2007 Ornithology Class Trip to Point Pelee and Holiday Beach
On October 13,
2006, sixty-one students from the Ornithology class at the University
of Windsor took a day-long field trip to
Point Pelee and Holiday Beach. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and
the group started at the newly-returned sandy tip of Point Pelee
National
Park. At the tip we we watched gulls, warblers, ducks, and some
friendly white-crowned sparrows.
Another group of park visitors pointed out a rare Sabine's Gull to some
of the students. As the morning warmed up, migrating hawks began to
come out in good numbers, including many Sharp-shinned Hawks, an
impressive number of Northern Harriers, and very large groups of Turkey
Vultures. We spent the afternoon at
Holiday Beach watching migrating raptors from the Holiday
Beach hawk tower. Phil Roberts, Bob Hall Brooks, Bob Petit, Carl Pascoe
and all of
the banders at Holiday Beach gave us an excellent introduction to
banding hawks and songbirds. By the end of the day we had seen a
tremendous diversity of migrating birds, fifty different species in
total.
