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10 October 2014. Cayuga ON.  I make no apologies for celebrating a Blue-headed Vireo as my Bird of the Day even though I did so just a couple of weeks ago. Quite simply, today’s vireo met the standard that it, among all of the day’s birds, made me think Wow!

This time of year is a birding roller coaster, the weather is changeable, birds are migrating in enormous numbers and trees are shedding their leaves. I was at the bird observatory all morning, there was a touch of frost first thing, but by midday it was almost T-shirt weather. Our expansive meadows are knee-deep in what were once bright flowers but are now billions of seeds for American Goldfinches, House Finches and Song Sparrows, and there are trusses of wild grapes drawing in squalling flights of American Robins and young Cedar Waxwings; it’s time to fatten up .

My census round seemed quiet at first but here and there I could hear (and sometimes see) White-throated Sparrows or their close cousins White-crowned Sparrows. I watched two Northern Flickers high in a Shagbark Hickory feasting on Poison Ivy berries. (A couple of side notes: Our local sub-species of Poison Ivy is a high-climbing woody vine, unlike the more northerly ground-hugging version which rarely grows more than a metre high. I doubt any rational person would venture to eat the berries but clearly many other creatures are unaffected. After all, berries are the way they are in order to be eaten by something.) I noted a few Yellow-rumped Warblers foraging and it wasn’t until near the end of the census route that I found the Blue-headed Vireo. It seemed quite unmoved by the mini-crisis that was being whipped up by a small group of Black-capped Chickadees and a handful of anxious Chipping Sparrows. The vireo just went on about its business of gleaning insects from the inner branches of an American Basswood. I stood to watch and enjoy it for a while although it was never still for very long but I was able to get this satisfying action photo.

8 October 2014. Burlington ON. I didn’t go looking for birds today; there are other things in life. But the day nevertheless ended with a lucky and spectacular sighting, a Merlin; I’m sure it saw me long before I saw it.

I have been helping a friend who is seeking election to the local city council. We spent much of the afternoon knocking on doors and as afternoon was turning into rush hour, I stopped to install one of her ‘Vote For Me’ signs on a strategic corner. I had finished the job and was just putting my tools away when I glanced up and noticed a good-sized bird sitting atop a utility pole. I knew immediately that it was a falcon and a quick binocular check told me that it was a Merlin.

Two things about Merlins: they terrify smaller birds and they make flying look easy. It’s a little difficult to be sure, but I think the back is bluish enough to make this a young male, but male or female, young or adult, a Merlin would be Bird of the Day any day of the year .

I admired it for a while and then decided that it was worth the gamble of driving home to get my camera; normally I wouldn’t bother, few birds stay in one place for very long. But Merlins are hunters that pounce on the unsuspecting and are inclined to sit and wait for an opportunity. Home was a two-minute drive away (maybe five in rush hour), the question was whether it would wait long enough.

Well, it did. I returned and was able to take many photos that capture both the hunter and the vulnerable inner individual, just another creature struggling to survive. As I returned to my car, I turned for one last shot and caught the moment of its take off.

The photos in the gallery above is visible only on the website, not if you’re reading this as an email.

6 October 2014. Cayuga ON. I thought for a while that today’s Birds of the Day would be a pair of Turkey Vultures seen high on the stark limbs of a dead oak, waiting for flight conditions to improve. They were quite picturesque in a funereal sort of way and since the day started blustery with rain threatening they seemed to complete the picture; but then the sun came out.

And with the sun came loads of interesting, mostly migrant, birds. Before setting out on the daily census we had seen Tennessee, Cape May and Magnolia Warblers. The census got off to a good start with a Sharp-shinned Hawk trying to brush off a pestering American Crow. Soon after that, I found myself close to a busy group of White-throated Sparrows who were being watched by a couple of Gray Catbirds in much the same way that long-term residents might keep an eye on an erratic family moving in next door. An Eastern Phoebe, a Cape May Warbler, a Brown Creeper and a Black-throated Green Warbler all made me pleased to be out in the woods on this (now) bright and gusty day.

A number of times during the census I seemed to be enveloped in a wave of small birds. I could hear tiny, high frequency pips and tseeps, my eyes were drawn to quick movements, many of which turned out to be falling leaves, but I had the greatest trouble really identifying what I was seeing – if I could see it. Too often it was a vanishing glimpse or a half view, although half views can sometimes be interpreted later from a decent photo. And it was while trying for such a photo that I found myself with a surprise Bird of the Day. I was hoping to get enough information to identify this bird.

Which I now think it was a Golden-crowned Kinglet. But in my scramble to get a quick snapshot, I got this instead, a Northern Parula.

