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20 November 2013. Woodland Cemetery and Burlington Bay, ON.  Funny thing about owls, and perhaps winter birds in general, is how predictable, how performance-on-command some of them can be.  I fell for it today by stopping by a damaged Silver Maple where a Eastern Screech Owl was a popular celebrity last winter.  It’s back and has appropriated a hole where a branch tore away in some violent storm.

I wasn’t the only sightseer; I’ll leave it at that.  Anyway, Screech Owls come in two colours or morphs: red and gray, this is a red morph just in case anyone asks you, it is a marvelous bird and an obliging photo subject.

The owl was just one of a handful of worth-stopping-for birds today.  A handsome Hooded Merganser, a Redhead and to a lesser extent a rather sad Double-crested Cormorant all challenged my camera skills.

The cormorant was a sorry sight.  It really should be long gone from these chilly parts by now.  It would be hanging around a catfish farm in Louisiana or Arkansas if it knew what was good for it; or if it could fly – which I came to realize it probably can’t.  But perhaps because of a physical disability it’s still here and I’d lay odds that it won’t survive the winter.  I’m not a fan of cormorants but I took rather a liking to this one, partly because of its plight and partly because of how easy it is to make out the arrangement of feathers on its wings.  You may need an illustration from a bird guide to follow along, but the precise configuration of its primary and secondary flight feathers, primary, greater, median and lesser coverts are all there to see.

November 4th,6th,& 8th  2013. Brasstown, North Carolina.  Our days in North Carolina were pretty busy and access to the internet somewhat limited.  I had mentally noted the conspicuous, almost daily presence of a Pileated Woodpecker; pretty exciting stuff, but there were many distractions and I didn’t get around to posting it as a Bird of the Day; not then anyway.

On my first early morning let’s-see-what’s-out-there walk, a crisp, white, frosty morning, I hadn’t gone 100 yards from our house when I heard the ringing call of a Pileated Woodpecker somewhere far behind me.  It seemed too distant and unlikely to be anywhere close, so instead of searching for it I just made a mental note to be on the lookout.  Minutes later turning around to look back towards the house, I noticed a bird on the upper branches of a large poplar tree.  It was the Pileated Woodpecker and according to my notes it was the second bird of any species seen that morning (apparently after a Red-bellied Woodpecker, which must not have been very memorable.)  A promising start though to a morning that included many singing Carolina Wrens, a small group of Cedar Waxwings and a solitary Eastern Bluebird, also singing.

Two days later, again early morning although no frost this time, I caught sight of a  Pileated Woodpecker flying high overhead, flashing its bold white under-wing patches, leaving the forests behind and heading towards to the nearby river-flanking thickets.  That particular morning turned out well and I recorded 23 species including several heartwarming Eastern Bluebirds

And then on my final North Carolinian birding effort, the Great Blue Heron morning, we heard a Pileated Woodpecker calling from somewhere back in the forest.

I wasn’t able to become in any way acquainted the countryside around the folk school, but it appears to be a thinly populated land of densely wooded rolling hills with scraps of small scale farming and small settlements in the valleys.  The forests are mostly hardwoods (oaks, cherries and Tulip Trees) and evidently perfectly suited to Pileated Woodpeckers who like large expanses of forest where they tend to roam widely. Whether I always encountered the same bird each morning I’ll never know; it’s probable since they are somewhat territorial. A collective Bird of the Week I think.

12 November 2013.  Valley Inn Hamilton ON.  This afternoon I made a brief stop at a familiar pond to see what might be of interest.  It’s a good site and has fueled many a My Bird of the Day post, last month’s Herons and Black-crowned Night Herons comments come to mind. On arrival I noticed a group of interesting looking waterfowl, they turned out to be a mixed bunch (male and female) of Northern Shovelers.  They were living up to their name, heads down and shoveling greedily through the delicious silt. I knew right away that I’d have trouble photographing them, and so it turned out.  You see their feeding technique seems to include no requirement whatsoever for breathing; just swim around, head submerged, shoveling, sifting and presumably swallowing and only momentarily looking up to see if anyone’s looking or, maybe grab a breath.  My three-microseconds-too-slow reactions produced lots of really quite nice pictures of Northern Shovelers’ bodies, males and females, heads submerged. It’s a pity because taking a decent look at the birds’ spatulate bill is really kind of interesting.  Nevertheless, ignoring the usually absent head and bill, the pictures of the male’s rather spiffy plumage are still reasonably impressive.  Here’s a few shots, I hope you appreciate the little they show.

As an additional note, it’s turned really quite cold today.  A sudden blanket of Arctic air has fallen over us and with air temperatures around just one or two degrees Celsius, it doesn’t take very much of a wind to become quite profoundly chilled.  I had a new pair of gloves in the car, which I thought would be just the ticket in these airs.  They’re kind of an outdoorsy grey knit and fit quite nicely encompassing my hands in a generous and general sense and reaching well up my wrists, what’s tricky about the gloves is that they are sans fingertips; deliberately.  I bought them because I thought that uncovered fingertips would be warm as long as the rest of my hands were warm. Experience tells us that overall warmth is sometimes less a matter of total coverage than it is of strategic protection; down vests and hats are good examples of this. Well, finger-tip-less gloves don’t seem to work that way, I got quite mixed messages; my hands were generally quite snug while my fingertips felt as if they were naked in ice water, and quite likely to flash-freeze, blacken and fall off. Just a word to the wise.

Anyway the Northern Shovelers were birds of the day, not that I spent much time looking any further.

