Author: Peter T

April 30 2012. Yesterday I wrote about the approaching masses of birds that can be detected by radar on the National Weather Service website. This morning as it was getting light I checked the site and saw a large blue blob of life forms amassed over the south shore of, and extending out into, Lake Erie.  I was pretty sure that indicated a large influx of birds would be on this side of the lake too.

I spent the morning at the bird observatory and did my usual census rounds; sure enough newly arrived bird life was everywhere.  I now suspect that most of that blue mass was Yellow-rumped Warblers for I counted 28 on census.  There’s more though, a few Black-throated Green Warblers and Western Palm Warblers were mingled with them.   I was pleased to hear a couple of Yellow Warblers and an Eastern Towhee and had long looks at a Black and White warbler, a Pine Warbler and several Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.

Along the river three Caspian Terns, an Osprey and a Belted Kingfisher were all searching for fish, while the river surface was threaded with skimming Tree, Barn, Bank and Northern Rough-winged Swallows.

I was able to examine two Western Palm Warblers up close and there’s an air of simple nonchalance about them that I find engaging.  They’re colourful, but not gaudy; in spring they sport a rich chestnut cap, which coordinates nicely with the bright yellow throat and under-tail, and the rural, streaky earth tones overall. They’re unconcerned by people watching them and they bob their tails like a pipit as they pick at the ground.  Palm Warblers seem to prefer open areas with shrubs and scrub, more like where you’d expect to find sparrows.

There are two races of Palm Warbler, our Western Palm, which generally migrates later in the spring (April/May) and moves west of the Appalachian Mountains, and the  eastern Yellow Palm Warbler which heads north in late March and early April. The Yellow Palm Warbler is also, as its name suggests, a lot yellower in colour. Local bird specialists say we get the western version and I see no reason to disagree; all the clues fit. Whichever race, I like the Palm Warbler enough to have inwardly cheered when I saw them; a sign that they must be my bird of the day.

Footnote.  This is a little off topic but important nevertheless. I will be one of a team of keen birders taking part in the Baillie Birdathon sometime during the week of May 12.  It’s a fundraiser and I’m looking for sponsors. My goal is $500 and proceeds go to Bird Studies Canada and Ruthven Park Bird Observatory. One regular reader has already made a generous donation; yours would be appreciated too.  More on this and how to help at the Baillie Birdathon site or the Ruthven site.

As the year unfolds bringing a tidal wave of incoming migrant birds and filling up the cast of summer birdlife, it becomes harder to single out any one species as best of the day.  This morning I left home early while there was still a touch of frost.  I thought I’d check a favourite marsh to see if I could find Sora or Virginia Rail.  The marsh is large and it’s bisected by a fairly busy road, so while it’s easy to scan the marsh for bird life, road noise can be really annoying. This morning road noise was nothing compared to the clamour of Canada Geese but despite them I heard Sora, Virginia Rail and American Bittern quite distinctly .  Any of those three would be a bird of the day, but somehow it would have been better to catch a glimpse of at least one of them.  Swamp Sparrows, Wood Ducks, Mallards and Red-winged Blackbirds completed the marshland cacophony.

Later I visited another favourite site, a mixture of marsh, dry upland fields and cedar swamp.  As I locked the car the first bird I heard was a Yellow Warbler, singing its signature “Sweet sweet sweet shredded wheat” , not a rarity by any standard, more of a ‘They’re-back’ bird, like the Red-winged Blackbirds of March.  In a week or so they’ll be commonplace, but today’s was my first Yellow Warbler of the year and so welcome that it was my Bird of the Day; despite the earlier formidable competition.

The surge of late April and early May spring migrants landing on the shores of North America is massive; so massive that the flocks are detected quite clearly on radar.  Take a look at this site any time after dark in late April of early May, scroll to the area of South Texas, Louisiana, and central eastern USA, and you’ll often see large blue donut-shaped masses; usually they’re migrating birds.  Erratically shaped multi-coloured masses are usually storm systems. Here’s a sample from this evening

April 28 2012.  It was grasslands birds that I set out to see before the rest of the household was awake; I wanted to see if Upland Sandpipers had returned to a couple of spots I knew.  They had; although they were hard to find at first.  Later on when they’ve established territories they’re often easier to see standing atop a fence post or utility pole keeping watch.  They are not particularly spectacular birds to look at; in fact as sandpipers go they’re a little gawky.  But there’s something about the way they conduct themselves that makes them so endearing.  Not all sandpipers are birds of shores and wetlands and the Upland Sandpiper is one of these exceptions, they like dryish grasslands where they walk around with their compact beady-eyed heads bobbing just above the vegetation tops.  They have a bubbling widdy-wit widdy-wit call, heard as they fly overhead and an incredible wolf whistle of a song:  “ToowlLEEEt –WhEEEELluuw”  that it uses to proclaim its place on Earth; and then to top it off when it alights it briefly raises it wings, tip to tip, like a victorious marathon man.

