16 June 2013. Bruce Peninsula, ON. We spent two days intensively birding Ontario’s beautiful and sometimes rugged Bruce Peninsula; “The Bruce” they call it. This is the same piece of Ontario geography where I spent much of mid-May (click any of these for various May blog posts). Despite many jaw-dropping rivals the Bird of both Days was an Upland Sandpiper.
Upland Sandpiper despite: a tiny, diminutive Piping Plover on its nest (listed as ‘threatened’ or ‘endangered’ almost everywhere); Sandhill Cranes with their young, rusty-downy ‘colts’; and a pair of Brewer’s Blackbirds, a species which to the best of my recollection, I’d never seen before.
Upland Sandpiper despite a singing Cerulean Warbler neck-scrunchingly high in the tops of some Sugar Maples; despite a male Scarlet Tanager seen from above by looking over the edge of a precipice to where it was on cedar treetops, shockingly scarlet against the palette of greens; and despite a glorious orange and black, female Blackburnian Warbler gathering food for her nestlings.
Despite all of the distractions the Upland Sandpiper was Bird of the Day for me. They are grassland divas; really rather un-dramatic in plumage, but it’s their way of making themselves known that captivates. First you hear the aerial wolf-whistle, a long, rising ‘Wheeeeeet’ followed by a leisurely and falling “weeoooooo”. That gets my attention I can tell you. Then I usually spot them flying quickly across the fields, usually heading to a fence post where they alight and then, as if to acknowledge thunderous applause, they hold high their wings, tips together and showing dark under-wings for a second or two. After settling, they stand quietly on the post, beady eyed, watching attentively over the open fields, perhaps on the lookout for trouble. So elegant, so ballerina-ish, so Bird of the Weekend.
I had many more breath-drawing gasps this weekend and to list too many would be tiresome, but there were: Blue-headed Vireos singing their exaggerated songs, Black Terns swooping over marshes and a Grasshopper Sparrow doing what they do best: sounding like a grasshopper in the grass. Among warblers, in the ‘heard but not seen’ category were: Ovenbird, Mourning, Nashville, Black-throated Green and Black and White Warbler. Definitely seen and enjoyed included were Common Yellowthroat, American Redstart, Yellow, and Yellow-rumped Warblers. The list is not endless of course but our two birding days turned up a cast of just over a hundred species.
I can’t close without acknowledging the company of endlessly singing Red-eyed Vireos, both Eastern Meadowlarks and Bobolinks fluttering like large wind-caught leaves over the hay fields and a vocally responsive but hidden Sora. And there were the butterflies, dragonflies, ferns and hundreds of flowering Yellow Lady Slipper orchids too. Almost too much for one weekend. Here are a few photos from the weekend: a Cedar Waxwing, the Grasshopper Sparrow, the Scarlet Tanager, a Male Fern and some Yellow Lady Slipper orchids.
