19 March 2014. Hamilton ON. I read reports today of flights of Tundra Swans and sightings of Black-crowned Night Herons on territory, and I’ve seen a handful of Turkey Vultures, Red-winged Blackbirds and American Robins, but nothing yet that suggests the avian floodgates have opened. Looking back in my diary, I see that on this date in 1998 we received 18 inches of snow, and that last year a winter storm was blowing ice-bound Tundra Swans off their feet. It’s March.
This afternoon I drove along a wide and fast, yet lightly travelled, road that serves businesses adjacent to the industrial harbour. If the traffic was heavy it might be just too hazardous to stop, but there’s a decent road-side shoulder on which to pull off, so I paused a few times to scan the open water for ducks. The ice is retreating and the place was full of Red-breasted Mergansers; there were hundreds, maybe thousands of them and I’m inclined to think that many must be newly arrived from points south and east.
Part of the industrial part of the harbour remains undeveloped; it’s a large enclosed pond and is well known to the local birding fraternity as worth checking fror interesting waterfowl and shorebirds. Ruddy Ducks, Canvasbacks and Northern Pintails all stop there for a while.
In spring and summer, the rubble walls that enclose it are the site of a large breeding colony of Ring-billed Gulls. Parking close to a concrete barrier to scan the waters, a Ring-billed Gull decided that I, or at least my car, was no reason to fly away. It eyed me carefully and stayed where it was, so I lowered the passenger-side window, prepared my camera and waited for the bird to walk along the barrier to where I could photograph him through the open window; and it obliged me.
Gulls are often decried as over-abundant, verminous nuisances and not worth the time of day; they’re raucously vocal, they scavenge garbage and hang around picnic sites. Yet for all of that they’re rather perfect specimens in many ways: beautifully proportioned, elegant fliers and really very splendidly styled in purest whites, blackest blacks and pearly greys. Being close enough to get these photos today was a lesson in just how stunning some of our commonest urban birds can be.
