Author: Peter T

November 27 2012. Burlington ON.  Not very long ago, certainly within my easy-recall memory, Peregrine Falcons were very rare and seeing one was a gold medal sightings.  But with the resurgence of their population aided by conservationists’ encouragement, there are now many places in the urbanized world where peregrines are well established, even routine; my home city is one of them.

About a mile from home are three side by side large bridges that vault road traffic over a busy shipping canal, two have long yawning spans while the third is a lift bridge of more modest reach but vastly more complex structure.  The lift bridge has two tall blocky towers housing the enormous lifting gear which serves to haul up the canal-width road deck, the weight of which is counterbalanced by massive weights.  Peregrine Falcons first appeared and set up home on one of the bridge towers five or six years ago, and other than a disaster that first year the nest site has been successful.  From the peregrine’s point of view the location has a lot going for it: a high commanding site inaccessible to most predators, and an inexhaustible supply of Rock Pigeons, Long-tailed Ducks and Ring-billed Gulls.

Anytime from March through June you can almost count on seeing at least one of ‘our’ Peregrine Falcon on or near the bridge.  As for the rest of the year, well they’re around, but seeing one is a hit and miss affair.  In this spring photo of the female she was perched on a cable strung above the bridge deck, while her mate careened around screaming and proclaiming his fealty.

Today we set out in quest of flooring and plumbing parts to complete some bathroom improvements.  In the midst of one of life’s most mundane activities, driving up an on-ramp to join a highway, a Peregrine Falcon swept low over us heading in the opposite direction.  I knew it immediately, Peregrines are a hefty, purposeful and strong winged falcon, graceful and almost gull-like in outline but in no way ballerina-esque. I enjoyed the moment and knew it would be hard to beat as Bird of the Day.  But then heading home and this time closer to the lift bridge we had the same encounter, a Peregrine Falcon passing low overhead its wing beats strong yet somehow seeming to be little more than casual wrist-flicks.  Twice in a one day affirms the Peregrine Falcon as Bird of the Day.

November 25 2012. Today was a get-out-of-the-wind day; probably the first of this season and certainly not the last. I had to inspect some properties for a volunteer position I hold and my tour took me to a number of lakeside properties.  There were snowflakes swirling in the air, and the sky was dark and troubled, the sort of weather a radio announcer called Beethoven Weather.

The birding was rather thin, especially among passerines, although I managed to catch a glimpse of a couple of Carolina Wrens working low in the fallen leaves under some overgrown Forsythia shrubs.

Funny thing about approaching the lake in colder months is that there always seems to be an on-shore wind, so it can be an eye-watering challenge.  Collar turned up, head down and hand on hat to keep it (the hat) from blowing away, I explored a couple of stretches of rocky shorelines and found that many birds shared my dim view of current conditions.  I was quite struck by this group of hunkered-down Mallards, how they seem to blend in with the surrounding rocks both in shape and size as well as overall colour tone.

We have a flock of Trumpeter Swans that stays in our bay all winter.  Their presence here has quite a story; Trumpeter Swans were extirpated from Ontario by over-hunting sometime well before early ornithologists started keeping records.  About 30 years ago efforts were made to re-introduce them.  The results were promising right from the get-go and to cut a long story short it has been successful to the extent that a stable and sustainable population now winters along the shoreline of Lake Ontario and breeds within two or three hundred kilometers north of it.

The group I watched this morning was feeding, muttering among themselves with their unique trumpet-blast call note and staying out of the wind.

Trumpeter Swans were my Birds of the Day because they were easy to see and enjoy, but offshore I saw many Redheads, Canvasbacks, Lesser Scaup, Common Goldeneyes, Buffleheads and Ruddy Ducks; all nice birds in their own way, and their turn as bird of the day will surely come. [slickr-flickr tag=”trumpeter”]

