6 September 2013. Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON. A couple of days ago a cold front swept down from the north-west and turned the days from very warm to warm-ish by day and distinctly cool at night. As if to emphasis the change, at the bird observatory this morning there was frost on the ground! It was just a light touch at dawn and once the sun came up it vanished.
The last two days have seen an increase in numbers of migrant warblers, still not big surges, but some species that we know breed at the very limits of the tree line are starting to show up. Today we saw Tennessee and Wilson’s Warblers, birds of the boreal forest as well as a couple of Gray Cheek Thrushes and a Blackpoll Warbler both of whom have come from very far north. All of these birds still have a long way to go. The Blackpoll Warbler outdoes them all on the migratory epics, for, having bred in a broad band of far northern places like Alaska, northern British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, they’re on their way south and east to the Atlantic coastline from where they’ll fly out over the Atlantic for a four-day, non-stop flight continuing south and east until the north-east trade-winds propel them on to Brazil. It’s for this stupendous effort and the journey ahead that my heart goes out to the few Blackpoll Warblers seen today, and also for what it’s worth the honour of being my Bird of the Day.
It’s been a good summer for fruit production, the Riverbank Grape vines are loaded with large bunches of ripe, purple-black fruit and both Red-osier and Gray Dogwoods have lots of berries too. Lots of fruit means lots of fuel for birds like American Robins, Gray Catbirds and Cedar Waxwings all seen today. The Cedar Waxwings swarmed in large flocks finding tree-tops from which to sally out on fly-catching sorties, the abundant fruit can wait for now. A crowd of thirty or so, including many young of the year, descended on the upper branches of an aging Norway Spruce and allowed me a few moments to get these pictures.
