RBG Arboretum, Hamilton. ON. December 2nd 2020. Goodness knows I’m not a winter enthusiast, but you wouldn’t know it after these last two days. It’s as if I took one look at the snow and was layered up and ready to go. Yesterday was one of the best ever and today, although not quite as magical, was time well spent too. Birds or not, it was easy to love places like this woodland path with blown snow dusting the way ahead.
There weren’t many birds for a while. I had expected more in the ornamental pines, spruces and firs but nothing showed until I came to a quiet and sheltered dip in the trail where some kind soul had left a small cache of sunflower seed. Here was a busy group of Dark-eyed Juncos, Black-capped Chickadees, Northern Cardinals and American Tree Sparrows. I watched and waited quietly, they weren’t at all sure about me at first. Eventually we all relaxed and a Blue Jay or two arrived and then came this gorgeous male Red–bellied Woodpecker. The spell was broken by the approach of birder friend. We swapped stories and sightings (such as they were), wished each other well and went on our way.
It was much later with the temperature then soaring to 6.C, that I came across what must be My Bird of the Day, a sole Common Redpoll. It was with a small group of American Goldfinches, White-throated Sparrows and American Tree Sparrows who had found a good source of food, berries mostly, in a large pile of shrubby debris. I might not have seen the redpoll had I not been alerted by a sound: unfamiliar, faint, slightly raspy and definitely finch-like. I was lucky to get a fleeting look at the redpoll and even luckier perhaps to get a photo. Not great, but here it is.
Common Redpolls are irregular winter visitors here. They are common birds of the boreal forests and taiga of North America, Scandinavia and Russia and only make their way south to these latitudes when there is a widespread failure of seed production among high-latitude conifers. So, it is a bit of a treat in those years when they show up – this being one of them. I count myself lucky.
Although my redpoll photo is barely more than a for-the-record shot I was patiently tolerated by this American Tree Sparrow.
Good job hearing the Redpoll, they are very irregular here in southern New England. My first was a bird the Cooper’s hawk drove into a window near the feeders. I grabbed her before the hawk & she appeared to recover quickly.
Really hoping that American Bittern you found headed south. Thank you for the Tree Sparrow picture, beautiful birds.