Henslow's Sparrow at Pelee and more

Ken and my Dad and I were heading down to Pelee for the day to do some long weekend birding. We were excited to see the report on Ontbirds that Chris Gaffan had found a Henslow's Sparrow there last night.

While waiting to pay at the gate house we had our first highlight, a friendly Mink!

Mink

After a few stops outside the park we arrived at Delaurier Homestead trail where we ran into Josh - he hadn't seen the bird yet but after a few minutes of looking the bird hopped up into the open briefly:

Henslow's Sparrow at DeLaurier

While the bird allowed a few nice looks it spent most of it's time running through the grass like these guys are known to. It was amazing how it could disappear in the thatch. At one point we watched it look up at us, completley in the open (this year's grass isn't grown yet), then look down and dive into the grass and dissapear!! After we were satisfied, we walked the rest of the trail, picking up an early House Wren and a few other birds (full checklist). Just as we were coming back to where we had seen the Henslow's previously it flushed up again and allowed an even better look before doing its vanishing act into the grass

better shot of the Henslow's Sparrow

After Delaurier we checked Tilden's Woods (didn't get the Louisiana Waterthrush) and White Pine before leaving the park. Along Tilden's I saw my first few Red Admirals of the year. Be sure to enter any butterflies records you have into eButterfly or send them to the TEA's Ontario Butterfly Atlas.

My first Red Admiral of the year

On the way home we made stops at Hillman Marsh, Blenheim Sewage Lagoons, Ridgetown Sewage Lagoons and then Laurel Creek in Waterloo. We finished the day with about 100 species in relatively little effort - gotta love this time of year!!