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10 April 2014. Badenoch ON. I tried for more Rusty Blackbirds this afternoon but once again came up empty.  There were few small birds to be seen anywhere, it could well have been the howling force five westerly wind that did it.  The sky held many Turkey Vultures tossed around like loose garbage bags and in a quiet wooded pond I found two anxious looking pairs of Hooded Mergansers.

My search for Rusty Blackbirds took me past a dusty soccer pitch where, for many years, a pair of Ospreys has nested atop a floodlight structure.  Their overbuilt straggly nest survives from year to year and today, with the winter’s snow cover barely gone, both birds had returned and were crouching on it, facing into the wind and holding on. I watched for a while until one stood up, opened its wings and lifted off, in control despite the wind, going fishing.

A little further down the road as I scanned a wide marshy area I noticed a distant Northern Harrier rocking and sliding in the buffeting gale.  Sometimes it just works out that the bird I’m watching, instead of becoming more distant, draws closer and somehow holds a pose long enough for a decent photograph.  I’m not really talking about the easy shots like waterfowl or birds lured by ready food, but birds on the wing.  This Northern Harrier did it right for me, despite the pitching and bucking westerly; it came closer until, to my disbelief, it gave me time to arm the camera and get off a hopeful shot.

And so My Bird of the Day came to me on a platter, a glorious female Northern Harrier, here she is.

7 April 2014. Cayuga ON. On my daily census round at the bird observatory, I was pleased to spot a male Eastern Bluebird picking up food from the dry, flattened grass.  From among a list of thirty census species, the bluebird was, by a narrow margin, my Bird of the Day.  Dozens of Golden-crowned Kinglets and a couple of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers were strong contenders, but I must have been in a greeting card, or maybe Walt Disney frame of mind to pick the birds that have become synonymous with sweethearts.

Bluebirds are rather difficult to approach; I’ve managed a couple of decent photos over the years but not today, unless you count this one, which is perhaps more artsy than anything.  Shooting against a bright sky is always problematic, and trying to persuade the camera to focus on the bird rather than a branch is another challenge. I wouldn’t say I was particularly successful but well, it has its appeal.

Other nice, but not necessarily notable, species included: Eastern Tufted Titmouse, three of them staking out territory; four Tree Swallows, five Northern Flickers (four of them heard but not seen); and a pair of Wood Ducks flying up river.

And then there were the Red-winged Blackbirds, male Red-wings arrive on our doorsteps almost as soon as winter’s ice starts to let go; they are one of the first signs of spring.  The females arrive a little later allowing the males a couple of weeks to sort out their territorial claims.  It’s an interesting process watching the males establish territories; the first to arrive will noisily claim ownership over an expanse of suitable habitat.  As more males arrive they squabble amongst themselves, flashing their red wing patches, chasing and repelling each other, all to loud musical pronouncements.  In time they divide up the whole area into territories defined like a jig-saw puzzle.

This one was so busy trying to shout down another male that he hardly noticed me as I took a couple of shots of him in full voice.

6 April 2014. Bronte Harbour ON. This was a day of new(ish) sightings.  At the bird observatory, where I have returned to volunteer my time and talents through April & May, a low overhead male Northern Harrier caused a stir, a flock of some 40 or 50 Green-winged Teal circled and dropped down to the river, apparently just to settle a few squabbles before taking off and continuing upstream.  A pair of Ring-necked Ducks watched the teal from a quiet eddy, while over the opposite bank a two-year-old Bald Eagle soared just above the treetops.

In the afternoon I went to the marina, which, just a month ago, had been home to squads of Lesser Scaup, Redheads, White-winged Scoters, Trumpeter Swans and Red-breasted Mergansers.  A few of which still remain, but most have moved on making haste to their northern breeding grounds.  In their place, Red-necked Grebes and Horned Grebes have arrived.  The Horned Grebes still have a long way to go, they nest across much of the north-west of the continent: Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and Alaska.  The Red-necked Grebes, some of them at least, will breed right here in the marina on artificial platforms much to the entertainment and pride of local residents.  More about them in future weeks I’m sure.

