn Grondin

The Egrets team consisted of team captain Cathy Lapain and member JoAnn Grondin.  We were also joined by two of Cathy’s sisters:  Peg Mills and Kenlyn Bryant. I started counting around 7:00 am by spotting one of the Bald Eagles that nest on Fighting Island and the Mute Swans that hang around the Island.   We met in Essex at 7:30 am.  Once Kenlyn’s van was loaded with all our supplies, we headed out on the backroads towards Point Pelee, watching the fields and ditches for birds.  The traffic entering the Point was not too heavy so we were able to enter the Point but unable to get to the main parking lot or the tip. Staff directed us to turn into Black Willow Beach.  This parking lot was full so we backtracked to the Madbin Jina area, across from DeLaurier.  

We spent some time there.  We birded from the parking lot and sitting at a picnic table; we also had our packed lunches there.  To start with, the birds flew in sections and we were able to get several species of birds.  From there we went across the road to the DeLaurier parking lot.  The sun was extremely hot by this time.  From here we tried the Blue Heron/Boardwalk area, finding a nice small shaded site to set up our chairs.  Then we tried the Sanctuary site before we left the Park.  Peg and Kenlyn were able to go for short walks to check out most of the sites where we stopped.

After Point Pelee Park, mostly by vehicle, we headed around the onion fields, having to get out of the way of a school bus on a very narrow road.  We drove past the Hillman Marsh area and then on to Wheatley Harbour.  We made our last stop at Kopegaren, finding more warblers on the Boardwalk. 

After arriving back in Essex, I had a bite to eat at McDonalds and arrived at my home close to 7:30 pm; I was exhausted.  Cathy continued to drive around and managed to find 4 more birds after she had a bite to eat.  She arrived at her home at 8:30 pm.

We would like to thank all the individuals who were able to sponsor us, both on line and by cash.  It was a very long day.  No rare birds were seen, but the long day was worth it with a total of 72 bird species.  The Bluebird Committee will benefit from the money that Birds Canada will return to us. Online donations can be made until the end of December.

By Howard Williams

Over the last 30 years, Dave Kraus has led 25 field trips to Pelee Island for Essex County Nature members.  We spent two days there and were capably bussed around the very bumpy roads by Linda Froese to nine stops and kilometres of slow road traverses, hunting for birds and wildflowers.  For Carole and I, it was our first visit to the island.  We managed to identify over 57 bird species, and over 20 plant species.  Warblers were perhaps the main draw for this trip, but wildflowers on the forest floor at Fish Point was also delight to behold.  The two photos are of White Trillium and Blue Phlox.

Bird species were much harder to photograph because many were hyperactively chasing bugs or were easily scared off by the crowd of 16 people that were anxious to get a good look at or photo of them.  This Brown Creeper was spotted with an afternoon snack in its beak.

On the Saturday evening we gate-crashed a Pelee Buzz group led by John Ambrose who helped with plant identification in the Stone Road Alvar.  Ryan Wolfe showed us the way in which snake habitat is being encouraged and tried to discover snakes for us, but they were hiding.  Ryan therefore delighted the audience by taking a number of captive snakes from cloth bags and let us handle and admire them, see this link to find out more about his graduate work: https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/racing-for-survival-ontarios-blue-racer/.  The photo is our intrepid leader handling the Blue Racer like a professional snake charmer.  Not impressed by the charmed snake, Tracey Colenutt stared into the distance, wishing we had spent more time examining the relatively uncommon trees that we had just seen in the alvar, including Fragrant Sumac and Prickly Ash.  Tracey was a fine resource when it came to tree identification.

All in all, the trip went without hitch, was full of people asking questions and providing answers when their expertise was needed.  Many thanks to Dave for putting on this trip – unforgettable.