Category: Uncategorized

21 March 2014. Niagara Peninsula ON. You know how it is when you’re driving in blinding rain and as you pass under a bridge there’s a moment of peace?  Or you pass through the pool of light below a streetlight whilst walking down an otherwise dark as pitch street? Well, that’s how today’s weather seemed, a momentary relief to winter’s hostility. The sun shone warmly all day and both the birds and I thought it was time to get moving.

An account of my long day would be tedious but it included several highlights: The first being that spring migrants took advantage of winter’s let up to flood in.  There were Red-winged Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds, Common Grackles, American Robins and Song Sparrows everywhere.  Turkey Vultures streamed in to clean up winter’s road-side casualties, Red-tailed Hawks turned in circles riding the warm(ish) airs.

There was a singing Eastern Meadowlark, at first far off and faint but with a bit of scrutiny I found it on the top of a low hawthorn shrub and somehow the sight of it reinforced what I’d heard (or thought I had) to erase any doubts.  Meadowlarks are always among the first spring arrivals and their clear four-syllable song is enough to make your day; as it did for me, my Bird of the Day.  Here’s one from mid-spring two years ago.

 

I spotted a beautiful young Rough-legged Hawk in the middle of a field and at the top of a far off tree.  I admit that I was a bit puzzled for a while, its posture was not quite right for a Red-tailed Hawk and it seemed generally too light-coloured overall, Finally it took flight, and passing overhead it showed its wrist patches and black belly and despite many protests from the auto-focus of my camera I was able to get one good and absolutely diagnostic photograph.

Along the edges of farm field I saw and heard Horned Larks, watched a pair of Northern Mockingbirds getting to know each other, and a Killdeer eyed me nervously.  I was pleased to find a group of about 40 Tundra Swans mixed in with several hundred Canada Geese fueling up in the newly exposed cornfield and flood plain at the bend of a river.

Recalling the metaphor about the blinding rain; snow is forecasted tonight and then two or three very cold days to follow. Here’s a few pictures to ease the pain.

19 March 2014. Hamilton ON. I read reports today of flights of Tundra Swans and sightings of Black-crowned Night Herons on territory, and I’ve seen a handful of Turkey Vultures, Red-winged Blackbirds and American Robins, but nothing yet that suggests the avian floodgates have opened.  Looking back in my diary, I see that on this date in 1998 we received 18 inches of snow, and that last year a winter storm was blowing ice-bound Tundra Swans off their feet.  It’s March.

This afternoon I drove along a wide and fast, yet lightly travelled, road that serves businesses adjacent to the industrial harbour.  If the traffic was heavy it might be just too hazardous to stop, but there’s a decent road-side shoulder on which to pull off, so I paused a few times to scan the open water for ducks.  The ice is retreating and the place was full of Red-breasted Mergansers; there were hundreds, maybe thousands of them and I’m inclined to think that many must be newly arrived from points south and east.

Part of the industrial part of the harbour remains undeveloped; it’s a large enclosed pond and is well known to the local birding fraternity as worth checking fror interesting waterfowl and shorebirds.  Ruddy Ducks, Canvasbacks and Northern Pintails all stop there for a while.

In spring and summer, the rubble walls that enclose it are the site of a large breeding colony of Ring-billed Gulls.  Parking close to a concrete barrier to scan the waters, a Ring-billed Gull decided that I, or at least my car, was no reason to fly away. It eyed me carefully and stayed where it was, so I lowered the passenger-side window, prepared my camera and waited for the bird to walk along the barrier to where I could photograph him through the open window; and it obliged me.

Gulls are often decried as over-abundant, verminous nuisances and not worth the time of day; they’re raucously vocal, they scavenge garbage and hang around picnic sites. Yet for all of that they’re rather perfect specimens in many ways: beautifully proportioned, elegant fliers and really very splendidly styled in purest whites, blackest blacks and pearly greys. Being close enough to get these photos today was a lesson in just how stunning some of our commonest urban birds can be.

17 March 2014. Vinemount ON. Still looking for spring.  The forecasters are all saying that today will be our last day of negative temperatures; we’ll see.  In the faint hope that the tentative warmth of a few days ago had made a difference, I drove around a rather dreary area of waterlogged farms hoping for standing water with ducks, or better yet, Tundra Swans, but nothing.  But…those waterlogged fields are vast expanses of gleaming ice and when it all melts (any day now ?) I predict they will be very enticing stopover spots for waves of migrant ducks, swans, and snipe

Birds of the Day were three wind-tossed Turkey Vultures sailing along the sharp edge of the limestone escarpment that dominates our landscape.  Their course is one used by thousands of migrant raptors every spring.  The abrupt escarpment lies close to the south shore of Lake Ontario and winds off the water create a cushion wave that holds these birds aloft as they head around the lake on their spring journey northwards.

The first parade of spring Turkey Vultures is usually a celebration for me, but somehow today’s scattered trio lacked the optimism that should come with heading for a place to call home for the summer, it seemed to be more of a foolhardy challenge to the frozen ground than anything else.  I guess they’ll survive; after all negative temperatures are about to be a thing of the past.

16 March 2014. This past winter may well become legendary as the Winter of the Snowy Owl.  It has been truly exceptional and as I write this the birding community has become almost dismissive of more Snowy Owl sightings.  This posting is really just to pass along a link to a couple of excellent websites.

NPR recently ran a five-minute feature on the Snowy Owl invasion.  Read more and listen to it by clicking on this link.  

And a newly cobbled together group of American ornithologists has started tracking Snowy Owls on their late winter/spring migration back to the Arctic.  Read more about Project Snowstorm by following this link. 

14 March 2014. Bronte Harbour, Ontario. I went out looking for spring today but most of it got blown away in the strong southwesterly wind.  My mistake may have been visiting places along the north shore of Lake Ontario where the wind had blown the lake’s distress into a choppy onshore frenzy.

I sought backwaters and sheltered corners and soon found a small group of Mute Swans drifting around seemingly asleep.  These are the same two birds, apparently dozing one moment then fully alert the next.

Later I spent a bit of time trying, for my own satisfaction, to separate two almost identical species: Greater Scaup and Lesser Scaup.  You could certainly be forgiven for giving up in despair or for deciding that in fact there is no difference, but all field guides list both species and even suggest generally unhelpful ways of deciding which is which.  I’ve been working at this field problem for several years and had come with a couple of safe solutions, it’s either a “‘probable’ Lesser/Greater Scaup” or  “Scaup species”.

More recently I’ve taken to looking more carefully at the shape of the head. This is not the place for a detailed discussion of scaup morphology, but to cut to the chase I’ve found two, what I think to be reasonable, distinguishing differences.  First. The Lesser Scaup’s head profile has a bit of a peak at the front whereas the Greater Scaup’s head is distinctly rounded.  Second. The Lesser Scaup’s bill has a reduced narrow black ‘nail’ at the tip, whereas the Greater Scaup’s bill has a fairly wide nail.  These distinctions of course are useless at any distance greater than perhaps 10 yards, or 100 through binoculars.  Click on and enlarge these photos and see if you see what I mean.

These scaup photos are in a gallery visible only on the website, not if you’re reading this as an email.

As a diversion from the finer points of scaup i.d, it’s perhaps of more interest that both scaup species are members of the Athya family of ducks.  Athyas include some really gorgeous and elegant species, most of which I’ve posted here at one time or another. They are Redheads, Canvasbacks, Ring-necked Ducks and even the Pochard and Tufted Duck from Eurasia.  Here’s a few photos.