Month: May 2014

26May 2014. Cayuga ON. Bird of the Day presented a dilemma that really should not have been too difficult to deal with. Which is it: Canada Warbler or Willow Flycatcher? One a dude, a toff, a popinjay who arrives for the party with his precise charcoal grey cape slung over a buttercup yellow vest, the ensemble set off to perfection by a cascade of black pearls and custom white-rimmed spectacles. The other a workhouse drudge found where it’s wet underfoot and mosquitoes abound, it dresses in army drab and eats flies; there’s little more to be said.

Of course I encountered both of them today, the Canada Warbler was trapped in a mist net and brought to the lab for banding, the Willow Flycatcher was somewhere close to the riverside trail singing its heart out. I prefer my birds unfettered; a Canada Warbler is a truly spectacular bird but it loses points for being briefly captive, the Willow Flycatcher is just a symbol of wetlands and its song sets it apart from its lookalike cousins the Least and Alder Flycatchers.

A little bit like vireos, which I enjoy for their often-unremarkable dress and pugnacious attitude, I find flycatchers engaging, the smaller ones you might call perky while the bigger ones tend to be noisily assertive. Here’s a gallery of some of the members of this family (not all of them seen in Ontario); you’ll note they’re not all dressed like workhouse drudges.

May 23 2014 Carden Plain, ON. American Bitterns are one of those birds you almost never see. Birders in general consider seeing or hearing one as noteworthy, certainly the sort of thing you want to tell your birding friends about, and even worth trying on with your family,  just in case there’s some interest.

Had you asked me back in January, how often I see an American Bittern; I probably would have said: very occasionally, maybe once a year if I’m in the right time and place, or more likely once or twice a decade. This year I’ve had four sightings, and by far the best came today. The first a month ago while sloshing along an informal trail through a dense cattail marsh; the second two weeks later at the bird observatory when a small group of us surprised one resting at the side of a wet trail, and the third on my way to conduct a survey of amphibians, we watched one trying with mixed results to become a part of a distant cattail marsh. Today’s American Bittern was hands-down the star performer and Bird of the Day.

Today we made, what among Ontario birders almost amounts to, a pilgrimage to Carden Plain, an area celebrated for its flat limestone landscape and biodiversity: a mix of watercourses, marshes, swamps and alvars (areas of little or no soil overlying limestone bedrock and subject to excessive heat, cold, drought and other extremes.)

Our day was full of nice surprises including a couple of distant Loggerhead Shrikes, a species considered at risk and Endangered in Ontario. The dry fields of Carden Plain support a few breeding pairs along with plenty of Eastern Bluebirds, Upland Sandpipers, Savannah and Grasshopper Sparrows, Eastern Kingbirds and Brown Thrashers. A Great-crested Flycatcher and a Wilson’s Snipe posed obligingly for the above photos and I’ve had to delete many photos of a Vesper Sparrow that was just too far away.  It was a full day that ended with us listening in the cold wind for Yellow Rails, a diminutive, elusive and generally un-seeable bird. It eluded us with night falling and a Common Nighthawk zig-zagging overhead .

But, what of the American Bittern? Late afternoon, as we were making our way slowly along a gravel road that bisects a large marsh, we were astounded by an up-close encounter with an American Bittern stalking slowly and deliberately across the road not ten feet in front of us; it was totally unexpected. Bitterns are known as shy and retiring, relying on their cryptic colouring to disappear into a marsh; not for just popping out to cross the street. It was clearly apprehensive about being so exposed, stepping delicately and deliberately in a very horizontal, crouching-with-head-tucked-in pose, it wasted no time out in the open, but still we had the most astounding, if short-lived, opportunity to really see an American Bittern. But there was more to come.