Today’s highlights were the dozen or so Horned Grebes paddling around. They are part way through their spring moult changing from their drab grey/brown winter wear to the flamboyant breeding plumage seen almost complete on most of the birds in these pictures.  That head with its extravagant golden ear tufts, blood-red eyes and black chin is almost satanic.  The expanse of chestnut down the neck and flanks will fill in as the moult completes.  Pete Dunne in his excellent reference book, Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion (click here for more) has this to say of the Horned Grebe; “Both males and females in breeding plumage are all dark with a swollen face (the bird looks like it has mumps) and a bright yellow, tightly bound wreath atop the head. From behind, the golden plumes resemble lobes or “horns”.  At closer range and in good light the neck is clearly chestnut red.” 

I often struggle for just the right adjective to describe an especially head-turning bird; I use elegant quite frequently but somehow don’t see it as quite fitting for the Horned Grebe.  Bizarre, no; Flamboyant, yes; Demonic maybe; Fascinating certainly.  Enjoy these pictures and decide for yourself.

3 April 2014. Mountsberg Conservation Area. I decided to look for Rusty Blackbirds this morning.  There’s a continent-wide survey to try to get a better picture of the species’ migration patterns and I’m hoping by my efforts to add some data.  Not today though, I saw none.

However at a stop on the shoreline of a lake, really a damm-made reservoir, where the habitat is right for Rusty Blackbirds, I spotted a small group of Tree Swallows.  Tree Swallows are early returnees, they precede the other swallow species by several weeks and it’s usually cold, and to my mind too hostile for an insectivore, when the first spring arrivals show up.  They are inoffensive, insect eating, nest box users and the males’ backs shine a vivid purple/green gloss; altogether a beautiful little bird.  Here’s one from a warm spring day in 2010.

What made these birds extra special was that today is cold, close to zero degrees, and the lake was completely frozen over, but the swallows seemed to be finding food in the little puddles of melt-water.  They wheeled around and dipped occasionally to pick at something, I assume it was food, not just a sip of water.

The weather is supposed to improve markedly over the next days so, provided they’ve found enough to get by on, I think that starting tomorrow life will become a little easier for them.

3 April 2014.  To set the stage for today’s posting, I quote from the “About Me and This Collection” page, “I have this idea that whenever I go birding there’s always a Bird of the Day.  Even a miserable, cold, dank day will produce something special, and it doesn’t have to be rare to be special. Sometimes two or three birds are the highlights, but there’s always at least one, one that stands out because it made me think Wow!”

I wouldn’t say that this was a miserable or dank or even particularly cold day but as birding days go it was a bit of a slog; but it had its highlights.

My first stop was the hawk-watch.  I thought that today’s overcast skies might bring the birds down to where we could get a better look at them rather than way up high against an endless expanse of blue. Well, the birds were perhaps a little lower, but if anything farther away from the lookout.  In any event after three quarters of an hour and a bunch of distant Red-shouldered, Red-tailed and Sharp-shinned Hawks I declared it not quite exciting enough and left.

I spent an hour or perhaps two patrolling the iced-over or sometimes waterlogged farm fields looking for ducks and geese. It took a while before I found the right place, and when I did, I sat comfortably in my car scanning distant congregations of Canada Geese (by the hundreds) Mallards (plentiful), perhaps a dozen Northern Pintails, two each of American Wigeon and American Black Ducks and a solitary Tundra Swan.  In this shot, (click on it to enlarge it) there are actually three pintails although two of them are quite  hard to make out.

Bird of the Day, the Wow! bird, was the casual sighting of a road-side Peregrine Falcon.  It obligingly allowed me a few photos.  Its destination, whether it will choose to breed on an inner-city office tower somewhere or a distant cliff face, is anyone’s guess.

Lastly I stopped at one of our nastier industrial birding sites where, in the dubious waters of a canal, which counts as part of its headwaters the discharge from a sewage treatment plant, were dozens of Lesser Scaup, American Coots and Northern Shovelers.  I understand that those waters may be relatively warm and that the supply of invertebrate food is probably quite nourishing, but hanging around in waters like that can’t be good for a species’ reputation.

Footnote, a little off topic.  American Woodcock are early returns in the spring, usually just as the ground is softening up.  This link will take you to a fascinating video of an American Woodcock at its twilight display ‘song’,  And quite apart from its woodcock piece, The Miracle of Nature site is fabulous and well worth taking a look.