November 21 2012. Millgrove ON. Friends of ours live on a quiet residential street in a nearby rural community, they’re surrounded mostly by farmland but it’s not far to plenty of woodland, wetlands and old pasture. Their back-yard bird feeder attracts a good variety of interesting visitors including Red-bellied and Downy Woodpeckers, House Finches and Pine Siskins. Like many feeders it’s easily visible from the dining room table, so it adds a certain interest and sometimes excitement to meal times.
Most feeders spill some seed, which attracts ground-feeding birds like Juncos, Tree Sparrows and Mourning Doves. The spilled seed also attracts nocturnal visitors, mice in particular who in turn attract owls; all sorts of bloodthirsty games go on in our back yards at night. I’ve heard many people speak of wintering Sharp-shinned Hawks that hangs around the neighbourhood, and some have witnessed a Mourning Dove or Junco make the ultimate sacrifice.
But, back to our rural friends. We had arranged to take a long hike with them yesterday afternoon. As we were doing the usual social “Hey how are you?” and ‘Where would you like to go?’ part of the visit, we spotted a young Cooper’s Hawk sitting quietly on an overhead branch of a large Norway Maple. I think it clearly understood that it was in habitat that suggested a well-fed winter ahead. We admired it for quite a while and it obligingly let me take several photographs, but eventually we tired of each other and the bird flew off when we weren’t looking. We duly headed off in beautiful late fall weather to one of my favourite birding destinations for a five or six kilometer hike. It was a great hike but this ‘favourite’ spot was just about devoid of bird life, that’s November I guess.
So the Cooper’s Hawk was quite deservedly Bird of the Day. Here it is, note the yellow iris and irregularly streaked belly both indicators that it’s a young bird hatched this year.

[slickr-flickr tag=sharpie]

November 20 2012. Hamilton Harbour, ON. As we returned home this morning from what was mostly a domestic excursion, we ran into a traffic holdup caused by a canal lift-bridge being raised to allow a large ship to pass into our harbour from Lake Ontario . These holdups are lengthy, frequent and a part of life around here. You can be philosophical about the enforced delay and enjoy the pause in the day, or if time is at a premium, take the multi-lane highway that soars high over the canal but which also detaches you from the fabric of life and community around.
I could see that the bridge was up from quite a distance away and decided that rather than sit in line between a large cement truck and a Ford F150 pickup (both with engines running), I’d make a detour to see what ducks were to be found in one of the harbour’s backwaters.
The particular backwater is hard up against an industrial service road. Parking and watching birds at the roadside is an uneasy experience but it’s not all that busy and the regular traffic seems to make allowances for the birders and fishermen who take their chances. As I pulled alongside the pond I immediately spotted a Canvasback not very far from the road. By the time I’d stopped and got my binoculars out and focused, A pair of Canvasbacks and several Ruddy Ducks were moving away quickly. There was no chance of photographing them, the light was poor in the November gloom, the birds were moving fast and a veil of fog was starting to obscure them. To my mind Canvasbacks are aristocrats among ducks and for that reason alone they were my Bird of the Day, admittedly the competition was thin but they probably would have been anyway. I’ll go back another day soon and hope for better light and more time to see what else is there with them.
This photo of three Canvassbacks, some Ring-necked Ducks and a couple of American Widgeon, was taken in Arizona a year ago.

[slickr-flickr tag=canvassback]

 November 17 2012,. Hamilton Harbour, ON. Tundra Swans are back.  They visit us twice a year: in early March, and again in November.  The March visit is their first stop after a non-stop flight from their coastal wintering grounds in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, it’s usually quite brief.  They’re on their way to their tundra breeding grounds and waste little time socializing.  In November things are a little less urgent, they arrive when they’re pushed here and often hang around until driven further south by the promise of nasty weather; if mild enough a handful will spend the winter here.

They showed up just yesterday here at the west end of Lake Ontario.  I’d heard they’d arrived so went looking for them on our large enclosed bay.  It was quite early and everything had been touched by frosts, the water was calm and a haze lay across the entire bay veiling some of the uglier evidence of industry and commerce; quite pretty really.

I thought I could hear Tundra Swans, but just faintly.  We have wintering Trumpeter Swans and year-round Mute Swans, and the latter, while mostly silent, do sometimes make a gentle snorting whistle that could, in a pinch and from far way, be taken for the soft “Whoow” of a Tundra Swan, and there were plenty of large white waterfowl to be seen so it was hard to be sure. I drove another block east, made my way down to the shore of the bay and there, as I’d hoped, were about twenty Tundra Swans.  Most were feeding on aquatic weed, tipping up and paddling the air wildly to stay inverted.  A quiet murmur passed between members of the flock; that was the distant sound I’d heard. Almost everything about Tundra Swans appeals to me, they were certainly my Bird of the Day even before a later encounter with a Screech Owl found sitting on its doorstep and a small squadron of male Hooded Mergansers resplendent like a bunch of 19^th century Prussian army cadets with extravagant headgear.