Month: April 2014

27 April 2014. Long Point, ON. There may be those who will take issue with my choice of Bird of the Day, a Brown Thrasher, scarcely a rarity and nor is it out of season. It was one of a large handful of really notable sightings (and soundings) in a full day spent at Long Point, arguably the best year-round bird watching location in Canada, and maybe one of the top five in North America.

This Brown Thrasher made me stop and stare, it made my jaw drop as I listened to it.   Brown Thrashers are famous for their song, a spontaneous and extemporaneous outpouring of notes, liquid, loud and frequently delivered in twos. (Follow the link and listen to a McCaulay Library recording of a Brown Thrasher recorded near Baltmore in 2000. I’m willing to bet you’ll have to stop and listen.)

I followed it around a deserted campground as it moved from tree to tree uncertain whether I posed a serious threat or was just another vague nuisance. It was reluctant to allow me to get too close but when it found a branch close to some rather desiccated High-bush Cranberry berries it was content to drop its guard for a couple of minutes and allow me to move in for these shots.

I have to say that those other notables really tugged at me. One, a Common Gallinule, was a first in North America for me. As a child in England, I encountered them often, we knew them as Moorhens and could find their nests along the edge of quiet backwaters. Today, when one flew away across a weed-choked inlet I was certainly surprised, but somehow it was more of an “It’s about time” reaction. Still, a good sighting. But not perhaps as inspiring as the American Bittern that rose clumsily and awkwardly from the constraints of a cattail marsh as I wandered along a wet trail. It came just moments after flushing a Wilson’s Snipe that was crouching a few steps ahead, it flew off exclaiming with what Pete Dunne aptly describes as “…a loud scraping protest ‘yrrrch’….” .

A singing Purple Finch, coursing Forster’s Terns, singing Pied-billed Grebes (more of a wailing yodel – click the link for another great McCaulay Library recording) and the resonant hammerings of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers all filled the day with memories. I recorded well over 50 species adding Blue-winged Teal, Eastern Towhee and Hermit Thrush towards the end of the day, then I drove two hours home, sunburned, windswept  and acutely aware that I’d wolfed down just a skimpy breakfast and completely missed lunch.

26 April 2014. Oakville ON. I made a couple of what turned out to be really eye-opening stops along the shore of Lake Ontario this afternoon.

The first stop was a pair of sheltered bays either side of the landward end of a long industrial pier, they are good spots to find waterfowl at almost any time of year. Interestingly the species mix is often different from one side to the other. There is a small cove with a white sandy beach on the west side and it was home this afternoon to about 55 Red-necked Grebes who were my Birds of the Day (plural), and one Red-throated Loon (Bird of the Day – singular).

I’ve posted several times about Red-necked Grebes. You’d think I’d get tired of them, but no. They are really quite fascinating (to me anyway). Red-necked Grebes winter along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and by far the majority nest on lakes and ponds across northern Ontario, Canada’s prairie provinces and the north west corner of the continent. But a small, disjunct population (probably no more than a dozen pairs) chooses to breed right here along a very short stretch of the shore of Lake Ontario, favouring marinas and other anthropogenic backwaters especially where kind folks help out by anchoring floating platforms (usually an old tire) on which the grebes then pile nest material. Pile is probably the best term, to say that they build a nest might be embellishing the quality of construction which can be a pretty haphazard sort of an affair.  If its base is well, not up to much, nests are prone to collapse, swamping or otherwise sliding off into the water.

Red-necked Grebes, like many other grebes, as if to make up for their lapses when it comes to construction, go for elaborate courtships. I’ve seen pairs of red-necks swimming fast in tight formation, mirroring each other and driving bow-waves of obsessed devotion ahead of them, and to top it off they bray like possessed donkeys to proclaim their devotion; it’s really quite something.

The Clarke’s Grebe of western North America takes the prize for courtship display, find a moment to watch this fabulous BBC video. Who wouldn’t be smitten by a paramour who could offer you fresh fish and dance like that?

Then there’s the Red-throated Loon, Bird of the Day. While Common Loons are always a pleasure to watch and even worthy of that much overused adjective ’iconic’, and without in any way meaning to undermine Common Loons’ deserved status as birds of the true north, around here a Red-throated Loon makes for a red-letter day. While they’re reported on the Lake Ontario with some regularity, they generally seem to be just passing through. Nesting takes place well north of the Arctic Circle and we usually see them still in their winter plumage; the pale grey head and carmine red throat patch will come in late spring and summer when the birds are on their high Arctic breeding ground; today’s bird still has a long way to go. So generally we see them like this one, mostly grey and whitish, it’s the pointed, up-tilted bill that makes them distinctive and readily identifiable. Loons have the ability to readily take in or displace air from their lungs and flatten air spaces between body feathers to regulate their buoyancy. In the pictures you’ll note how it appears to sit really low in the water.

Those were my Birds of the Day, but there were other stop-you-in-your-tracks moments worth sharing. Hundreds, maybe thousands of swallows coursing over the lake and shore: Tree, Northern Rough-winged and Barn Swallows to be sure, but there could well have been Cliff and Bank Swallows too although I didn’t pick out any. The roof of a large marina-side restaurant held hundreds of mostly Barn Swallows resting or maybe just enjoying the smell of food prepared for the wedding parties going on inside.

