Hi all,
Today (Oct 8), Kevin McLaughlin, Alan Wormington and myself had four species of saddlebags at Point Pelee N.P. The highlight was of course the Striped Saddlebags, a species new for Canada just over a week ago at the same location. We saw two Striped Saddlebags today, the 3rd & 4th records for Canada.
We initially were birding at the tip and after the temperatures warmed sufficiently, we walked along the beach up the east side to look for dragons. We observed lots of Black Saddlebags flying and perched low down in the shrubbery. After a while we saw a Red Saddlebags flying overhead. This was a life species for Kevin and myself. Soon after, we saw another teneral Red Saddlebags perched low down affording wonderful looks (see Alan's attached photo). Others, including Andrew Keaveney joined us to look at the Red Saddlebags. Soon after, Alan saw a Striped Saddlebag perched low down but no one else could get on it before it flew and was subsequently lost. We searched for the Striped Saddlebags and encountered a teneral Carolina Saddlebags, again, low down affording stunning views. We walked northwards and discovered another Red Saddlebags flying overhead. While watching this, Kevin exclaimed, "Hey what's this!!" with such conviction that I suspected he had a Striped Saddlebags, which he did. We watched this saddlebags fly overhead for several minutes. We called down the beach to Andrew and he shortly joined us. It landed repeatedly in the same tree about 6m up and we were able to get decent views from below and Alan got the attached photo.
We also observed a Variegated Meadowhawk (see Alan's attached photo) along this stretch of beach to complete this exciting morning.
The following is the day's list.
Green Darner-400
12-Spotted Skimmer-1
Blue Dasher-1
Eastern Pondhawk-2
Autumn Meadowhawk-30
Variegated Meadowhawk-1
Wandering Glider-12
Spot-winged Glider-6
Black Saddlebags-300
Carolina Saddlebags-4
Red Saddlebags-8
Striped Saddlebags-2
Bill