My Bird of the Day

July 8 2024 Lokken, Denmark.  After a few days in Copenhagen where as far as bird life goes Magpies rule, we’ve made our way to the west coast of Denmark to a modest and rather minimalist summerhouse semi-hidden among grassy dunes. The dunes here are huge, looming like old apartment blocks and dotted in the valleys with many such holiday homes, and all within walking distance of the sandy beach. It’s a deservedly popular beach for it is wide, clean and slopes ever-so-gently seawards. And it’s worth noting that the sand comprising the beach and structure of the dunes is silky fine and a treat to walk barefoot on.

In contemplating this trip I had assumed that Danish bird life in July would be much like the England where I grew up, and had discounted the chances of seeing anything much out of the ordinary. Yet on our 4-hour drive here (four hours including a ferry ride will get you across Denmark quite easily it seems) I was happy to note a large flock of Northern Lapwings gathered in a wide river-edge field, and a soaring White-tailed Eagle. Things were looking up.

We had hardly arrived at our summerhouse, in those early minutes before the car is fully unloaded but when you sit for a head-settling breather,  when I heard a birdsong that I knew instantly, a vivid memory from my youth, a Yellowhammer.

Yellowhammers are a largeish bunting, bright yellow in parts and typically a bird of dry, scrubby fields and heath, it certainly belongs here. Yellowhammers are globally abundant but have become scarce in Ireland and the UK, where it is considered a species of concern, all the more reason for my delight at hearing and then seeing one for the first time since my mid-teens.  As is often the case with wildlife, folklore and country wisdom shape public understanding and appreciation. The Yellowhammmer’s song is described anthropomorphically as “a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheeeeze”. A bit of a stretch perhaps; although it was that little piece of old wisdom that brought it back to me.  Less prosaically its song is a series of five or six small dry notes ending with a long wheezy exhale.

Thrilling it was. To me anyway. When I drew my family’s attention to it and all that goes with it, just two or three grunts showed they were not really on the same page.

There was more to be seen and heard. Greater Whitethroats were quite common in the shrubby dunes and males (presumably) restlessly patrolled their territories burbling as they go, Eurasian Linnets too and even a Red-backed Shrike showed itself for a while. It was a lifer for me and a bit of a thrill, but I was so smitten by the Yellowhammer I let it go.

Hamilton. ON. June 27, 2024.  This is just one of those totally unexpected and serendipitous urban sightings. My companion and I were on a catch-up lunch, two birders with lots to share and cross-check.   We were both going easy on the alcohol and neither of us had ordered a particularly large lunch, but all was well we had a shady spot in a large and open patio alongside a busy street.

I have no recollection of who was where in his story when we were simultaneously distracted by small background sounds, non-urban sounds that rose above the clatter. Almost in unison we said “Peregrine Falcon?” and looked up. Two young falcons swept low across the open sky, almost in formation and calling a scratchy “chrea chrea chrea” as they passed. Then as if to impress anyone who cared, the two banked left into a u-turn and did a low overhead fly-past. And that was it.  We were impressed and thrilled while none of the other lunchtime diners showed any interest so, we kept it to ourselves, Barry said he’d do an e-Bird report and I made a mental note about this spontaneous Birds of the Day.

Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. June 14, 2024.  June slips by and fine long days are easily filled.  Sometimes too busy and time spent with birdlife has been scarce of late. I went to the valley this fine spring day with the simple goal of listening and watching for birds, it worked out well.  With everything in full leaf listening usually reveals more birds than watching, the challenge is knowing just what it is that you hear.

I went to the valley in anticipation of seeing this family of Trumpeter Swans, I half expected them to be the morning’s highlight.  The adult pair has been in residence since early April and there was never any doubt they were there to breed.  Their large pond-edge nest has been easy to monitor and just last week it seemed that hatching was imminent.  Here’s the result, all five eggs hatched and all five cygnets look to be in top condition.  Today the family fed together in a tight group, never more than a meter apart, the adults were using their feet to paddle the sediments and stir up food for the cygnets.

I watched a Great Blue Heron standing quietly in raincoat-flasher pose, a posture that is explained rather mundanely by contributors to Cornell Lab’s Birds of the World thus, “Droops and exposes the inside of its wings on sunny days, perhaps to radiate body heat on warm days and absorb solar radiation on cool days”  In another moment of misunderstanding I wondered if it was injured: through binoculars a reddish patch rimmed in black on its shoulder looked like an wound but zooming in shows it to be a detail of plumage that I had never seen before.

