Frig-it bird

Well the title maybe alittle corny, but the bird wasn't. By now most have heard the news that a Frigatebird was found yesterday morning, just east of Rondeau by Dave Martin and Linda Wladarski. It was originally found around 10am, but soon disappeared. Later yesterday afternoon, it was refound at Rondeau, sitting in a tree on the beach.

It was around 11am when I found out about the bird, but was unfortunately busy near the town of Dundalk working, until 3pm. Talking to the Hulk (Brandon) around this time, revealed that we were both interested in bookin' it down to the Rondeau area IF it was still around. Everything aligned and by 4:50pm we had carpooled at the 401 and Homer Watson in Kitchener and were on our way. We made it to Erieau for 6:30.... and quickly had it in my scope, far to the east flying around getting harassed by gull's and terns.

A pretty crazy rare bird, we didn't get the close-up looks others had, but were satisfied with looks of it flying that the others didn't get. I won't go into too much of the ID asides from the fact that most have agreed thus far that it is a Magnificent, as I suspect others may delve alittle more into the ID aspect. Below are some pics which were taken by Brandon (on my camera), as well as 2 vids, and some close-up shots by "Barbed Wire" (aka Barb Charlton) when the bird was roosting in a tree on the beach.

Crazy far away. You can kind of see the size difference with the gull in the bottom right.

Copyright. Barb Charlton. July 2, 2012

Copyright. Barb Charlton. July 2, 2012

As well, here are two videos of the bird:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoLhHhna4M4&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KjmP_6sPWU&feature=youtu.be

Below are the previously accepted (by the OBRC) records of Magnificent Frigatebird (and Frigatebird sp.) in Ontario to date.

Magnificent:
Point Edward (Sarnia) - September 28, 1988
Stoney Point - October 28, 1995

Frigatebird sp.:
Mississippi Lake, Lanark County - October 15-30, 1995
Port Elgin - August 1 and 2, 2005
Colchester, Essex County - October 12, 2008

This is the 6th Frigatebird (and likely 3rd Magnificent) in Ontario!

Its interesting to note that an interesting weather event called a 'Derecho' occurred a few days before (June 29th) across Indiana on a line to Washignton DC. Reading abit about this one sounded pretty crazy, with winds being sustained at 75-100 miles/hour over a distance of 450 miles!

I found this on Jen Brumfield's facebook page - don't have a source, so my bad.

That and the crazy heat being recorded in the south-east could have had something to do with this bird showing up in Ont.