Royal Botanical Gardens. Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. April 17 2022. A cold start to the day, windy and barely above freezing, not the sort of conditions that suit insectivores and yet they continue to appear. Easter Sunday is the kind of day that brings out family groups, sometimes noisy, sometimes dog-entangled, the sort of company I’d rather avoid on a transect, so I started early. Warmly dressed but still my knuckles stiffened. It took a while to spot anything out of the ordinary although a now familiar Eastern Screech Owl sitting at its tree-hole door was an easy pleasure.
The surprise of the day was a Yellow–rumped Warbler a precursor to May’s mad warbler rush to come. Yellow-rumps are pretty hardy, they are just about the latest warbler to leave us (in mid October,) and one of the earliest to return. A mid-April, Yellow-rumped Warbler, although early, is not out of line. It is nevertheless welcome especially for its contrast to the still leafless winter-weary world. It wasn’t My Bird of the Day though because swallows got me first.
The swallows were three each of Tree Swallows and Northern Rough–winged Swallows. They were flying in swooping sweeps and loops, presumably chasing whatever airborne insects there were on this cold morning. Occasionally they’d settle together, catch their breath and swap notes before skipping up, out and away again. I rate them as My Birds of the Day partly for being here and partly for obliging me by perching right in front of me on one of their rest breaks.