Green Heron

Mountsberg, ON. July 17, 2020. Good birding ends on July 7^th. I tell everyone that because it’s true, it all goes deadly quiet and for the next four to six weeks, time spent birding is scarcely rewarded. But I went today, I needed to and wanted to get out and visit many of the places I’d missed this spring.

First stop was a forest trail that was under the control of mosquitoes. I could hear one or two Chestnut-sided Warblers singing half-heartedly, but I think everything else had been sucked dry. In an open clear-cut area, the mosquitoes handed over to squadrons of larger flies with more efficient mouth parts, Deer Flies I think. I would (perhaps should) have lingered longer because I found, picked and ate many delicious handfuls of Wild Raspberries, sweeter and tastier by far than anything now found in the supermarkets. My invaluable Shrubs of Ontario reference book describes the raspberry fruit as “… usually red, rarely yellow to amber coloured, about 1 cm in diameter, edible, falling intact from the dry receptacle” All of which is true but I don’t think it would have gone amiss to insert  ‘succulent and aromatically delicious’ somewhere in the text. Turkey Vultures circled high above and a Gray Catbird skipped through low bushes anxious to remain unseen.  But the Deer Flies made things difficult so I left, but happy when a Yellow-billed Cuckoo called faintly and then flew across the opening; it exceeded my expectations.

I wound my way back home stopping at a couple of roadside openings where I could look across a shallow lake. The Cattail marshes were the right sort of places for Marsh Wrens, Soras, and Virginia Rails. I hoped for them but had to make do with a two irritated Swamp Sparrows and a fleeting visit from a Common Yellowthroat. Bird of the Day was a very young Green Heron who, at my appearance, fluttered weakly away from the edge of the marsh to a more secure hiding spot. Like the cuckoo he exceeded my expectations.

I was home by lunch time as the day grew hotter. It’s mid-July, time for heat and no time for birding.