Author: Peter T

Ruthven Park, Cayuga, ON. January 10 2025. It takes some persuading to get me outdoors for long in mid-January. It is a bleak and snow dusted countryside largely empty of birds. If I really put my mind to it, I’m sure I could find some Dark-eyed Juncos, American Tree Sparrows, Blue Jays, American Robins and, with a bit of effort, maybe Short-eared Owls and Rough-legged Hawk.  A task for a day with a bit more light perhaps.

Today I took a friend to see a couple of quirky cemeteries tucked away in the grounds of Ruthven Park, a place that might count as a stately home, a nineteenth century relic anyway. I’m well acquainted with this place, having spent countless spring and fall hours at the bird observatory on its grounds.  So half expecting, I took along my binoculars and camera just in case, I’m glad I did.

My companion had never been to Ruthven so, while he wandered off to explore, I made my way to check the bird feeders. Two surprises there: a large  flock (20-30) of Brown-headed Cowbirds hungrily cleaning up debris cast from the feeder above and a couple of Tufted Titmouses.

The Brown-headed Cowbirds, North America’s most familiar nest parasite, really were a pleasant surprise. They get a bad rap for being a colourless blackish grey brown; for being largely tuneless; and for their brood-parasite free-love culture. I prefer to view them as another bird of summer albeit an extraordinarily interesting one.  They arrive mostly unnoticed in mid spring, hang around idly through the breeding season and gather in late fall flocks who depart by December. Challenged by today’s off-season encounter I did a bit of checking and found a few other mid-winter local records. It seems we are on the fuzzy northern edge of their winter range so I don’t suppose my sighting will rock the bird record-keeping world, but I was taken aback – and wowed enough to call them my Birds of the Day.

A Tufted Titmouse can’t help being endearing.  Even if it were the blood-thirstiest villain in the avian world, its wide-eyed, who-me? demeanor says otherwise, they make you want to love them. Today’s pair (I think there were two) seemed nervous, in view one second and gone the next so getting long looks and a photograph was difficult.  The species is a year-round resident at Ruthven but is a bit of an outlier, like the cowbird, we are just at the fuzzy northern edge of its range and no doubt that elusiveness adds to the intrigue.

RBG Arboretum, Hamilton. ON.  December 21, 2024. I grew up not far from Stonehenge.  They were simpler times and those stones were a reminder of prehistoric Britain and were said to have had something to do with priest figures called druids. If, back then, Stonehenge drew crowds of winter or summer solstice worshipers they were decidedly low-key events.

The Winter Solstice today is a noteworthy event and has become quite special in the calendar of my birder friends and me.  We mark it by doing a Winter Solstice Transect around each of our four transect routes. I dressed defensively this morning because temperatures had dropped sharply overnight and a thin blanket of snow had arrived.  I took about 90 minutes to walk around a lakeside transect route, 90 minutes, 220 birds, and17 species; none of them out of the ordinary but all special in their own way.

By far the most numerous were European Starlings, 120 of them  in large unsettled flocks, moving, splitting and regrouping. Thirty or 40 American Robins intermingled with a large handful of Cedar Waxwings foraging for leftover berries of fall. There were Dark–eyed Juncos and American Tree Sparrows scratching for seeds along the trailsides and a few Black–capped Chickadees keeping an eye on everyone.

My Bird of the Day was a solitary Red–tailed Hawk perched high above everyone and everything, just watching. Bathed in shortest-day-of-the-year sunshine it glowed white and was enough to make me think wow!   (Not the one above – but very much like it.)  Happy Christmas.

RBG Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON.  November 7, 2024. With our fall transects complete, I walked the valley today hoping to sustain some sort of birding momentum. But it was slim pickings, we had seen the best of it and watched it drain away.

This Eastern Screech Owl should have satisfied me but we see it there half the time, so really not a surprise. We usually admire this same grey individual and have for several years, at least we assume it’s the same bird. We might go on making that assumption were it not for the fact that every now and then, a rufous look-alike takes its place. Like people, this species comes in different colours so no big mystery there but what it tells us is that at least two birds share the same roost.  But on what terms? Are they siblings, a bonded pair, one at a time, or squeezing in together?   With those questions unanswered I have to conceded that just seeing it is pretty special, although not the sort of special I was looking for today.

