[NatureNS] Brier Island Weekend

Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:33:47 -0300
From: Eric Mills <e.mills@dal.ca>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Cc: iamclar@dal.ca
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Hi James, 

Sounds like a very good weekend on Brier, considering the adverse weather. Ian McLaren and I went up on Sunday to be 
there through the storm, and although we tried hard we detected no storm-strayed birds, barring perhaps a distant 
(Parasitic) Jaeger, there or anywhere else in SW Nova Scotia, today. We did find a Piping Plover immature and a 
Hudsonian Godwit with the other waders in Pond Cove, though. 

I have some serious doubts about your Gyrfalcon. Peregrines can vary a lot in size and colour, and they have a longer tail 
relative to body than do Gyrfalcons. Gyrs actually have very broad wings and short tails relative to body, giving them at 
times a Goshawk-like look. The long tail that you mention almost certainly precludes Gyr. I might mention that there was 
a very large dark Peregrine that hung around the Western Light all last fall and that I almost called a Gyr myself. The 
same bird? Who knows. Might mention too that the Shoveller in Freeport is an eclipse male - as indicated by head colour 
and pattern. It is likely the same bird that has been there, in and out of its breeding plumage, since early last year. 

I'm very late in thanking you for the heads-up on that Curlew Sandpiper in Rose Bay early in the month. As I'm sure you 
learned from Anne, we were far away in Alaska at that time, doing our best to dig small, obscure Asian vagrants out of 
impenetrable vegetation on St Lawrence Island and the Pribilofs. Do keep me in touch with what you find - and if I ever 
find any rarities again, I'll reciprocate.

All the best,

EricZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Eric L. Mills 
286 Kingsburg Road
RR#1, Rose Bay, Nova Scotia B0J 2X0, CANADA
E.Mills@Dal.Ca
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

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