Author: Peter T

May, June & October.  Heading north on Interstate 17 from Phoenix is a fascinating if occasionally propulsive drive.  As you leave the great sprawl of Phoenix the desert landscape is punctuated by Saguaro cacti, hundreds of them, most of them stately and senatorial.  You get so used to them as you head into the mountains that almost without you noticing, they become fewer and fewer; and then they’re gone.  It’s on the return journey that you start to notice them again because now they’re special.

And that’s the way it’s worked for many bird species. Birds that are commonplace gradually dwindle, hardly anyone notices until they’re gone.  Then years later one reappears and we celebrate.  Take the Black Tern.

In my old diary of notable sightings, for four consecutive years,1981 to 1984, I noted the return of Black Terns, all around the 7^th to 10^th of May .  It was remarkable because their pond was a stranded remnant of an old marsh that had the misfortune to be obliterated by a major highway.  River valleys and frequently by extension, marshes make popular routes for highways, much of the hard work of cutting through hills and leveling the land has been done by the river.

Birds of Hamilton and Surrounding Areas by Robert Curry, my best reference book for local bird records, states that 1989 was the last nesting at the site where I was seeing them.  Curry writes: “There were only one-third as many Black Terns in North America in the early 1990s as in the late 1960s.  The loss of wetlands, both for breeding and as migration stopovers, has been the major cause of the decline.  Other factors may include the effect of pesticides on insect foods and declining numbers of small pelagic fish, the birds’ preferred food on the tropical ocean wintering grounds off the South America coast.” They’ve gone from many once reliable breeding sites in this part of the world, and it’s a sad loss.

I watched a Black Tern in October of 2011 in Smithers British Columbia.  It was a long way away, swooping and hunting over a large lake, flitting erratically then diving in large dipping arcs to touch down and pick a morsel from the lake. It made my blog entry but was upstaged as my Bird of the Day by a Western Grebe.

In June that same year, at a large marsh on Lake Erie where Black Terns are still found, I was shown one on its nest. Although I wasn’t keeping these records then, I remember the thrill, it was best bird of the day. They’ve gone from being a reliable migrant nesting species to a rarity in a generation; and regrettably I’m discovering my diary has many more just like it.

December 18 2012. Bronte ON. This morning before it was light, I ferried a cousin to Toronto’s international airport, he’s headed back to St. Maarten and his slow-pace life aboard a catamaran! I don’t need to describe the heavy traffic, the torture of navigating to the right drop-off point or the return journey in rush hour; you’ve experienced it too I know. So you’ll appreciate my motive on my return journey in making a brief diversion to a lakeside marina to see what birds might be around. This was the same marina which last winter hosted a Snowy Owl and which, later in the year, is regularly home to nesting Red-necked Grebes.

I didn’t spend long walking around its shoreline, only long enough to enjoy a few winter ducks. One of the first encounters (auditory only) was a Herring Gull calling from a distant beach. The call: “Kyee kya-kya-kya-kya-kya-kya-kya.” is evocative of the Atlantic coastline and always brings back memories of my childhood on the south coast of England where they, along with Black-headed Gulls, were the sound of summer.

The channels and inlets of the marina held a smattering of Buffleheads and the odd Red-breasted Merganser. A raft of about 30 Greater Scaup was bobbing just offshore on the still waters of the lake and much farther out was a group of male Long-tailed Ducks behaving like a bunch of late night bar patrons trying to out-shout each other. Every now and then one of them took off for a brief ‘look at me guys’ flight only to crash-land back beside the gang and continue the noisy conversation. You expect this sort of behaviour in March when testosterone levels are high and the girls are paying attention, but in mid December?

Closer and far more sedate, were two Common Goldeneyes, just hanging around waiting for winter to come and go. I always check Goldeneyes carefully just in case there’s a stray Barrow’s Goldeneye from the West coast mixed in; but not this time. They are a handsome bird and for their composure and poise the Common Goldeneyes were my Bird of the Day.

 

December 13 2012. Hamilton Harbour, ON.  I have often reported birds found in what I have anonymously and variously described as ‘the bay’ or ‘the harbour’.  To demystify things a bit, I’m referring to a large, triangular, enclosed body of water known by some as Hamilton Harbour and by others as Burlington Bay; which you use depends on where you live.  It is a deep-water harbour surrounded on one side by very heavy industry, on another by pricey homes and on its third by a beach bar that separates it from Lake Ontario and which is now a transportation corridor laced with highways and power transmission lines. It can be seen by clicking here on Google Maps.

The Bay was heavily polluted by industry and urbanization particularly in the first half of the twentieth century (although we’re scarcely blameless today) but serious and extensive, expensive remediation efforts are making significant improvements.  It is a sheltered place with areas of clean and shallow water and abundant aquatic plants; a powerful magnet for wintering waterfowl.

Yesterday I stopped at a quiet marina along its shore to see what waterfowl was around, just when you assume nothing much could have changed, a rarity will show up.  On the windward side of the marina’s landmass a few hundred heads-tucked-in Lesser Scaup and Rudy Ducks were bobbing in the waves while much closer to shore, Mallards and American Coots seemed offended by me disturbing their midday rest.

Elsewhere the shoreline was crowded with American Black Ducks, Mallards and Mute and Trumpeter Swans. In the distance I could make out Common and Red-breasted Mergansers, Greater and Lesser Scaup and the shine of rich chestnut off the top of some sunlit Redheads.  Loafing around a man-made island were a few Tundra Swans calling softly among themselves. As I wandered along the beach a Sharp-shinned Hawk flicked overhead to land in a nearby willow from which it watched me suspiciously.

