Author: Peter T

May 22 1982. Woodstock ON.  My 30+ year-old, battered and faded Field Guide to the Birds East of the Rockies by Roger Tory Peterson rarely sees the light of day any more. It used to accompany me everywhere and was irreplaceable in developing my confidence in the field. Eventually the Peterson guide  surrendered its position of supremacy among bird guides to the National Geographic Field Guide and more recently the Sibley Guides; but I was slow to give it up.  I still suggest to novice birders that Peterson will solve 90% of your bird i.d problems.

It fell open today to the page of illustrations of white herons: Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Cattle Egret, Little Blue Heron and Reddish Egret.  I was reminded of a May morning thirty years ago when I explored around a reservoir and surrounding countryside near my wife’s parents’ home.  Being mid-May I’m sure there was much to see and plenty of confusion in my mind, I don’t recall.  But I can still vividly remember cautiously approaching a small watery inlet and finding, to my surprise and delight, a small white heron.  Save and except as notable rarities, white herons played almost no part in the avifauna of Ontario 30 years ago.  I had no confident idea of what I was looking at but knew the list of possibilities was short and that I needed to note as many field marks as I could in whatever amount of time the bird would allow me.  An all white plumage doesn’t take long to commit to memory, but I remember noting long plumes cascading down its back.  It didn’t tolerate my presence for many moments before taking flight and as it did so I made note of its bright yellow feet.  Once it had flown out of sight I turned to my trusty Peterson  and immediately found his note accompanying the Snowy Egret entry: “Note the golden slippers.”

I remember being breathless with excitement at what had presented itself so perfectly, I remember trying to explain to others the significance of it and reporting my sighting to local birders and how little they seemed to care.  Perhaps they were envious, perhaps they thought I was surely mistaken.  It doesn’t matter, that Snowy Egret was my Bird of the Day; maybe even bird of the year. And I never fail to remember that day whenever I see a Snowy Egret now three decades later. They are quite common a little south and east of us, particularly along the Atlantic shore, but they seem to give the Great Lakes a miss.[slickr-flickr tag=”snowyegret”]

Bird of the Day blog entries rarely stray far from well, birds.  But there’s more than just birds to be enjoyed outdoors.  I’ve started writing and blogging about the other stuff, I call it the Understory Report and have headlined it: ” My notes, observations and reports on that layer of life between your feet and the tree tops.  It may be dark and shadowy at times but there’s a lot of life in the understory.  Read on….” at  www.theunderstory.ca

December 6 2012. Burlington ON. A small group of regular walkers convinced me to join them for a quick lunchtime march through woodland trails and along a small river valley.  It was quite cold but with the sun shining it was not unpleasant.  We were quite surprised by the bird activity including several White-breasted Nuthatches, Northern Cardinals, Downy Woodpeckers and even a boldly marked White–throated Sparrow that was hopefully examining the top branches of a bare Manitoba Maple.  Two Red–tailed Hawks flew heavily through the trees to emerge into the open over the river flats provoking discussion among us as to their respective ages; I figured they were both immature birds. The hawks’ presence offended some of the smaller birds but none quite as much as a Belted Kingfisher that darted up river in the bouncing flight and rattling call that makes the kingfisher unmistakable.  Its presence made it Bird of the Day, it seems late for kingfishers to still be around. I’m sure most have long gone farther south, but I guess as long as there’s open water and fish to be caught, there’s a living to be had.

December 5 2012. Valley Inn Hamilton ON. A serious winter wind was blowing out of the north-west today. It looked decent enough early on, the sky was mostly open and the sun shining.  But a far-off bank of piled cumulus clouds was getting its ice-smooth tops torn away in streamers.  At ground level the wind was buffeting me and made my eyes water.

I visited one of our most productive waterfowl inlets hoping for some interesting ducks.  Two bird photographers dressed in heavy winter parkas with hoods up, were standing on the shore cradling long-lens equipment and hoping for something to show up; they looked cold to the bone.  But Lake Ontario is at a 35-year low and these watery inlets that are usually shallow and a happy place for ducks are now dry; just mudflats.

In a remnant puddle, far from the shore, was a group of Mallards and a solitary male Hooded Merganser floating disconsolately, his head tucked under his wing and hoping the wind would soon drop. The only other sign of life was a small group of Gadwall, they were in a sheltered spot with a modicum of water and seemed quite active and even satisfied with their lot in life.

Looking at them, handsome in a grey and brown manner, I was reminded how Pete Dunne describes them in his Essential Field Guide Companion book: “Fairly common and conservative, in both attire and social commitments.  Males make a fashion statement with tasteful gray…..”  It’s true, there’s something rather Bank of England about them; well dressed, confident and yet subdued. Bird of the Day because they’re reassuring; cold wind or not, all is well with the world.
[slickr-flickr tag=”gadwall”]

December 1 2012. Burlington ON.  Heading home after a morning spent watching over crowds of children of all ages enjoying a spectacular model train show put on especially for the Christmas season, I needed a dose of bird-time.  So I made a detour to a popular boaters’ and birders’ hangout, a marina for six months of the year, on the shore of the bay.

Our winters are usually deeply cold, cold enough that the pressure of ice around moored boats could crush the hulls.  Every October the boats are lifted out of the lake and stored high and dry in fenced compounds, a process and expense that must surely sort out the sailors who are either really serious or have ample financial resources; probably both, from the mere dreamers. So at this time of year, marinas around the Great Lakes are largely empty except for fisherman, dog-walkers and birds and their admirers.

Winter usually brings in a varied collection of waterfowl to the bay, sometimes a rarity shows up, as did a young Common Eider last winter and a Barrows Goldeneye a decade or so ago; it’s usually an interesting stop, sometimes only for a quick leg-stretch.

Today I enjoyed several Trumpeter Swans mixing in with American Coots and Red–breasted Mergansers.  A bit farther offshore a raft of Rudy Ducks bobbed like a line of linked marker buoys together with Lesser Scaups and a few Common Goldeneyes. Then my attention was grabbed by a Black Scoter, its flattened shovel-like bill a striking pale orange like an egg yolk in vivid contrast to its coal black body and head.

Much farther out were a few more Black Scoters and also many White–winged Scoters.  At the distance involved the White-winged were distinguishable only by the flash of white at their wingtips.  Between them they made the stop worthwhile, scoters were my instant Bird of the Day.

[slickr-flickr tag=”lakescoter”]

The word ‘scoter’ according to my bird names reference, is probably a variant of the word coot; to which they have a superficial similarity. There are three scoter species, only the Surf Scoter was not seen today, but all of them are rather large, very dark brown to jet black, somewhat lumpy looking ducks.  The distinguishing field marks are fairly easily grasped, but in a pinch can be distilled to: the Black Scoter is black, the White-winged Scoter has white in its wings and the Surf Scoter isn’t quite the same as either of the others.  Females are different again, lots of brown tones; difficult birds!  All breed in Arctic waters but arrive to winter on Lake Ontario, mostly White-winged Scoters, in their hundreds of thousands in November and December.   It wasn’t always that way, their fairly recent arrival here is linked to the abundance of Zebra Mussels that have invaded the Great Lakes in the last couple of decades.  The mussels are a seemingly inexhaustible supply of high protein food easily plucked off the bottom by diving ducks like scoters, goldeneyes, Long-tailed Ducks, scaup and Buffleheads.  They have transformed winter birding on this lake.