August 19 2017. RBG Hendrie Valley, Burlington, ON. I’ve just read that August is the Sunday of summer. I get the analogy, August is kind of slow-paced dreamy, it also means that the work-week starts in September and there’s plenty of truth in that. We will be starting our systematic bird counts, or transects, in a couple of weeks and as a warm-up I walked around my favourite deep wooded valley this morning. I’m not the only one who likes the valley, by mid-late morning many family groups make their way along the easy paths feeding Eastern Chipmunks, Gray Squirrels and Black-capped Chickadees.
My walk around was largely unremarkable but seeing thirty or so species of all shapes and sizes, as I did, is pretty good going. Looking back at some of my best days in Uganda or Kazakhstan thirty is decent day’s count. The really big count days come in the midst of the migrations of spring or fall and at known hot spots.
I heard more American Goldfinches than I could either see or reliably count, they twitter musically whether flying or gathered in upper branches. I noted thirty-five but it could easily have been twice as many. At this time of year the males are bright yellow with jet black cap, back and wings, the females are less vividly yellow, a little more olive. They’re easy to hear but hard to spot passing high overhead, tiny birds against a stark blue sky.
I was musing on what a rich birding experience this place offers to anyone visiting from almost anywhere and thinking about which of ‘our’ species might be familiar to long distance visitors: Mallards are found in the temperate and sub-tropical Americas, Eurasia and North Africa; they are abundant here and I counted twenty-six this morning; Ospreys (I saw at least one this morning, but there could have been two or three, it’s hard to be sure) have a worldwide distribution and are the second most widely distributed raptor species after the Peregrine Falcon.
At least one Belted Kingfisher was patrolling the river and watery reaches. I hear them more often than see them, there could easily have been more because I’m sure they breed here and this year’s young are presumably not far away.
It was Barn Swallows, a pair of them chittering musically, from a branch overhead that prompted the species distribution line of reflection. As a child in the U.K I was fascinated to watch them at high-speed skimming and insect-gleaning inches, maybe a foot, above the mown grass of our school’s sports fields. Swallows are built for effortless flight like few other birds, they have with long, slender flight-efficient wings and, as if to emphasize their sporty build, adults have exaggeratedly long outer tail feathers. I saw wintering Barn Swallows in Uganda last February, I don’t know where they go to breed from there, Europe possibly or almost anywhere across to Siberia. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Barn Swallows breed throughout North America and from Iceland, across Europe to n. Siberia, south to Mediterranean regions, n. Africa, Near East, Arabia, Iran, Himalayas, China, Taiwan, and Japan. And from all of those northern territories they winter in Central and South America, tropical Africa, East Indies, n. Australia, and Micronesia.
As one who longs to travel I looked at these two Barn Swallows above me (my Birds of the Day incidentally) and thought for a moment about the months-long journey just ahead of them. A journey they make without any of the trappings we depend on; the route is known to them without thinking and they’re ready to leave when the winds tell them; any day now.