Category: Uncategorized

4 June 2014. Hamlton, ON. With a couple of evening hours to myself, I went to see a bunch of American White Pelicans reported to have set down on an island in the harbour. They were there alright, four of them recuperating after a long flight and taking up space in a clamorous colony of Double Crested Cormorants, Ring-billed Gulls and Caspian Terns. The gulls and terns seemed to take exception to the pelicans by occasionally dive bombing them, whether because the pelicans were just out-of-place strangers or suspected to be predators I don’t know. The pelicans didn’t seem to mind terribly although every now and then they made wild jabs of retribution with their long orange beak.

I was somewhat more taken by the colourful masses of Caspian Terns, many of them on their nests, than I was by the pelicans; but the pelicans are certainly interesting and not just because they play such a role in children’s literature. It certainly seems incongruous, pelicans in Canada, but they breed around large lakes across a large part of the continent roughly from Manitoba to Alberta and south to Kansas, they have to get there somehow from their wintering grounds of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast so it’s not a big surprise that a few show up every year maybe blown a little off course.

Here they are in a gallery (which you can’t see in an email, you’ll have to visit the site), Birds of the Day or maybe more appropriately Curiosities of the Day.

31May 2014. Kirkwall ON. My diary tells me that on April 15^th, just six weeks ago, it was snowing at sunrise. (And as some sort of proof here’s a photo taken that day.)

Now, after a stuttering catch-up spring we are sampling summer. For our migrants their rush hour is over; well, cuckoos and Blackpoll Warblers are still moving through, but the greater effort now goes into rearing the next generation.

Early this morning, I drove out into deep countryside listening for the dawn chorus, there was hardly anyone else on the roads. As a child, my dad shared dawn choruses with me. On our bikes, he and I pedaled down fragrant country lanes sorting out the full volume songs of Missel Thrushes, Blackbirds and Skylarks. Continuing that always satisfying experience, my plan this morning was to visit three different locales each with its own birdy potential: a large hay field bounded on three sides by woodland, a favourite cattail marsh and a commanding hilltop with a walk down into a swamp.

It was at the marsh that I found a Pileated Woodpecker. We’d seen it there a little over a week ago, in fact at the same place on the same drowned tree and doing the same thing, drumming loudly on a reverberant limb to broadcast its territorial claim. I was looking for other birds: Sora, Virginia Rails, Least Bitterns and the like, but the Pileated Woodpecker seemed uncharacteristically determined to be watched and photographed; and since none of the other target birds showed themselves I fell for this elegantly outsized woodpecker.

They are always an arresting encounter Pileated Woodpeckers, all the more so because they seem to give humans a wide berth. Even if you don’t see them you’ll often hear them from far off, they have a yodeling laugh a bit like a Northern Flicker but louder, clearer and more penetrating. They are a large bird, books say the size of a crow, but In flight they always appear quite a bit larger than that, and certainly heavier; while crows fly lightly and easily, Pileated Woodpeckers flap strongly with an almost urgent effort greater than that required to avert an imminent fall to earth.

Later, walking along a mosquitoey trial through a wooded swamp, I heard and then soon found this Veery calling, apparently in answer to another some distance away. The Veery is one of a handful of buff-brown thrush species that come here for the summer to raise their broods on a diet of mosquitoes. It seemed quite unconcerned by my presence, although I would have preferred it to move somewhere just as close, remaining well lit but against an evenly dark background. But then photography was my problem not its.

26May 2014. Cayuga ON. Bird of the Day presented a dilemma that really should not have been too difficult to deal with. Which is it: Canada Warbler or Willow Flycatcher? One a dude, a toff, a popinjay who arrives for the party with his precise charcoal grey cape slung over a buttercup yellow vest, the ensemble set off to perfection by a cascade of black pearls and custom white-rimmed spectacles. The other a workhouse drudge found where it’s wet underfoot and mosquitoes abound, it dresses in army drab and eats flies; there’s little more to be said.

Of course I encountered both of them today, the Canada Warbler was trapped in a mist net and brought to the lab for banding, the Willow Flycatcher was somewhere close to the riverside trail singing its heart out. I prefer my birds unfettered; a Canada Warbler is a truly spectacular bird but it loses points for being briefly captive, the Willow Flycatcher is just a symbol of wetlands and its song sets it apart from its lookalike cousins the Least and Alder Flycatchers.

A little bit like vireos, which I enjoy for their often-unremarkable dress and pugnacious attitude, I find flycatchers engaging, the smaller ones you might call perky while the bigger ones tend to be noisily assertive. Here’s a gallery of some of the members of this family (not all of them seen in Ontario); you’ll note they’re not all dressed like workhouse drudges.

May 23 2014 Carden Plain, ON. American Bitterns are one of those birds you almost never see. Birders in general consider seeing or hearing one as noteworthy, certainly the sort of thing you want to tell your birding friends about, and even worth trying on with your family,  just in case there’s some interest.

