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The afternoon of 16 May 2014. Hamilton ON. I’m sure that my afternoon companions would have bet heavily on two other birds species as odds-on favourites to be my Bird of the Day, they’d choose either a Pileated Woodpecker or a Scarlet Tanager I’m sure, but surely not a Swainson’s Thrush. Sorry to disappoint.

I had been invited by an enthusiastic young (by my standards) birder to join him and assorted friends on an after-work birding walk. That, I thought, was a refreshing idea; add new company and younger eyes to a familiar location and who knows what might happen. Four of us set out and were soon admiring a bunch of Baltimore Orioles, and shortly thereafter found a Chestnut-sided and some Tennessee Warblers. Then I saw and with an air of triumph, pointed out a Swainson’s Thrush lurking low in a small stand of Paw-paw trees. We watched it for a while, distracted by Red-eyed Vireos and songs of more Tennessee Warblers. The thrush excited me while my companions understandably were less enthusiastic, hardly a glamorous or dazzling bird, but I love Swainson’s for their understated coolness and heart-stopping song (about which more later).

Moving on, we encountered a fabulous Pileated Woodpecker picking and bashing away at ground level woody debris. These wonderful birds rarely allow you a really good look at them; they tend to peek out shyly from the other side of a tree trunk or vanish into thick cover. Having said that, I know many who have enjoyed long lingering encounters with Pileated Woodpeckers, so it’s not that you never get a really good look, it’s just that it’s rare. Too bad, for they are a sensational creature: startlingly handsome and masterful, but well, shy.

We heard Pine Warblers trilling from high in some White Pines, got a glimpse of a Black-throated Blue Warbler, and just like pulling a rabbit out of a hat we greedily enjoyed several brilliant Scarlet Tanagers. It’s hard to explain the intensity of their scarlet, but on my drive home I realized how much they explode red like a traffic light. Over the years I have taken many really crummy pictures of Scarlet Tanagers. Like this morning’s Yellow-throated Vireo, they don’t stay still for very long (although admittedly longer than the vireo) and they are often facing the wrong way or partially obscured by tree bits. Add to that the need to zoom in and focus and well, good shots are few and far between.

(This post contains more photos of the Tanager in a gallery visible only on the website, not if you’re reading this as an email.)

But, here’s how it is that the Swainson’s Thrush ended up as Bird of the Afternoon (maybe even Bird of the Day); it’s their song. As we wrapped up our after-work birding walk afternoon was giving way to evening and several Swainson’s Thrushes started to sing. It makes sense that there were others around for, although we had seen only a single bird, when it comes to migration, species often spread through the land on a broad front, like a large wave. The Swainson’s Thrushes’ songs are melodiously dreamy and we were in the grassy lower level of a lilac dell when I heard them, a setting worthy of a Victorian poet. I would have liked to take more time to draw the others’ attention to the songs, but we were in something of a hurry to leave on account of a waiting, pre-ordered pizza and other domestic demands of a young father.   But all is not lost, to get a full appreciation of the Swainson’s Thrushes’ song, follow this link, listen to a few song recordings and at least mentally place yourself in a spring woodland.

The morning of 16 May 2014. Cayuga ON. I’m going to have to divide this day in two. This is the peak of the spring migration and I spent the morning at the bird observatory and part of the afternoon birding exploring a lakeside trail with a couple of younger enthusiasts. First the morning.

It was under gloomy, low-hanging clouds that I arrived at the bird observatory. I don’t know how much rain we’d had overnight, it felt as though everything needed wringing out.  It must have been a prodigious amount because all of our customary trails had become watercourses, there were rivulets and mini cascades where I’d never seen or heard them before. Perhaps the ground was so waterlogged from this very wet spring, that last night’s rains had no choice but to find a way to run straight to the river. The daily census was more of a three-hour wade than anything else. But for all of that it was satisfyingly varied.

Quite early on in the census, I encountered a singing Yellow-throated Vireo. It moved in quite closely and took up some beautiful positions for photographs, but I soon learned that Yellow-throated Vireos stay still for exactly as long as it takes me to point my camera and focus, but not a millisecond longer; certainly not long enough to take the photo. I exaggerate only slightly but this shot was the best I could manage out of about fifteen attempts, most of which ended up as photos of empty branches with the occasional blurred wing or tail of a departing vireo.

The remnants of the overnight storm eventually gave way to sunshine reaching through scudding clouds, it was enough to brighten everyone up, and at last creatures of all kinds started to come out of hiding.

My field notes were lengthy. I recorded some fifty-eight species, many of them to be expected, things like House Wrens (8), Baltimore Orioles (24) and Tree Swallows (50) and many not quite surprises but notable sightings nevertheless: a single Cooper’s Hawk, Barn Swallows (16) and Indigo Buntings (2). And then of course, there were the warblers. It’s their season and I recorded ten: Blue-winged, and Yellow Warblers (both summer residents that stay breed) and (just passing through today) Yellow-rumped, Black-throated Green, Tennessee, Magnolia, Chestnut-sided, Bay-breasted, and Cape May Warblers; and Bird of the Morning two Blackburnian Warblers. Not that Blackburnians necessarily outshine the others, but this vivid male obligingly parked itself on the trunk of a Northern Hackberry to show off and effectively steal the show for a while.

