Crappy photos of good birds

As you can probably tell from the lack of posts, I've been pretty busy lately and haven't been birding all that much! A few weekends ago I went down to Long Point with Brett and Barb, but despite the nice storm and strong SW winds we didn't turn up any rarities (a few unusual things though, like 8 species of warblers...). Since then it's just been local stuff when I have time which hasn't been too productive (other than a Golden Eagle and some White-winged and Surf Scoters over the house)!

Yesterday though, I decided to try my luck with this hurricane - and my first taste of hurricane birding was a pretty big success! If you haven't checked out the list I posted yesterday I'd recommend it (but be prepared to be a little jealous...).

 5 Black-legged Kittiwakes out of our total of 88 (includes 2 ADULTS, and which may be an undercount) - a new high count for Hamilton (and maybe Ontario???) - before this date I had seen 3 (juveniles) in my entire life! (2 in November, 2008 and 1 in January, 2012)

 LEACH'S STORM-PETREL - to put this in perspective a bit, there are 2 previous records for Southern Ontario - one in 1939 and one in 1955 - both specimens - There is also one record for Northern Ontario back in 1981 - crazy bird!!!!!

I unfortunately didn't get a shot of the Wilson's - most of the time was spent looking at it in the scope, by the time I aimed my camera at it, it had disappeared into a trough, to be refound a few minutes later further down the beach. I promptly ran up there but it had disappeared behind a wave! The Wilson's would be the 7th record for Ontario, with most of the previous ones being specimens.

I'll leave you with a record shot of the 2 Snow Geese I had back on October 9 near the Sault - my first for Algoma!