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29 July 2014 Flamborough, ON. This is a tale of twenty-eight species, four birding spots and three contenders as Bird of the Day: Vesper Sparrow, Virginia Rail and Cedar Waxwing. It came about when, rather than squander a beautiful day tidying or cleaning, I decided to visit a couple of favourite birding spots, just to see what’s up at this lazy. mid summer point. It’s a quiet time of year and I didn’t expect a great deal but was quite satisfied with a handful of good sightings, including three wow! birds.

At my first stop, a stretch of steep, unmaintained gravel road that cuts through farmland and woods, I heard a Vesper Sparrow singing, it confirmed my suspicion that I’d heard them at this same place last year. Vesper Sparrows are a bit of a nemesis bird for me. Why that should be is a dull story of neglect, but hearing one today was helpful. What I’d like is a lingering encounter with one, just it and me, complete with eye contact and perhaps some song (from it – not me); something that’s eluded me so far. The bird is so called because of its sweet, exuberant song (listen to sample here ) which often continues into the twilight after other birds have fallen silent.

Continuing along this same road there were no species that I’d call unexpected. My tally included Eastern Kingbirds, Red-eyed Vireos and this beautiful little Common Yellowthroat. I believe this to be a young (hatched this year) male. Hard to see in this photo, but visible at the time, there’s a trace of black tips to some of the feathers below the eyes, a hint of the black Lone Ranger mask that it will wear next spring, like the male in the lower photo, taken in June 2012.

The second stop could have been more fun, but a couple of Black Labrador Retrievers bounding around didn’t help, so I moved on to an expansive marsh bisected by a wooden boardwalk. As soon as I arrived I could hear the clicking contact notes of perhaps four or five Virginia Rails coming from deep in the cattails and grasses. I described the notes as clicking, but its more like somewhere between a squeal and a click, often described as a sharp “Kidick”. If you spent your days where Virginia Rails do, you’d need a good reliable contact note too. They pass their time poking around at water level and squeezing through stalks of aquatic grasses and cattails. It can be very difficult to see them unless one happens to wander out into the open, which none of mine did today, but I was able to follow the progress of one by following moving grass stalks. I can report that I actually did see part of it for a moment but it was excruciatingly difficult and I often found myself staring hard at nothing at all.

I wrapped up my day exploring a rather wondrous chain of small lakes in a quiet wooded valley. The air was full of flying insects, which had caught the attention of feeding Barn Swallows, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, a Chimney Swift, many Eastern Kingbirds and Cedar Waxwings. The two swallow species were turning and chasing in fast, wide loops, while the swift soared, more stiff-winged in flight, much higher above. The kingbirds and waxwings worked from strategic perches, sallying out to snap up too-slow flies, before returning to another suitable lookout. Three of the Cedar Waxwings were quite unconcerned by my presence, staying quite close and gracing me with their company; their flawless silk-smooth, olive-to-chestnut plumage and black face mask is really quite glorious. This series below features a splendid male at the peak of its condition. The black chin distinguishes it from the brown of a female and the little red spots on its wing are actually blobs of wax, which, it is supposed, are status symbols that play a role in mate selection. This bird is showing six (maybe seven) wax tips per wing, although as many as nine is possible, one per secondary flight feather. It’s easy to imagine how easily a female Cedar Waxwing would surrender at the sight of those red waxy bits.

(This Cedar Waxwing gallery is visible only on the website, not if you’re reading this as an email.)

Twenty-eight species, four birding spots and three Birds of the Day: Vesper Sparrow for being there and singing for me, Virginia Rails for letting me know they were there and teasing me with just one fleeting peek, and Cedar Waxwings for their elegant, silky, wax-adorned plumage.

I know you’ve been waiting for this.  I have posted my story and impressions about the birds I saw and enjoyed in Sweden on a separate page. Follow this link, or just click on “Birding in Sweden” on the black bar above.

 

21 July 2014 Port Maitland, ON. With the exception of evaporation and a trivial leakage at Chicago, all of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin (Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron and Erie) eventually flow down the Niagara River where, to the endless amusement of mankind, they careen over Niagara Falls before reaching Lake Ontario, the last of the Great Lakes. The cataract, while very dramatic, was always an impossible impediment to commercial shipping – and it remained so until men thought to dig around it creating canals with lift-locks. As ships grew in size, so the early canals became obsolete and were abandoned. Traces of those early canals remain, overlooked, taken for granted and often little more than a wide ditch choked with cattails and water lilies; good bird habitat.

Walking beside the headwaters of one of these old canals, I heard the short, clockwork rattle of a Marsh Wren coming from a small stand of cattails. There were other birds around too: a Belted Kingfisher, an anxious Willow Flycatcher and families of Wood Ducks. Continuing along, I saw and heard several more Marsh Wrens and was really pleased to have found an apparently vigorous population.  Marsh Wrens seem to be increasingly scarce; in at least two previously known locations I haven’t seen or heard them for a couple of years; I’m uneasy about the species’ future.