Later that evening when the light was fading, we could hear the bittern calling; that in itself, is an experience few have knowingly experienced. A bittern’s song (if you could possibly call it that) warrants an entire website, but this short but marvellous movie from the Miracle of Nature website, more than does it justice. It is quite possibly one of nature’s strangest sounds to come from a vertebrate. I’ll refer to Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion for perhaps the best written description: “One of the classic sounds of the marsh – a resonant, imperfectly suppressed, three note belch – gulp-G-gulp – sometimes likened to a stake being driven into the marsh; in tone and cadence nearly suggests a bassoon with a limp.” We were able to track down the bird which was ill concealed in an expanse of marsh grass and I managed to get a few reasonable photos.

Perhaps as compelling as the actual song is the five-second prelude as the bird seemingly winds up for the exertion ahead. It claps its bill two or three times, exhales with a couple of minor gulping clicks and then launches into the song while thrusting its head and neck rhythmically, rather like our cat preparing to throw up something it should never have eaten. The gallery series of photos above (visible only on the website not if you’re reading this as an email,) may help to visualize the performance, but really you had to be there.

May 18 2014 Burlington and Hamilton, ON. The eighteenth of May, it would be hard to pick a date more likely to produce a wave of neo-tropical migrants than this. It hasn’t left a lot of time for posting to My Bird of the Day.

Before breakfast I visited a lakeside park not far from home.  The park includes a gracious, former summer home with lawns and formal flower beds; in contrast though much of it is un-manicured, natural and relaxed. A decent sized stream finds its way through the park to empty finally into Lake Ontario. Close to the old home is an overgrown White Cedar hedge which provides cover, protection, and shelter for birds and not to mention clouds of flying insects and various creeping invertebrates; a banquet for the taking. This morning, standing gazing at this old hedge was all you needed to do to see countless brilliant and compelling little birds. I noted: Blackburnian, Tennessee, Blackpoll, Black & White, and Black-throated Blue Warblers. Also American Redstarts, Northern Parulas and a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher; all of them minor celebrities as they worked in and out through the hedge.

Later (after an overdue breakfast) and unable to stay home, I retraced our walk of two evenings ago. The bird mix was a little different and I added Bay-breasted Warbler and a Philadelphia Vireo to my day’s notes, but I have to say that the Birds of the Day were the many Scarlet Tanagers.

The photo above shows quite well how the female Scarlet Tanager is really a rather drab green and heavy looking girl. Actually the male is no lightweight either but who notices? Scarlet Tanager pair bonds must be well established in mid-May by the time they reach us, for where there’s a female you can be pretty sure a male is not far away.

While it may become a bit repetitive, I think we all have some appetite for the dramatic, so here’s a gallery of photos from the afternoon but visible only on the website, not if you’re reading this as an email.

I have yet to sort out how to persuade my camera to render the blazing scarlet with more definition, it seems to be very easy to lose focus and burn out the expanse of red, it’s as if something overloads the camera’s sensors. I will appreciate anyone’s comments or suggestions on this.

The afternoon of 16 May 2014. Hamilton ON. I’m sure that my afternoon companions would have bet heavily on two other birds species as odds-on favourites to be my Bird of the Day, they’d choose either a Pileated Woodpecker or a Scarlet Tanager I’m sure, but surely not a Swainson’s Thrush. Sorry to disappoint.

I had been invited by an enthusiastic young (by my standards) birder to join him and assorted friends on an after-work birding walk. That, I thought, was a refreshing idea; add new company and younger eyes to a familiar location and who knows what might happen. Four of us set out and were soon admiring a bunch of Baltimore Orioles, and shortly thereafter found a Chestnut-sided and some Tennessee Warblers. Then I saw and with an air of triumph, pointed out a Swainson’s Thrush lurking low in a small stand of Paw-paw trees. We watched it for a while, distracted by Red-eyed Vireos and songs of more Tennessee Warblers. The thrush excited me while my companions understandably were less enthusiastic, hardly a glamorous or dazzling bird, but I love Swainson’s for their understated coolness and heart-stopping song (about which more later).

