Author: Peter T

November 9 2021. Pinal de Amoles, Mexico. Our Mexican birding days usually started early and if the birding was good, lunch might easily get forgotten until quite late in the afternoon. Today when we had finally had enough of steep, narrow trails with spectacular views, enough of Mexican Jays, Hutton’s Vireos and Acorn Woodpeckers, enough of  Black Vultures and Chihuahuan Ravens skidding past at eye level, we settled comfortably into a local restaurant, ready to take our time and unwind over a long lunch.

The lunch was good, they always were, all meals were an exploration of Mexican food for me.  My companions helped with menu explanations as needed but I was happy to try anything, although sometimes I’d fall back on, “I’ll have the same as him.” It worked best when I was too tired to think.

Towards the end of lunch, Rodrigo, our Travelian Tours leader, returning from a minor errand, pointed out that he could hear the song of a Blue-throated Mountain-gem (below) coming from the adjacent courtyard.  This was a too-good-to-miss opportunity for our group so we settled the bill and went looking. We found it, a female, feeding from the pendulous flowers of a large Fuchsia.

Mountain-gem is a touch misleading because it is a hummingbird; clearly.  Until recently it was known as Blue-throated Hummingbird, but to satisfy hair-splitters in the bird-naming world, the Blue-throated and six other hummingbirds, were assigned to a distinctive Mountain-gem subgroup, probably because they are quite large, as hummingbirds go.

There was more. One of us suddenly noted a Cinnamon-bellied Flowerpiercer (above) working this same Fuchsia.  This was a surprising discovery; an unexpected bonus and we were all in a good position to study it. Other than that efficient flower-piercing bill, it looks rather like a small version of our familiar American Robin.  I take it from my more knowledgeable friends that it was a good sighting, so that made two, or maybe several, Birds of the Day.

Bernal, Querétaro, Mexico  November 2. 2021. I write this having just returned from a birding journey with a small group of friends exploring Mexico’s Sierra Gorda, a series of mountain ranges three hours north-east of Mexico City.

For Rodrigo, our leader, it was his first return there since Covid had paralysed the travel and tourism business around the world. He knew where to take us and what to expect and had arranged a 10-day itinerary rich in cultural, natural and scenic texture. Inevitably we were testing the post-covid waters a bit to see how well the people and facilities had come through. We needn’t have worried, we found eagerly welcoming, warm and well-prepared people everywhere.

Bernal is a busy, modern town with an old-world Mexican heart. It is dominated and overseen by La Peña de Bernal an ancient volcano core, an unmissable point of reference.

We hiked around the base of La Peña on our first morning. As is always the case in new-to-me places, I was forever being stopped in my tracks to examine and wonder at plants, spiders, butterflies, and the like (as well as birds), things that were exciting to me but were probably commonplace to locals.

Over dinner at the end of this first full day of birding, I canvassed the table asking, ‘What was your bird of the day today?”  There was plenty of variety including a colourful Townsend’s Warbler, a subtle Ash–throated Flycatcher, a faraway Black-vented Oriole and an ever-dramatic Vermilion Flycatcher.

My choice was this Phainopepla seen and photographed commanding the world from atop a thorny bush. No-one argued, it was a beauty, not showy but elegant and apparently always a valued sighting.

I have never used this site to advertise, but Rodrigo, through his company Travelian Tours delivered such a first class 10-day experience that I can’t let it go without recognizing and recommending him, his expertise and attention to detail.

Woodland Cemetery, Burlington, ON. November 2. 2021. Early November brings abrupt changes after the sometimes heady days of October,  now we meet reminders of winter to come. Not that it’s particularly cold these past two days but the skies are troubled and stirred by buffeting north-westerly winds.  November is when the last of our south-bound migrants had better get a move on.  Birders know these days for good sightings of birds of prey on the move: eagles and falcons in particular.

Not far from home, there is an elevated horseshoe of land that looks east and west over stretches of open water.  Choose the right wind on the right day and these are good places to watch for migrant birds of all shapes and sizes.  The cemetery is particularly good on days of strong westerly winds.