But where Marsh Wrens are to be found, it’s not difficult to find their nests, they’re always bulky bundles of intertwined reeds woven around supporting cattail stems, several feet above water level and often at our eye level. I watched an adult who appeared to be carrying food for young, visit one such nest repeatedly. The longer I watched the more I began to suspect that it was a single parent until, on one of its visits, I noted that it was carrying a large beak-full of fluff of some kind, but certainly not food. That was a surprise! Could it be that I was watching nest-building? In late July?

With some follow-up reading, I learned that Marsh Wrens are known for polygyny, with over half of males attracting more than one female. They also build dummy nests for no apparent reason. (In one study a male was observed building twenty-two of them.) This is not the place for a review of the very large topic of wren behaviour, but I think that what I was watching was a male building a dummy nest. Maybe he thought he’d prove his worthiness as a mate to watching females.  It leaves me wondering though if, somewhere nearby, one or more females were watching in exasperation hoping that he’d help out with the kids at home instead of embarking on yet another pointless construction project. I’ll never know, but it was interesting to watch and, on this hot summer day, he was easily my Bird of the Day.

16 July 2014 Hamilton, ON. The house is a riotous place these days; our daughter and her boys (a five-year old and two-year old twins) are staying with us while their kitchen is being renovated; dad is at home with the dog. This state of affairs will continue until the reno’ is complete; in other words, it’s indeterminate. I mention this because meal times, a frantic scramble to fill hungry mouths with something nourishing that will bring peace upon the house, are not unlike the struggles going on in the bird world. Fledglings are out of the nest and parent couples are trying to keep up with the endless calls for more attention. Feed me – feed me – feed me.

After a morning spent in volunteer weeding and planting, I took a long walk though woodlands and along lakeside trails and, as is so often the case, when you take the time to watch quietly, all sorts of mini-dramas unfold.

I watched the mealtime of a handful of young Barn Swallows lined up on a fence. One of the parent birds took a few quiet minutes to attend to its summer moult. I took some quick photos and you’ll see in one of them (the ones with outstretched wings – and note the claws holding on tight), that it’s missing a couple of flight feathers. (Visible only on the website, not if you’re reading this as an email) There are a couple of loose feathers in the under-wing lining and its body contour plumage is looking a little ragged too.

Later, I sat for a long while at the end of a marsh boardwalk just watching over a wide shallow lake. A couple of Great Blue Herons paced around watching each other carefully, a White-tailed Deer waded to the grass growing greener on the other side and, way off in the distance, one of our young Bald Eagles sat on a partially submerged log begging for food. Its parent attended solicitously helping to shred a fish and, when it looked as though the youngster had had enough, flapped away, pestered by a band of Common Terns following like the flies that might surround you on a country walk. When the time was right, the adult scooped another fish and delivered it. This is the second year that our local Bald Eagles have raised a brood, they’ve become minor celebrities and today these two, adult and child, were my Birds of the Day.

As mid-day wore on, it became wearying trudging those trails, but I was rewarded by the sight of a Scarlet Tanager, still blazing like a red-hot coal and singing endlessly from the top of a Red Ash tree. A singing Scarlet Tanagers sounds almost bored with its see-sawing rhythm, I wrote it down as “S’there ya are – Now t’ meetcha”..

Another good sightings was a Wood Thrush eyeing me nervously from the forest floor and heard, but not seen, were: A Black-billed Cuckoo, Red-eyed and Warbling Vireos and Swamp Sparrows.

11 July 2014 Stoney Creek, ON.  A birder acquaintance told me about a small action of his that resulted in a feeding frenzy among Common and Caspian Terns; it happened this way. Not far from his home (& mine) at the shore of Lake Ontario, a small creek gathers in a large pond before finally trickling across the gravelly beach and into the lake. Sometimes the outlet runs steadily and at other times, like last week, it gets blocked by storm debris. It being choked, Barry scraped the channel open allowing a surge of pond water into the lake. It’s the sort of thing we’ve all done at sometime over the years.

The rush of relatively warm water into Lake Ontario’s bone-aching cold produced an abundance of small fish of some kind along the edge of the lake. Whether they had been swept out of the pond and were trying to stay close to the warmer outflow, or were drawn inshore for food I don’t know; I suspect the former.

The terns found this new food source and fed greedily for a couple of days. Things have slowed down now, but after the next rain (due in two days) it may happen again. In any event it’s easy photographic pickings to sit quietly by the outflow and watch the Common Terns and Caspian Terns patrolling the shore and every now and then plunging for a fish. It was an entertaining hour or so.

And inasmuch this is about my Bird of the Day, the grace and style of these birds should say it all. But in a few of shots, note the perfection of the wing structure. It’s long and slender and you can see how the pointed primary feathers flex elegantly to carry the wing-loading; and if the simplicity of the structure of a flight feather persuades you to glue feathers to your arms and jump off a cliff; think again, it’s already been done and not well.

Here are two galleries of photos. You won’t be able to see them if you’re reading this as an email, you’ll need to be on the website.