15 May 2014. Mountsberg ON. I put my own principle to the test today, the principle that whenever I go birding there’s always a Bird of the Day; that even a miserable, cold, dank day will produce something special. I took part of the afternoon to visit a couple of marshes in hopes of catching sight of either a secretive bittern or an evasive rail. As I left home, the threat of rain turned into intermittent showers and by the time I arrived at my first stop everything was thoroughly wet. Not enough to put an end to things but enough that I chose to leave my camera behind in the car, I don’t mind my binoculars getting a bit wet, they’re supposed to be waterproof, but there is no such claim made for my little camera.

At the first marsh there were dozens of swallows looping and skimming around and as one swept by I noticed its chestnut-tan rump and thought to myself, “Nice! Cliff Swallow. I wonder where they find to nest around here?” And I noticed that there were Tree Swallows there too, but that was it, I gave them no more thought. In the distance a trio of Turkey Vultures was sailing high against the grey clouds like motionless black kites, and I fancied that I saw an Osprey although it quickly swept out of sight, so I’m not really sure.

Moving on to the second stop I had to sit out a steady downpour and when it eventually eased up I made a quick walk across the marsh noting only Red-winged Blackbirds, a pair of Mallards and a couple of Great-crested Flycatchers.

So as I drove home I wondered what could possibly have been my bird of the day since, to be true to myself, there surely had to be one. I hadn’t seen or heard any sign of either of my target birds and it was generally a wash-out of a day; then I remembered the Cliff Swallow and yes it made the cut as Bird of the Day.

It’s a species that deserves a good second look, I know of a couple of places with Cliff Swallow colonies; they’re gregarious and where the right nesting sites exist, dozens of pairs will build their bottle shaped, mud nests side by side along the underside of sheltered overhangs. Not far from home, on the shore of Lake Ontario, there’s a flashy new pier and the Cliff Swallows have found that it meets their needs perfectly; it has lots of suitable overhangs where no predator could possibly reach them and of course the lake will provide an endless supply of insect food all summer. I’ll go back and get some photographs one of these days – when it’s not raining.

12 May 2014. Cayuga ON. I did the daily census at the bird observatory today and managed to find well over fifty species. Three stand out as noteworthy: a handful of Yellow-throated Vireos; a pair of Orchard Orioles and one particularly obliging Warbling Vireo.
I didn’t actually see the Yellow-throated Vireos; I simply heard them. A quick look back and you’ll see that I have a soft spot for vireos. I’ve already celebrated White-eyed and Warbling Vireos this year, and late last summer: Philadelphia, Red-eyed and Yellow-throated Vireos all took centre stage at one time or another. None of them on account of anything as shallow as showy plumage, but more because, despite their generally unremarkable appearance, they either sing quite nicely or possess a certain air of self confidence without being overly aggressive.
At one point in the census round, I heard a short fluting song repeated over and over from the top of a large, riverside Black Willow. I jumped to attention because I’d heard that song, exactly the same song, this time last year, but despite a lengthy search had been unable to find the bird responsible. I had recorded the song on my camera (versatile little thing) and played it back later to an attentive but largely unhelpful audience in the banding lab. That was last year, and now here it was again, note for note. This time though it was close and I had a good chance of being able to pinpoint the source of the song; I just needed the bird to move a foot or two. Eventually it did and I was astonished to see that the performer was a male Orchard Oriole and, based on some research in a sound bank of bird song recordings, I learned that Orchard Orioles’ songs vary quite a bit. I’m pretty sure that today I was hearing the same individual as last year. And well, why not? We know from banding recoveries that the same birds return year after year, it’s just a marvel to think that in the intervening period this bird has quite possibly been to Costa Rica and back.
Then there was the Warbling Vireo. Apart from their overall drabness and contrasting, tumbling song, one characteristic of these birds is their propensity for staying high in the tree canopy where you hear but rarely see them. Today though, I was standing on an elevated bank when I spotted a Warbling Vireo hopping around almost at my eye level. Knowing that the chances of getting a decent photo were slim with a bird continually on the move and a camera that frequently prefers to auto-focus on something quite unrelated, to my delight I managed to get a few quite acceptable shots, enough anyway to consider this obliging Warbling Vireo my Bird of the Day.

May 10 2014 . Burlington ON. As the previous posting suggests, it’s not all about flash; there’s as much to birding by ear as by eye. Many of our woodland birds depend on voice or other audible communication to announce their territorial claim. I say ‘other audible communication’ because, for example, the Ruffed Grouse uses low frequency thumps generated by rapid wing-beats and some woodpecker species find resonant logs, pipes and metal siding on which to beat out a ‘keep your distance’ tattoo.

This morning I had an hour or two to spare and opted to walk around a familiar wooded valley. For mid-May there was less to be seen than I’d anticipated but it was a pleasant hike nevertheless. On the slightly exotic front were Warbling Vireos, Black-throated Green Warblers, and a couple of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.

From a look-out platform, I watched an Eastern Phoebe hawking for early morning insects and I rather suspect that it liked the look of the platform as a nesting site; at least, somewhere on the underside of it.

Best of the walk was a singing Wood Thrush, found and photographed with difficulty in the very highest branches of a Yellow Birch. The Wood Thrush is one of five thrushes that we see and hear as summer visitors. Superficially they look much alike but with a bit of sorting out work each becomes unmistakable, but you do need practice. The Wood Thrush’s song is one of those “Oh, listen there’s a…” sounds of the eastern deciduous forests. My best shot at a description ( I really should stop trying to do this) is starting with a couple of introspective ‘ po po’ notes then ‘eee-O-lay (pause) lay-ay-lo’ ending with a reflective ‘chuurrr’; pause and repeat. It’s worth listening for in May and June.