I had a non-birder companion with me, Rod. He’s not a muddy hiking boots type but he showed polite interest when I pointed out a few birds: White–throated Sparrow (2 or 3) , Dark–eyed Junco (1), Cedar Waxwings  (16) and a Wood Duck, his were grunted acknowledgements mostly;  until I pointed out this Great Blue Heron. It stopped him dead in his tracks.

With a little instruction he had my binoculars onto the bird and… Wow!  Rod is a very skilled watercolour artist and was quick to explain his proposed choice of paint colour, Paynes Gray, and how the fallen-leaves-on-water background was perfect. I’d never looked at it that way, Our Bird of the Day.

It always seems to catch me off guard just how empty the place becomes in November. There’s a pause after the birds of summer have gone and before the birds of winter move in.  They may be out there, not yet pressed for food or shelter, but when winter closes in they’ll find both in this steep-sided valley of woods and wetland.

Westdale, Hamilton. ON.  November 1, 2024. Although not cold it was certainly November-ish this morning. With sudden gusts hurling fallen leaves back skyward and a  ceiling of torn grey cloud, my companion and I struggled to count waterfowl species by the dozens and hundreds. Scattered over wide waters were Northern Shovelers, Green-winged Teal, Gadwall, Mallards, American Wigeons and many more. All hungrily refuelling as they retreat from northern breeding grounds and facing a long journey ahead to warmer waters.

Back on land, most summer visitor migrants had left, but the woodland edges were happily busy with American Goldfinches ravaging thickets of goldenrods, hungry for the seeds. My Birds of the Day were a pair of somber Common Ravens.  Ravens are known to mate for life and these two seemed to be bonded, maybe not in courtship, a bit early even for Ravens, but one was making what sounded like gentle ‘glug’ sounds and little dance-like nods with flared wings. Its mate was obviously paying attention.

Photography of a black bird against the sky was difficult, but given the tone of the day and the date perhaps it is perfect.

RBG Arboretum, Hamilton. ON.  October 12, 2024. This was one of the best days birding in a while. Perhaps it was the fine weather, certainly it suited me, but it’s the bigger weather events that nudge birds into heading south and make our transect work more varied.

I completed one of our transects, thoroughly enjoying a few special moments: dozens of White-throated Sparrows in one patch of weedy grasses, flocks of Cedar Waxwings settling into tree-tops and Yellow–rumped Warblers busily working wherever the sun stirred small insect movement. A Peregrine Falcon turning in relaxed circles high over the lake was a nice sighting, followed a little later and much lower, by a young Bald Eagle who cruised along unconcerned by the consternation it caused to the many ducks below:  Gadwall , Mallards and Northern Shovellers.

My Birds of the Day were hundreds of Blue Jays.  There was an intermittent stream of them passing overhead, trending south and west; but just as many stayed, milling around, socializing and most importantly feeding. A huge acorn crop made the ground crunchy in places and dozens of jays had found and preferred the fallen acorns of one Northern Pin Oak in particular. The wide green expanse beneath the tree often had 20 or 30 Blue Jays all feeding hungrily, gulping down just two, three or four acorns before leaving, crop bulging, to be quickly replaced by another hungry jay. I wondered what was special about this oak but noticed that its acorns were quite  small, perhaps the size if the top joint of your little finger, while Northern Red Oaks’ acorns were twice as big,  thumb-tip size.

It’s interesting to note that almost exactly five years ago, I wrote about another Blue Jay acorn banquet.  The need, timing and place was the same, but the feeding behaviour a little different. The favoured tree then was a Shingle Oak (which this year has few acorns) and I noted that the jays seemed to prefer its smaller acorns too.

Today’s jays were able to accommodate  no more than four smallish acorns in their crops, good food for a good while I’m sure. A dozen years ago I watched and wrote about European Jays (a quite different species and much larger) similarly gulping down more and bigger acorns.