The Upland Sandpipers were the best of the morning, and of the day, but in those few hours in the field there was much more that caught my attention. A Wilson’s Snipe was staking his claim by flying a high and looping display flight like a roller coaster, and with every slide downwards his wings made the weird winnowing sound, an ethereal rapid hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo.  I could hear him clearly but it was only by scanning with my binoculars that I could see him.  No doubt his beloved was watching enthralled and adoringly from the wet ground below.  An Eastern Meadowlark sang from the tip of a scrubby hawthorn, his chest an astonishingly bright yellow with a black V-neck medallion. Savannah Sparrows were calling from grass stalks and a liquid trilling song had me baffled for a while until I spotted a vividly yellow-throated Horned Larkstumbling through grass clumps. Horned Larks either stay with us all year or are very early to return in mid winter when they like to mix in with Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspur flocks.

Then when the other spring showstoppers arrive the Horned Larks apparently fade into the background to start nesting on sparse wind-blown and snow-streaked  fields.  Today’s was a reminder that they’re still with us and are raising young too. (This picture was taken in January; note the seemingly astonished look on the Snow Bunting. Click on the picture for full sized version.)

April 25 2012. I was pretty sure a Western Grebe would be my Bird of the Day even before I left the house.  I’d heard that one had appeared on Lake Ontario, just a couple of miles away, and while I never (well hardly ever) chase a rarity (and Western Grebe is a rarity), I really wanted to see this bird simply because Western Grebes are elegant.  It’s as simple as that.

I found it okay but it was heading east, swimming just offshore, but fast; it was hard to keep up.  This picture was taken last October in British Columbia where Western Grebes are fairly common.

The weather was so promising that I decided to visit a number of sites, one of them new to me. It was the kind of satisfying bird day with lots of variety.  I visited a rehabilitated quarry where some ponds, woodland edge and rock faces make for an interesting mix of habitat.   There I found Spotted Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlegs and Solitary Sandpiper.

At a large woodland I heard a Brown Creeper and my first House Wren of this year, a Broad-winged Hawk soared overhead.

Hiking below a march of power lines, along a dry upland area of scrub and exposed rock I heard but could not see, a Brown Thrasher and struggled to get a photograph of a Northern Harrier sailing over treetops; the photos I did get were not keepers.  But the day was.

June 2nd. 2011. I have only knowingly seen one living Least Bittern, it was at Long Point on Lake Erie many years ago. It’s quite possible that I’ve been very close to more, they’re so hard to spot and very elusive.  Five or six years ago I found a dead one alongside a busy road that bisects a large cattail marsh not far from home.  I took the time to admire it closely for Least Bitterns are very handsome birds. But admiring a dead bird is a bittersweet experience.  It makes me wonder about our ancestors’ fascination with bird taxidermy, all those glass cases of birds caught in suspended action, their eyes never quite right, either deadly flat or overly bright.

Anyway… that was then and this is now. In late May I was told that Least Bitterns and American Bitterns were to be seen and heard over that same large marsh where I found the road kill some years ago.  I spent an hour or two hours walking the length of the busy road looking and listening.  The road is heavily used, probably not more than a minute goes by without a car or truck passing. The problem with the vehicle traffic, apart from near death experiences, is the noise.  From a mile away the hum of car or truck gets in the way of listening closely for birds, and of course as it approaches the noise pollution only gets worse.

Somehow the birds seem not to mind. At this time of the year they’re busy staking out territory or finding a mate, so seeing birds was not a problem.  Not the birds I’d come seeking, but Sora, Virginia Rails, Marsh Wrens, Green Herons and Great Blue Herons were easy to find and I even suspected a Red-headed Woodpecker calling in the surrounding forest.

I consider hearing a bird to be the equal of seeing it, so I was thrilled to identify the calls of Least Bitterns from three or four locations deep in the marsh.  They call softly, but persistently, it’s best described as a muted ‘poo-poo-poo, poo-poo-poo, poo-poo-poo.”. , These singing Least Bitterns made my day. The call of its congener the American Bittern is weird, it’s hard to find a better adjective and I won’t attempt to characterize it, better you Google it and listen to someone’s recording.

Either Bittern (American or Least) is a wonderful sighting.  They are both secretive and both are threatened by humankind’s practices of destroying their marsh habitat.  In our more ignorant days marshes were seen either as opportunities to drain and cultivate, or backfill to eliminate the nighttime miasmas that caused diseases such as typhus, smallpox, cholera and apoplexy (whatever that was).