Yesterday a friend spent half a morning scanning the skies for some of those birds of prey, I turned down his suggestion that I might consider joining him, claiming that tidying the attic was more important. He sent me this brief text around lunchtime, “Adult GOEA just went over.” GOEA is shorthand for Golden Eagle, just about the Holy Grail of birding. Well, that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Today those strong westerlies continued, chilly winds that made finding a good windbreak important. I spent an hour or so in a such a spot watching for large birds on the move. I admired a pair of local Bald Eagles, an adult and a youngster, riding and slip-sliding the updrafts and a young Red-tailed Hawk hanging motionless on those same airs.  And then came My Bird of the Day, a Peregrine Falcon. Circling overhead, one moment behind trees, next moment spiralling high up, it moved too fast for me to get a photograph. But no matter, a peregrine is a treat any day.

RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. October 22^nd 2021. I was captivated today by a bunch of Yellow-rumped Warblers who put the icing on the cake of a late season transect.  The transect was a pleasure in its own right with a first-of-fall Fox Sparrow, a long stream of migrating Turkey Vultures and an all too brief, flash-by Cooper’s Hawk.

I had wrapped it up, had dropped my binoculars, camera and notebook in the car and was ready to leave when I noticed birds moving around in the tree nearby. Investigating bird movement is something I do a lot of so, I paused and saw that Yellow-rumped Warblers and American Robins were all over those trees. Two Amur Cork Trees (I think) were loaded with bunches of wrinkling black berries and nearby was a Catalpa, still covered with heart-shaped leaves, it was the warblers’ occasional refuge.

Well it wasn’t much of a mystery, there was lots of food to be had here: The desiccating berries were attracting insects, presumably for the sugars, and robins who gulped them down whole. The warblers, in turn, were there for the insects.  

Yellow–rumped Warblers are eye-catching in spring but much less so in fall; now they are quite subtle and can easily be overlooked or mis-identified. Many times, I’ve peered hard at a small, busy and undistinguished bird high in branches and been relieved to finally catch a glimpse of the bold yellow rump, it is diagnostic. When you get to appreciate them more closely and more slowly, as I did today, then the soft yellow blush somewhere around its armpits, adds another touch of welcome colour.

I got lots of decent photos and include a few of today’s Yellow–rumped Warbler Birds of the Day.

Burlington and Hamilton ON. October 18^th. 2021. I spent a morning birding with two friends, a marvellous, thirty-five-species morning that included a single late migrating Blackpoll Warbler, a handful of shy Hermit Thrushes , a couple of high-overhead Red–shouldered Hawks, handfuls of Golden and Ruby–crowned Kinglets, Blue Jays, a Sharp–shinned Hawk, two Blue–headed Vireos and at least one Yellow–bellied Sapsucker.

The day started with a sombre assembly of early morning Turkey Vultures gathered on a transmission tower. I pulled over to get this photo of one that has spread its wings to the sun.

A little later as we started our days birding, a spiralling column of Turkey Vultures rose and assembled from behind a woodland, twenty at first then another thirty, rising on a column of warm air, turning and circling until they found the top floor and then slid away, one after the other, gliding and sliding westward with scarcely a wing flap.

There was hardly a moment in the day without a few vultures in the sky. And all because we’ve been overtaken by a change in the weather that started with a drenching but is now made of dramatic skies, colder temperatures and a brisk west wind. Birds take these cold fronts as their cue to head for the exit. Perhaps the last big autumn rush of the year is now on; many smaller birds slip by unseen at night but larger birds: eagles, vultures, buteos, accipiters, and falcons fly by day.  

I was inspired to write this when, late-afternoon, a neighbour came knocking at our door to tell me he’d seen seventy vultures circling over his house. He wanted to know the whole story: who, what, why, when, and where. As we talked, more vultures, a dozen in ones and twos, drifted over. It dawned on me then that this day belongs to Turkey Vultures.