November 8 2013.  Brasstown NC. A lesson that I have yet to learn is that birds are not necessarily visibly very active before the sun warms things up.  Maybe spring and early summer are different, but at this time of year it’s not nearly as important to leap out of bed at first light.

This morning a companion and I set out at seven o’clock to explore a quiet country by-way; a little too early it turns out.  It’s nice to be up before the sun, but a determined frost had turned everything crunchy and we walked for a chilly half an hour before the sun came up over the mountains to chase the ice away.  But once it emerged, so did the birds, and just as in my last post from Georgia, the variety and numbers of birds quite surprised me.

There were Song and White-throated Sparrows hunkered down in the roadside hedges and the ‘chewink’ grunts of an Eastern Towhee (another of the sparrow family) came from somewhere nearby but down in the leaf litter level.  A Pileated Woodpecker called out from the forested hillside prompting a Northern Flicker to fly over to see what the fuss was all about, while its woodpecker-cousin, a Red-bellied Woodpecker, continued chuckling from atop a riverside line of Tulip Trees, having no real interest in woodpecker gossip.

When the sun finally rose to warm the tops of a large oak we were surprised by the fluttering of many very small birds active at all levels.  They turned out to be Yellow-rumped Warblers, which I thought was quite special although my companion, Judy from Virginia, seemed less impressed. Yellow-rumped Warblers are a common winter bird to her, understandably because the Yellow-rumps’ winter diet includes myrtle berries, the fruit of the Wax Myrtle bush, (from whence came the birds’ former name, Myrtle Warbler) a shrub found commonly from Maryland throughout the south-east to Texas and beyond into Central America, so Yellow-rumped Warblers all winter long is well, to be expected.

We walked along to a road bridge, which crossed a small but busy river.  In a riverside American Sycamore we found a couple of kinglets, first a Golden-crowned Kinglet and then a few yards away a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, both feeding actively from insects that only they could possibly find.  Judy was quite smitten by the Ruby-crowned, in fact it was her bird of the day.  But for me Bird of the Day was a Great Blue Heron seen standing below us at the edge of the river.  Quite unmoved by the sound of morning traffic or even the growing daylight, it seemed to be sound asleep (if indeed birds do truly sleep), it had its head tucked under its wing; a distinctly challenging sleeping position for the likes of us I thought.  Great Blue Herons are usually very nervous and apt to fly off at the approach of a person, but this one never did for as long as we stayed.

After an hour or so of this morning in the frost, we noted that breakfast was about to be served and were happy to head back for a warm-up coffee.  I’m not sure when Judy’s toes finally thawed out that morning; she was very stoic and I was grateful for her company.

November 1 & 2 2013. Hiawassee Ga. We are in spending a few days doing something completely different: going back to school, to the John C. Campbell Folk School where I’m going to learn print-making and my wife will build on her already impressive hand-weaving skills.

Our hotel for the few days before class begins is in the picturesque hills of north-east Georgia. A century or so ago these hills were denuded by the early-white-profiteer style of logging – rip out everything in sight then move on to the next tract. Fortunately, the first President Roosevelt was visionary enough to see the method’s inherent limitations and moved to protect and rehabilitate the lands and create National Parks and Forest Preserves. Today these hills, despite having no virgin or primeval forests (indeed almost nowhere in the east half of the continent does) are nevertheless magnificently forested with White and Longleaf Pine, Tulip Trees, Sourwood, Persimmon, Catawba Rhododendron, Mountain Laurel, and more oak species than I can count. It is a breathtaking spectacle of colour and landscape at every turn and we’ve been told several times that we’re here at the peak of fall-colour. Although the trees are still fully clothed and spectacular they have little resistance left in them to the tugging winds of November, strong gusts stir up tumbling blizzards of fallen leaves. It’ll soon all be over, winter does produce the odd dusting of snow around here, but for now it’s still warm and dazzlingly brilliant.

We find ourselves within a short stroll of the Hamilton Gardens, one of the best, least formal botanical gardens you’re likely to stumble upon. It is a quiet cathedral of a woodland setting for over two thousand rhododendron species and varieties, some of them, for reasons that escape me, are in bloom now (see pictures below). All of the rhododendrons and countless native Azaleas and Flowering Dogwoods seem to be thriving in what must surely be an ideal setting. Note to self: come back in April.

I have taken early morning walks around the gardens and adjacent campgrounds and been astonished by the variety of birds. To some extent I suppose I’ve caught up with some of our retreating summer birds, rather like the band of sweepings ahead of a broom, but there must also be plenty of resident birds here too. Whatever the reason, it’s been quite breath-taking at times to be surrounded by more birds at a glance than I think I’ve encountered for many years.

They fall into loose categories: the One-off Surprise Species like a Blue-headed Vireo seen for a moment from our balcony, a nervous Brown Thrasher anxious to get away from me and a briefly puzzling Pine Warbler. The Always a Treat Species: countless singing Eastern Bluebirds, a Northern Mockingbird eyeing me carefully from the top of a crimson-leaved Flowering Dogwood. The to be Expected Southern Species: Eastern Tufted Titmouses (photo of 2 at a feeder below) and Carolina Wrens. And then there’s the ones I’ve been seeing by the bushel quite recently and now they’re here too: Cedar Waxwings, White-throated Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers. All the woodpeckers: Hairy, Downy and Red-bellied (photo below), Northern Flicker and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Among the odds and sods were: flocks of Chipping Sparrows, a couple of Eastern Towhees, and dozens of screeching Blue Jays.
Out of these how could I possibly point to any one as Bird of the Day? Was there one that stopped me in my tracks with an inward Wow! No, it is an embarrassment of riches here, it’s altogether being in the right place at the right time. Georgia birds wins the day .