Author: Peter T

May 22 2013. Hendrie Valley RBG Burlington ON. I had the pleasure of showing two visitors from the U.K around one of my favourite birding spots today.  We’d never met before today but through the Birdingpal website , an excellent way to find local birding help when you’re travelling, we arranged to share some good Ontario birding.  I’ll admit that I harboured some minor concerns that the valley and trails I’d pre-selected might not live up to expectations but I needn’t have worried, indeed it would be pretty hard to fail at this time of year with so many migrants around.  The local birds were in full feather and voice and we enjoyed a good three hours and compiled a tally of about 40 birds.

The chosen trail is always popular with visitors, especially families, because Black-capped Chickadees, White-breasted Nuthatches and sometimes Hairy Woodpeckers will happily and greedily take sunflower seeds from your open hand. This experience is always a showstopper and it can take half an hour or more to cover the first leg of the trail.  We enjoyed the chickadees and nuthatches for a while and then reveled in close encounters with a Red-bellied Woodpecker, a singing Common Yellowthroat and an inquisitive Baltimore Oriole.

Moving along a woodland trail, we encountered a lone female American Redstart bouncing around in some bordering dogwood bushes, searched tree-tops for a singing Warbling Vireo and watched an Eastern Phoebe sallying out for flying insect food and proclaiming territorial ownership with its wet-throated ‘wee-bee’ call.

We found a Green Heron standing motionless in an about-to-strike pose on the edge of a woodland-edge pond and a trio of Wood Ducks, a female and two handsome males, perched warily on a downed tree limb.

The Bird of the Day, for me anyway, was a Scarlet Tanager found as we were winding up our morning’s birding.  It’s been a while, but as soon as I heard the tanager’s distinctive “chik-brrr…….. chik-brrr”, I knew we had a very special sighting to close the day with.  It took a while to find him, he was high up in a Red Oak and cussedly determined to stay just out of sight. A Scarlet Tanager is always a winner for me because of the red-hot intensity of the breeding male’s plumage.  This photo was taken last year before it was possible to hide.

20 May 2013. Cabot Head ON. Our licensed bander was unavailable this final morning of my days at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory so we kept the mist nets closed and instead spent the morning watching for and keeping track of species seen.

It was quite foggy until mid morning when finally the sun managed to break through.  When flight conditions are poor for one reason or another, and fog is definitely one, birds are forced to drop down and wait out the weather conditions.  While there weren’t tons of birds, certainly nothing like yesterday’s fall-out, the mix of species was quite changed.  Lots of Black-throated Blue Warblers and American Redstarts and, for a change, several and various woodpeckers.  A Hairy Woodpecker or two hung around and I counted three Northern Flickers either seen or heard.  I noted a Blue Jay (one of hundreds) alight on the tip of a nearby old and decaying spruce tree, it was immediately joined by a second one – or so I thought at first.  But it looked a little different, paler if anything so warranted a second look; to my amazement, astonishment and exaltation this second Jay turned out to be a Red-headed Woodpecker.

I grabbed a few quick camera shots then stumbled off to tell the others, but it was gone, only the camera to validate the moment.

A Red-headed Woodpecker would be Bird of the Day any time, any place.  They are SO handsome and so well, increasingly rare.  It was a nice note on which to wrap up my days at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory.  Here are a couple of  shots of enjoyable sightings.

19 May 2013. Dyers Bay ON. My last full day at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory was indeed full, in many respects.  The day’s banding efforts exceeded all and anyone’s wildest expectations.  An overnight change in the weather had brought southerly winds and a massive influx of migrants; it was so busy that we had to close the nets early to avoid becoming overwhelmed with Magnolia Warblers, Black-throated Blue Warblers, American Redstarts, Philladelphia Vireos and Northern Parulas to mention but a few.  And that was just the daylight hours – there was more to come.

I treated my young companions to an evening out; such as it is in a rural backwater.  We drove 40 minutes to Lion’s Head, a small town with a pub, and toasted the day’s successes.  One of the conditions of my buying dinner was that, on the return journey, we’d stop at a couple of marshes to listen for Least Bitterns.  No-one objected; why would they?   Our first roadside stop produced the expected din of Spring Peepers and American Toads while in the distance, the dreamy song of a Wood Thrush, the buzzy calls of a Common Nighthawk and overhead the  twittering of Wilson’s Snipe display flights made the stop more than satisfying even without Least Bitterns.

Continuing our journey home, the last twenty minutes of the approach to the bird observatory are along a gravel road that demands, and rewards, slow driving.  To the right is the narrow rocky beach and open waters of Georgian Bay and to the left a dense Eastern White Cedar and White Birch forest.  It was dark as we drove that final stretch and we noticed countless small birds flying from right to left, from the lake and shoreline to the safety and cover of the forest.  We debated whether they were new and arriving inbound migrants or were they surprised forest birds feeding along the road’s edge and the shoreline.