Had you asked me back in January, how often I see an American Bittern; I probably would have said: very occasionally, maybe once a year if I’m in the right time and place, or more likely once or twice a decade. This year I’ve had four sightings, and by far the best came today. The first a month ago while sloshing along an informal trail through a dense cattail marsh; the second two weeks later at the bird observatory when a small group of us surprised one resting at the side of a wet trail, and the third on my way to conduct a survey of amphibians, we watched one trying with mixed results to become a part of a distant cattail marsh. Today’s American Bittern was hands-down the star performer and Bird of the Day.

Today we made, what among Ontario birders almost amounts to, a pilgrimage to Carden Plain, an area celebrated for its flat limestone landscape and biodiversity: a mix of watercourses, marshes, swamps and alvars (areas of little or no soil overlying limestone bedrock and subject to excessive heat, cold, drought and other extremes.)

Our day was full of nice surprises including a couple of distant Loggerhead Shrikes, a species considered at risk and Endangered in Ontario. The dry fields of Carden Plain support a few breeding pairs along with plenty of Eastern Bluebirds, Upland Sandpipers, Savannah and Grasshopper Sparrows, Eastern Kingbirds and Brown Thrashers. A Great-crested Flycatcher and a Wilson’s Snipe posed obligingly for the above photos and I’ve had to delete many photos of a Vesper Sparrow that was just too far away.  It was a full day that ended with us listening in the cold wind for Yellow Rails, a diminutive, elusive and generally un-seeable bird. It eluded us with night falling and a Common Nighthawk zig-zagging overhead .

But, what of the American Bittern? Late afternoon, as we were making our way slowly along a gravel road that bisects a large marsh, we were astounded by an up-close encounter with an American Bittern stalking slowly and deliberately across the road not ten feet in front of us; it was totally unexpected. Bitterns are known as shy and retiring, relying on their cryptic colouring to disappear into a marsh; not for just popping out to cross the street. It was clearly apprehensive about being so exposed, stepping delicately and deliberately in a very horizontal, crouching-with-head-tucked-in pose, it wasted no time out in the open, but still we had the most astounding, if short-lived, opportunity to really see an American Bittern. But there was more to come.

Later that evening when the light was fading, we could hear the bittern calling; that in itself, is an experience few have knowingly experienced. A bittern’s song (if you could possibly call it that) warrants an entire website, but this short but marvellous movie from the Miracle of Nature website, more than does it justice. It is quite possibly one of nature’s strangest sounds to come from a vertebrate. I’ll refer to Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion for perhaps the best written description: “One of the classic sounds of the marsh – a resonant, imperfectly suppressed, three note belch – gulp-G-gulp – sometimes likened to a stake being driven into the marsh; in tone and cadence nearly suggests a bassoon with a limp.” We were able to track down the bird which was ill concealed in an expanse of marsh grass and I managed to get a few reasonable photos.

Perhaps as compelling as the actual song is the five-second prelude as the bird seemingly winds up for the exertion ahead. It claps its bill two or three times, exhales with a couple of minor gulping clicks and then launches into the song while thrusting its head and neck rhythmically, rather like our cat preparing to throw up something it should never have eaten. The gallery series of photos above (visible only on the website not if you’re reading this as an email,) may help to visualize the performance, but really you had to be there.

May 18 2014 Burlington and Hamilton, ON. The eighteenth of May, it would be hard to pick a date more likely to produce a wave of neo-tropical migrants than this. It hasn’t left a lot of time for posting to My Bird of the Day.

Before breakfast I visited a lakeside park not far from home.  The park includes a gracious, former summer home with lawns and formal flower beds; in contrast though much of it is un-manicured, natural and relaxed. A decent sized stream finds its way through the park to empty finally into Lake Ontario. Close to the old home is an overgrown White Cedar hedge which provides cover, protection, and shelter for birds and not to mention clouds of flying insects and various creeping invertebrates; a banquet for the taking. This morning, standing gazing at this old hedge was all you needed to do to see countless brilliant and compelling little birds. I noted: Blackburnian, Tennessee, Blackpoll, Black & White, and Black-throated Blue Warblers. Also American Redstarts, Northern Parulas and a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher; all of them minor celebrities as they worked in and out through the hedge.

Later (after an overdue breakfast) and unable to stay home, I retraced our walk of two evenings ago. The bird mix was a little different and I added Bay-breasted Warbler and a Philadelphia Vireo to my day’s notes, but I have to say that the Birds of the Day were the many Scarlet Tanagers.

The photo above shows quite well how the female Scarlet Tanager is really a rather drab green and heavy looking girl. Actually the male is no lightweight either but who notices? Scarlet Tanager pair bonds must be well established in mid-May by the time they reach us, for where there’s a female you can be pretty sure a male is not far away.

While it may become a bit repetitive, I think we all have some appetite for the dramatic, so here’s a gallery of photos from the afternoon but visible only on the website, not if you’re reading this as an email.

I have yet to sort out how to persuade my camera to render the blazing scarlet with more definition, it seems to be very easy to lose focus and burn out the expanse of red, it’s as if something overloads the camera’s sensors. I will appreciate anyone’s comments or suggestions on this.