And on the break-wall of a harbour entrance, a dozen or so Caspian Terns (perhaps females) sat sharing opinions on the relative appeal of others (perhaps males) who were patrolling around and occasionally returning with a wriggling silver fish, presumably meant to impress. Whether they were duly impressed I don’t know, but I was impressed by them, they have such a gallant air about them.

25 April 2014. Cayuga ON. Y’know today was almost a test of the central thesis of this blog that there’s always a Bird of the Day, – that even a miserable, cold, dank day will produce something special, and it doesn’t have to be rare to be special.

I spent the better part of the morning doing the daily census at the bird observatory, in fact there were two of us: me with my Baby Boomer era hearing and my young companion Marie from Quebec, with perfect English, endless energy and acute hearing.

At the end of our trudge around, when asked, “How’d it go? or “Anything unusual on the census?” We looked at each other questioningly and sort of shrugged, “Not really. Oh, there were a couple of Rusty Blackbirds and a Barn Swallow, and some Eastern Bluebirds, but no not really.” 

What has the world come to? We tallied 39 species, the weather was fair and there are plenty of worse ways to spend a morning. Bunches of Bloodroot flowers, first of the year, were gamely looking up at us. In my working days I’d daydream of mornings like this.

Our census list included: Field Sparrows (4), a Barn Swallow, Eastern Bluebirds (5), Northern Rough-winged Swallows (2), and four Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. All nice birds to welcome back and wonder where they spent January.

But what was Bird of the Day? I think it was a splendid male Northern Flicker caught and banded early in the day. I was busy recording other data as Marie was dealing with the Flicker. I remember looking over and commenting on what beautiful bird it was and before I really knew it, it had been banded, aged, sexed and released. And that was it. Nothing really special but, as ever, there’s always one bird that makes me think Wow!

Here’s a quick shot of a White-breasted Nuthatch approaching its nest entrance.

 

23 April 2014. Vinemount ON. Any month of the year is capable of delivering a surprise bird, especially around here at the west end of Lake Ontario where a number of factors combine to deliver an extraordinary richness of bird life. April of course is thick with spring migrants anyway so a rewarding afternoon of birding was perhaps predictable. Not that the numbers of species was remarkable, it was more the “Oh my goodness” factor.

First (and foremost, and Bird of the Day) was a trio of Upland Sandpipers stalking around a dry pasture field. Visually Upland Sandpipers aren’t all that much, brown and mottled like many an easy-to-confuse shorebird, except that they don’t go anywhere near shores or water. Perhaps it’s their dainty appearance (scrawny neck and undersized head) and beady eye that gives them a certain appeal. Or maybe it’s their outrageously languid wolf-whistle of a call that makes birders cherish them. Really, it’s an exorbitantly drawn out and ascending “Wheeeeeeeeeet; pause; then followed by an equally long, descending exhalation “Wheeeeooooooo”. No ogling construction worker could possibly match it, however captivating the object of his desires.

But there’s something else about Upland Sandpipers that intrigues me. They arrive in mid-late April (today’s are right on time) to breed across a fairly narrow swath of the north and centre of the continent. They come here after spending our winter in Argentina, they stop around for barely four months, produce young and then fly back to Argentina. I’m not sure how long it takes to fly from Argentina to Ontario, but it’s got to be one or two months, which leaves very nearly half the year spent in Argentina where incidentally they don’t breed again. Now I know that what I’m going to say rather trivializes the matter, but wouldn’t you think they’d be better off staying in Argentina, where there’s plenty of grassland, and forgoing two almost back-to-back long-haul flights?

Well these three were a treat to see and I struggled to get some decent long-shot photos, but I’ve included a couple.

While I sat in my car watching the sandpipers, a Savannah Sparrow stopped atop a fence post in front of me and obligingly posed. He even squeaked out a few phrases of Savannah Sparrow song, “Tsit tsit tsit tsit tsit tseeeeeiii ur.”

Later on my way home I pulled to the side of a road to look over an expanse of flooded field and was, well kind of thrilled to find upwards of fifteen Wilsons Snipes lurking there, most of them biding their time and resting. Again I struggled for photos but was moderately pleased with these.

17 April 2014. Cayuga ON. It took some debate to decide on Bird of the Day. I thought Barn Swallow because it was, for me, the first this year of these handsome summer aristocrats. My companion though, favoured a male American Kestrel seen (and photographed) carrying a writhing snake to its Waterloo; that was my second choice. But then there was a handful of maybes to consider too: A shy, first of the year Hermit Thrush; A high, almost out of sight, Broad-winged Hawk; A single Bank Swallow skimming the river and tangled up with dozens of Tree Swallows; A pretty little Blue-gray Gnatcatcher or even a handsome leaf-tossing Eastern Towhee. All tough competitors and certain to make the cut another day, but in the end I opted for the Barn Swallow because it made me say Wow!

We found the Barn Swallow in the course of doing the daily census at the bird observatory. It was a full morning with bird songs (or in some cases bare utterances) all around, including Eastern Tufted Titmouse, Field Sparrows, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Northern Cardinals and Slate Coloured Juncos.

The river has been very high for the past couple of weeks, two days ago its flood-plain was just that, flooded. Now as the levels are receding, the birds are finding lots of insect meals. We watched as thirty or so Tree Swallows zipped around picking at the river’s surface and it was in this almost impossible to follow multitude, that I picked out the Bank Swallow, and to my clear delight, my Bird of the Day a female Barn Swallow.

Here are a couple of photos (courtesy of Renata Sadowska) of the American Kestrel with its still-writhing lunch.