Turning a corner the car’s headlights caught the orange reflection of eyes on the road ahead.  I knew right away that we were approaching a Whip-poor Will, so we slowed down to a walking pace until we were within a car’s length or two or the bird crouching on the road surface, unmoving.  One of our group exited the car to get a closer look and perhaps inevitably the bird flew off.  So we continued our journey and again the same thing happened: distant eye-shine leading to a slow and close approach.  We stopped and admired this new bird, which every now and then flew up a twisting arc, presumably to catch a bite to eat, then settled back on the gravel road again.  I had to try for a photograph and amazingly was able to walk slowly and softly enough to get within range for the photo below. Whip-poor Will – unquestionably Bird of the Day even with the excitement of the morning.

16 May 2013. Dyers Bay ON. A rip-roaring day at the bird observatory today. We had anticipated a large influx of birds  overnight, and while it didn’t quite happen that way, within an hour or two of sunrise we were kept busy. Several warbler species showed up including: Yellow-rumped Warbler, American Redstart and Black-throated Blue Warbler.  The treetops around the observatory were jumping with lively little birds and lower down, mostly in the bottom couple of meters, the most abundant bird was probably the Western Palm Warbler, a fairly large and pipit-like warbler.  They are distinctive at a glance because they pump their tails up and down a lot as they move and forage around – and moving is something they do a lot of, it’s almost impossible to get them to hold still for the camera.

Although exhausted by the morning I skipped a planned power nap and headed for the nearest settlement to catch up on e-mail and to see what birds might be found along the way.  Missions accomplished, on my return journey I ended up exploring the shore of a large and shallow lake and was rewarded with  the sight of a family of River Otters plunging and playing like Marineland porpoises.

Turning back to bird activity, I watched a female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker punching holes in the bark of a small maple.  This is what sapsuckers do and how they got their name, apparently the oozing sweet sap draws insects which are eaten later as needed.  There were a couple of expected warbler species: Yellow Warbler, Common Yellow-throat, and…this is where it got interesting… hundreds (yes really) of Western Palm Warblers all around me.  It was a virtual river of tail-wagging, ground-hugging warblers, and every now and then an intruder like a Yellow-rumped or Magnolia Warbler found itself swept along in the tide.  On such a busy day it was hard to single out any one bird as the best, but in celebration of the novelty of a river of birds it would be a little churlish not to view the Western Palm Warbler as my Bird of the Day.

May 13 2013. Cabot Head ON. It feels kind of needlessly self evident to say that birding in new territory is rewarding and exciting; but it’s inescapably true. My days here at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory are full of fresh challenges, some of them related to bird species and choice, some to weather and some to the interpersonal dynamics of a group of people who share but one thing in common, an interest in birds.
The mornings we spend looking at and for birds. We capture a very few of them in mist-nets, we band them, record vital statistics and let them go. Most birds though pass through unseen or maybe if we’re lucky glimpsed fleetingly.  The afternoons here are free-time and that’s when I grab a map and explore the rugged countryside nearby. It’s an area of poor or abandoned farms, wetlands, rocky scrub and woodlands; it used to be beef cattle country but now it’s of little value in today’s agricultural economy although wildlife thinks it’s just fine. The area is home to remnant populations of Eastern Canada’s only venomous snake, the Masassauga Ratttlesnake, I haven’t encountered one yet but if it should happen that it’ll be on mutually good terms.
Yesterday was cold – really cold, with snow flurries! Today in the wake of the worst of the weather system, an eye-wateringly cold north-westerly wind has kept most people indoors. The flow of spring migrants has stalled as the tender neo-tropical birds hold back waiting for better conditions. But even so the variety of birds that have arrived and are now either moving through or setting up home is a delight.
In some wet fields beside a country road I found a flock of 12 Lesser Yellowlegs, a pair of Blue-winged Teal and a very handsome Green-winged Teal. Across the road a Sandhill Crane was stalking through a dry upland area picking a meal from among the grass and scrubby thorns. A couple of Eastern Meadowlarks flew away in the direction of a male Northern Harrier who was quartering a distant area of long grasses and dried weeds.
I tallied about 20 species over the afternoon, not a large number but a good and rewarding selection. Bird of the Day was the Green-winged Teal, fashion show smart with his bottle-green and chestnut head and neck over a muted fawn and grey body. I’m told that both Green-winged and Blue-winged Teal bred here last year so it seems safe to assume that it’ll happen again this year. The Lesser Yellowlegs though have a long way to go to reach their Arctic shoreline nesting grounds, as soon as weather conditions improve they’ll be on their way.