April 10 2016. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. My birding career, if that’s what you can call it, has been a long one; six decades if I care to stretch the point. But it is only in the last four or five years that I can say that I’ve been much more than a very interested but casual observer. Nowadays I usually carry my camera and a notebook to record what I see (and hear) and while a camera and a notebook record things quite differently they both serve the same purpose: partly essential for conducting census walks and partly as a source of inspiration, illustration or reminder for writing these postings. What emerges from this more rigorous approach to birding is my growing appreciation of the cycles, patterns and rhythms, the ebb and flow of bird activity.
By way of illustration, today a companion and I completed one of our routine census walks. The air was cold but the bird activity was high nonetheless. We recorded many good species including a Golden-crowned Kinglet, two Eastern Phoebes, a Brown Creeper, a zipping-by Cooper’s Hawk and a score of hungry Tree Swallows. This is a watery part of the world and waterfowl of many species either stay for all or part of the year or pass through in spring and fall. Today we found: Canada Geese, Mallards, Wood Ducks, Gadwall, Hooded Mergansers and to our delight (and Birds of the Day) two male Blue-winged Teal.
I was so impressed by the handsomeness of the Blue-winged Teal that I made some effort to get photos knowing that distance, the prevailing light and my shivering all mitigated against a great shot; but worth a try. Back home, as I was loading the photos onto my computer I started to feel that maybe I’d done this all before: same species, same place and same time of year. And yes, on April 22nd last year I took the photo below of a pair of Blue-winged Teal in precisely the same place. It’s a better shot than today’s (above).
When I look back at last year’s April 22nd entry, my Bird of the Day was Blue-winged Teal (!) and my sightings that morning virtually identical, right down to the hunting Cooper’s Hawk.
And there it is: cycles, patterns and rhythms that you could almost set your clock by. Well maybe not your clock – there’s a two-week timing difference, but at risk of sounding glib, last year’s winter was colder and spring a couple of weeks later.