I took some time to review my skills in distinguishing between Tundra and Trumpeter Swans.  Other than size (the Trumpeter is about 15% larger) and call, the two are almost identical.  But I had read the following tip in Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion: “..hint for separating Tundra and Trumpeter Swans. On Trumpeter, the black base of the bill seems to envelope the eye; on Tundra, the eye is tangent but distinct.  If you can see the eye separate from the bill, it’s Tundra.”  And you know – he’s right!

Take a look at the photos accompanying this posting. The pleasure found in comparing these two ‘Cygnus’ swan species made them my Birds of the Day, and then I realized that we have Mute Swans here as well, what an opportunity to compare the three species.  Mutes are an introduced species and are only superficially similar to the Tundra and Trumpeter; one major distinction is the bright orange bill of an adult Mute Swan.

A bit of later research revealed that here, at the west end of Lake Ontario, is one of only three places in the U.S. and Canada where you can see all three swan species together at the same time.

 

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12 December 1981, 1982 & 1983. My house cleaning has turned up another forgotten treasure so here’s a little more from my archives.

I used to keep a page-a-day format diary and as I saw or found something of interest in nature I’d write a brief note about it on the appropriate page. At the end of the year I’d start again adding more to each date. The idea was that it could eventually be a log of several years’ comparative observations, provided I could keep my notes brief and my writing compact. In time I found that the self-imposed conflict of wanting to record exciting stuff but at the same time keeping it succinct was a bit limiting and gradually, to my regret, I let the practice slide.  Regret because there are some intriguing entries to be found in those pages.

Yesterday, reading the May 10^th page, I found a 1981 entry which tells how we all went to Morgan’s Point on Lake Erie and there found: Blackburnian Warbler, Mourning Warbler, Ruddy Turnstones and a Glaucous Gull. And then, especially notable: “ pair of House Finches nesting at the tip….. “G.M thinks this is only the 3^rd authenticated Ontario breeding record.”  An exciting find and undoubtedly Bird of the Day.

Until the late 70s House Finches were a rarity in Ontario but in the early 80s they started to move in from New York State to the south-east, approaching from along the Niagara River border.  So picture us for a moment, excited by a pair of House Finches and believing we’d discovered birding history being made – well 3^rd place anyway.

At the time I kept the diary, we lived in Grimsby, Ontario a smallish town along the south shore of Lake Ontario.  Our home was beautifully located at the toe of a wooded escarpment ridge; lots of interesting birds visited our feeder.

On today’s date, December 12^th, in 1981 (just 7 months since finding the nesting pair 40 miles away) I noted 6 House Finches: 3 males and 3 females, at our bird feeder, and wrote: “ 1^st. time seen here by us, species is spreading …have not heard of others in Grimsby to date.” Then in 1982 (also today’s date) “House Finches now increasingly common.  Have had 9-10 at feeder at one time. …we wonder if they will displace, at least in part, the House Sparrow.”  Finally, the next year,1983, I noted “House Finches now 15 – 17 at feeder at a  time.  This winter feeding millet and sunflower only.”

Today the House Finch is well established across Ontario.  It does not seem to have displaced the House Sparrow which nevertheless does appear to be in decline for some reason. House Finch population numbers fluctuate and the explosive growth that we saw in the 1980s was checked in the 1990s by the spread of a respiratory and ocular disease that frequently causes death and affects only House Finches.

26 May 1980.  In my last entry about the Snowy Egret I noted that my old Peterson Guide ‘fell open’ at the white herons page.  This occurred in the midst of moving bookcases, sorting and even discarding books (a very few) and repainting walls; an undertaking to be delayed as long as possible but one which inevitably turns up lost treasures and many ‘Why are we keeping this?’ questions. One of the revelations (which shouldn’t have surprised me at all) was that the Peterson referred to was actually my second Field Guide to the Birds East of the Rockies by Roger Tory Peterson, it replaced an earlier edition in which the colour plates were bundled together in the middle of the book; an arrangement that had some advantages but not enough to survive advances in technology (!) that eventually made it easier to place the illustrations opposite the text accounts.

I started thumbing through this older Peterson Guide and found some interesting penciled notes from 1977 to 1980, a time when I’d only lived in Canada for a handful of years and was clearly a keen beginner. Consider these: ”dark cap, ¾ collar, b&w mottled back, white wing stripe, black bill & legs, smallish about starling size.” Or this one: “Yellow H, dark eye stripe, tan under, slate above, dark breast streaks, white wing bar.”  There are no dates, habitat, or locations with these notes, perhaps they served their purpose at the time, perhaps I went home happy; but today I have no idea what they describe.

However I do remember the place and circumstances behind the following notes: “Pelee 26/5/80 Size of large sp. Brn back, light under, Black head. At top of tall dead tree. Call reg. Pink oooo trill.” This was in Point Pelee National Park a celebrated migration hotspot and focal point for serious birders. It was evening and I had parked ignoring the traffic rules to study this bird which was singing loudly at the forest edge.  Some minutes later a park ranger pulled alongside, pointed to the No Stopping sign and asked me politely to keep moving, so I did without having solved the mystery bird’s identification, although I apparently I found time to scribble some field notes.  In time I came to understand that what I had seen was a Towhee or Chewink as it is labeled in that early Peterson Guide, and now formally called an Eastern Towhee.

There are no other notes from that May date, but I am sure it had been a full and challenging day.  Was the Towhee my Bird of the Day?  I suspect not, there would have been many more satisfying sightings on what was almost certainly a very bird-rich day.  But in hindsight maybe it was, it has survived as a clear memory, one that often comes to mind when I spot a Towhee now forty years later.

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