3 April 2014. Mountsberg Conservation Area. I decided to look for Rusty Blackbirds this morning. There’s a continent-wide survey to try to get a better picture of the species’ migration patterns and I’m hoping by my efforts to add some data. Not today though, I saw none.
However at a stop on the shoreline of a lake, really a damm-made reservoir, where the habitat is right for Rusty Blackbirds, I spotted a small group of Tree Swallows. Tree Swallows are early returnees, they precede the other swallow species by several weeks and it’s usually cold, and to my mind too hostile for an insectivore, when the first spring arrivals show up. They are inoffensive, insect eating, nest box users and the males’ backs shine a vivid purple/green gloss; altogether a beautiful little bird. Here’s one from a warm spring day in 2010.
What made these birds extra special was that today is cold, close to zero degrees, and the lake was completely frozen over, but the swallows seemed to be finding food in the little puddles of melt-water. They wheeled around and dipped occasionally to pick at something, I assume it was food, not just a sip of water.
The weather is supposed to improve markedly over the next days so, provided they’ve found enough to get by on, I think that starting tomorrow life will become a little easier for them.