My wow moment came when I happened upon this Eastern Kingbird hawking for flying insects to feed its hungry brood nearby.  There’s something quite perfect about the stance, and fierce attention of a kingbird poised to zip out for a capture on the fly.  They can be an easy photographer’s target since they’ll often return to the same look-out spot, like this one. It was my Bird of the Day, I had to stay and watch.

LaFarge Trail, Flamborough. ON. June 3, 2024.  I stumbled upon an American Woodcock today, a bird we rarely see by design. When I say stumbled upon, it’s almost literally true.  I didn’t see it until if flew up from underfoot where it had been on its nest. Woodcocks are common in woodsy and brushy areas but are so cryptically patterned and so crepuscular in their habits that you just don’t see them, unless like me you step on one.  I was off trail a little wishing to check up on a site where, in the past, I’d found a patch of dainty Oak Ferns. The woodcock burst away, I paused, stepped carefully, and after a moment’s looking found its nest with three eggs. Such a serendipitous find couldn’t fail to be my Bird of the Day.  Here’s the nest.

And the bird below was found by us several years ago when a late and hard April frost had forced woodcocks to seek the soft ground around groundwater seeps and ponds where they were more likely to find food.  This one was trying hard not to be seen beside a well-travelled woodland trail.  It didn’t move a muscle despite our approach, its leaf-litter like plumage almost guaranteed its invisibility.

The woodcock came after an earlier hike around the valley looking and listening for the beauty of nesting season.  For a while I watched a Great Blue Heron hoping to ambush a fish or frog in a fast-flowing creek, eventually it plunged to strike but evidently missed.  It could have been Bird of the Day for its stoicism.

But then also there was a pair of Trumpeter Swans who we watched with some concern.  They were both away from the nest when we felt they shouldn’t be.  By our estimate, their five eggs are due to hatch at any moment, and what were the parents doing loafing around leaving the nest unguarded. Well of course we needn’t have worried our little heads, the swans knew exactly when and why they were entitled to a five-minute break.  The female soon returned to the nest, did a bit of housekeeping and settled in to continue incubation, Here she is.

Without details of other stops today here are just a few of today’s rewards: Wood Duck, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Yellow Warbler, Warbling Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Bobolink, Eastern Meadowlark, Nashville Warbler, Green Heron, Common Gallinule , Savannah Sparrow and Marsh Wren.  I’ll conclude by noting that early June is brilliantly colourful and so full of bird song that it really doesn’t get any better.

Rondeau Provincial Park. ON. May 13, 2024.  I am less inclined to drive distances for birding these days but every now and then I’ll do it, get up at first light and go.  I did so this morning, went without breakfast counting on a highway stop somewhere along the way. It was a little after eight when I paid the park’s daily admission fee less senior’s discount, and breathed in the fresh green stillness of Rondeau Provincial Park.

Rondeau reaches out a little into Lake Erie keeping it a touch cooler and less thickly leafed-out for a while in spring.

Despite my apparent resolve, I arrived at Rondeau with modest ambition, I just wanted to spend a bit of time in a reliably birdy place and move at my own pace, or maybe just sit and stare.  There is a woodland trail not far from the visitors’ centre, it leads through a swampy broadleaf forest, the sort of place you’d avoid if there were any mosquitoes.   Being cool there were none today, it was exactly what I was looking for.

I didn’t keep a list but enjoyed lingering looks at Bay-breasted, Black & White and Black–throated Blue Warblers among others. Pileated and Red–headed Woodpeckers were easy watching and what I took for a Great-crested Flycatcher turned out to be an Olive–sided Flycatcher which is an uncommon bird in southern Ontario but conspicuously not so in the north, it was just passing through.

My Bird of the Day was this Blue–headed Vireo for two reasons.  First because it’s a Blue-headed Vireo, a no-nonsense favourite of mine; Second because my camera captured it with a large, winged insect in its bill and therein a metaphor for what makes the world go around.

The fly, which I choose to identify as one of those nasty, biting Deer Flies, probably emerged not long ago from its pupa in the wet woodland below.  Before the pupal stage we would have dismissed it as a loathsome maggot or grub, rather unsightly and we’re quite happy to see a vireo grab and eat it. That Deer Fly once consumed, and along with many more just like it, will fuel this vireo for a few more days on its migratory journey north.  More flies, beetles, bees, and ants will keep the ball rolling in months ahead, summer, fall and winter, to ensure the next generation of vireos.  All of them bits in a food chain. A chain that used to include humans although most of us have managed to somehow side-step it in favour of breakfast on the run and day-use parks as wilderness.