Moving on, we encountered a fabulous Pileated Woodpecker picking and bashing away at ground level woody debris. These wonderful birds rarely allow you a really good look at them; they tend to peek out shyly from the other side of a tree trunk or vanish into thick cover. Having said that, I know many who have enjoyed long lingering encounters with Pileated Woodpeckers, so it’s not that you never get a really good look, it’s just that it’s rare. Too bad, for they are a sensational creature: startlingly handsome and masterful, but well, shy.

We heard Pine Warblers trilling from high in some White Pines, got a glimpse of a Black-throated Blue Warbler, and just like pulling a rabbit out of a hat we greedily enjoyed several brilliant Scarlet Tanagers. It’s hard to explain the intensity of their scarlet, but on my drive home I realized how much they explode red like a traffic light. Over the years I have taken many really crummy pictures of Scarlet Tanagers. Like this morning’s Yellow-throated Vireo, they don’t stay still for very long (although admittedly longer than the vireo) and they are often facing the wrong way or partially obscured by tree bits. Add to that the need to zoom in and focus and well, good shots are few and far between.

(This post contains more photos of the Tanager in a gallery visible only on the website, not if you’re reading this as an email.)

But, here’s how it is that the Swainson’s Thrush ended up as Bird of the Afternoon (maybe even Bird of the Day); it’s their song. As we wrapped up our after-work birding walk afternoon was giving way to evening and several Swainson’s Thrushes started to sing. It makes sense that there were others around for, although we had seen only a single bird, when it comes to migration, species often spread through the land on a broad front, like a large wave. The Swainson’s Thrushes’ songs are melodiously dreamy and we were in the grassy lower level of a lilac dell when I heard them, a setting worthy of a Victorian poet. I would have liked to take more time to draw the others’ attention to the songs, but we were in something of a hurry to leave on account of a waiting, pre-ordered pizza and other domestic demands of a young father.   But all is not lost, to get a full appreciation of the Swainson’s Thrushes’ song, follow this link, listen to a few song recordings and at least mentally place yourself in a spring woodland.

The morning of 16 May 2014. Cayuga ON. I’m going to have to divide this day in two. This is the peak of the spring migration and I spent the morning at the bird observatory and part of the afternoon birding exploring a lakeside trail with a couple of younger enthusiasts. First the morning.

It was under gloomy, low-hanging clouds that I arrived at the bird observatory. I don’t know how much rain we’d had overnight, it felt as though everything needed wringing out.  It must have been a prodigious amount because all of our customary trails had become watercourses, there were rivulets and mini cascades where I’d never seen or heard them before. Perhaps the ground was so waterlogged from this very wet spring, that last night’s rains had no choice but to find a way to run straight to the river. The daily census was more of a three-hour wade than anything else. But for all of that it was satisfyingly varied.

Quite early on in the census, I encountered a singing Yellow-throated Vireo. It moved in quite closely and took up some beautiful positions for photographs, but I soon learned that Yellow-throated Vireos stay still for exactly as long as it takes me to point my camera and focus, but not a millisecond longer; certainly not long enough to take the photo. I exaggerate only slightly but this shot was the best I could manage out of about fifteen attempts, most of which ended up as photos of empty branches with the occasional blurred wing or tail of a departing vireo.

The remnants of the overnight storm eventually gave way to sunshine reaching through scudding clouds, it was enough to brighten everyone up, and at last creatures of all kinds started to come out of hiding.

My field notes were lengthy. I recorded some fifty-eight species, many of them to be expected, things like House Wrens (8), Baltimore Orioles (24) and Tree Swallows (50) and many not quite surprises but notable sightings nevertheless: a single Cooper’s Hawk, Barn Swallows (16) and Indigo Buntings (2). And then of course, there were the warblers. It’s their season and I recorded ten: Blue-winged, and Yellow Warblers (both summer residents that stay breed) and (just passing through today) Yellow-rumped, Black-throated Green, Tennessee, Magnolia, Chestnut-sided, Bay-breasted, and Cape May Warblers; and Bird of the Morning two Blackburnian Warblers. Not that Blackburnians necessarily outshine the others, but this vivid male obligingly parked itself on the trunk of a Northern Hackberry to show off and effectively steal the show for a while.