Birders get excited about parulas.  It’s not that they’re particularly rare, but that they are a standout among a family of generally beautiful little birds. A male in spring, like the one below, taken in Cape May last spring, presents with an almost alarming coat of many colours: slate-blue, black, white, orange and an intense chestnut; so striking! Today’s bird was not as eye-popping though, but it nevertheless surprised and heart-warmed me.

3 October 2014. Cayuga ON.  A warm and blustery wind from all points south pulled leaves from trees and blew them around like well, snow. It should have been a tough day for birds, had it been my choice (as a bird) I would have stayed low. But who am I to call the shots? The census at the bird observatory had its interesting moments, it seemed to be a woodpecker day because we found three each of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Northern Flickers, Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers. Another immense flock of blackbirds, mostly Common Grackles, traced the course of the river. They were impossible to count as they streamed by, large squadrons sometimes splitting off to connect with other flights on the opposite bank.

Looking upriver I glimpsed a large bird dip down towards the river surface then peel away to vanish behind a willow. Osprey, I thought. But no, it was a young Bald Eagle. It came back into view, close to the river surface again, its bright yellow legs lowered and reaching, without luck, to snatch a meal, then wind-tossed, it peeled up and away like a war kite. That pause while it was behind the willow gave me time to get my camera ready and I managed to get a few shots, not great ones, but enough to be able to make out its white under-wings, the mark of a bird hatched just this year. Battling and playing with the wind like that, dipping and soaring, sometimes a victim of the wind other times master of it, this baby Bald Eagle was my Bird of the Day.

1 October 2014. Cayuga ON.  Our long stretch of Indian Summer was shaken up with a stormy front passing through. It’s still warm but much cooler weather is imminent. The change has apparently reminded migrant birds that it’s time to stop dallying and to get a move on. It produced some interesting birds at the bird observatory.

I did the daily census, which was rather quiet, the number of species (21) was okay but numbers of individuals were low. The highlight of the census may have been a patrolling Belted Kingfisher working the far shore of the river. I was also grateful for a heard but unseen Common Yellowthroat who started singing its signature “witchety–witchety” song for the benefit of a visitor, just as I had finished describing it to her.

Birds of the Day came right at the end when we captured and banded two Blackpoll Warblers. Blackpoll Warblers can be tricky to identify in fall, the conspicuous black and white dress of spring, moults to a rather non-descript, easily confusable, olive green and muddy white with wingbars. Here are a couple of photos to illustrate the contrast.

The Blackpolls weren’t the only warblers today, we’d also seen Black-throated Green and Black-throated Blues, an American Redstart and a Pine Warbler. A little more about the Pine and the Blackpoll Warblers is justified because both generated a lot of discussion and interest.

The Pine Warbler because it took a while to identify, perhaps because we don’t see them often. They are, as their name suggests, a bird that favours pines, and the observatory is surrounded by hardwood forest. Below is a photo of another Pine Warbler taken a year ago, probably a mature male showing all field marks. The one we handled today was a young female with absolutely none of the bright yellow about it. It was a very drab muted olive-yellow below, its back grayish brown, the wing-bars very subdued, the partial eye-ring whitish and that little line above and between the beak and the eye almost invisible. Even Rick, who knows his birds better than almost anyone I’ve met, was hard pushed to identify it, spending some time scouring the pages of the Peterson Field Guide to Warblers looking for a likely match.

Blackpoll Warblers are wonderful little birds with one of the nature’s best migration stories. They breed across the northern coniferous forests of Alaska and Canada where the dense forests give way to tundra; a very long way north of us. But their fall migration is an epic journey in which the mortality rate must surely be very high. After making the mind-bendingly long trip from the tundra (from as far as Alaska remember) to the softness of America’s eastern seaboard, they launch themselves south and east, out over the Atlantic. They fly endlessly, navigating by systems that we can barely comprehend, until they reach the north-east trade winds which blow them back to a landfall in Puerto Rico, the Lesser Antilles, or northern South America; a journey of up to 3,000 Km., or as much as ninety hours, non-stop. To survive they need a lot of luck and all of the gods on their side, they must: avoid predators like domestic cats, Merlins or Sharp-shinned Hawks: be in top physical condition; and have sufficient fuel on board to carry them on that open Atlantic stage for the best part of four days. (I don’t know what you were doing four days ago, but for me, the idea of a non-stop, foodless trot since Sunday’s Blue-headed Vireo encounter, (my previous post), is incomprehensible.)

The two Blackpoll Warblers we banded today were carrying large amounts of fat as fuel for the ultra marathon ahead. They each weighed about 22 g, double a more typical spring and summer weight of 10 to 12 g. Birds store fat in the avian equivalent of the hollow you and I have between our collarbones (just below our throat), under their wings (our armpits) and lower belly; all of these areas were bulging full. They even felt plump in the hand as we banded and measured them. Once banded, measured, aged, sexed and weighed we released them with our fervent best wishes for a safe passage.