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14 September 2013. Cabot Head ON.  There are migration seers, people who look at the weather charts, hold up a licked finger to gauge the wind or analyze decades of records as if they were football stats and from which tomorrow’s game can be foretold, but its starting to look as if bird migration is a crap shoot. For sure our summer birds will go south for the winter and generally speaking it’s about now that they should be on the move; many are.  But whether they pass overhead, two or 25 miles west of us, or just trickle through depends entirely on them.  We’ve had cold clear nights with frost a degree or two away, we’ve had roaring northerly winds kicking up marching ranks of surf, and we’ve had warm nights with gentle southerly winds.  All of them causing much metaphorical beard stroking and muttering about tomorrow’s birds and yet each day seems much the same, a dribble of birds:  American Redstarts, Blackpoll Warblers, Black-throated Green Warblers and thrushes, Swainson’s and Gray-cheeked, all nice birds but we do lots of time-filling.

Today though one of my favourite birds arrived, a Philadelphia Vireo.  I’ve written plenty about vireos in the past but here they are again causing me sighs of admiration.  The Philadelphia with its under-parts washed in yellow is a pretty bird, yet thanks to its stern eyebrow and hooked beak, an slightly malicious looking little beast.  Here’s a trio of photos taken just before we sent it on its way.

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10 September 2013. Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON.  Now that the fall migration is really picking up steam, witness some really cool birds at the bird observatory today, I am about to depart for two weeks at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory (BPBO).  BPBO is located on the east side of the Bruce Peninsula, a long finger of land that separates the enormous expanse of Georgian Bay from the vastness of Lake Huron.  It’s something of a flyway for migrating birds heading to and from northern Ontario.  I’m expecting exciting bird times, and to top it off the setting is pretty, it sits on the shore of a sheltered bay with the rugged, broken limestone shore of the lake on one side and expanses of forest backed by towering cliffs the other.

The point of all this is to say that since it’s a 45 minute drive to a coffee shop for internet access, postings will be sporadic for the next couple of weeks.

Back to today. It’s one of those odd September days when contrasting weather systems vie for dominance; currently a blanket of warm and moist air has taken charge producing record high temperatures.  This is expected to last for two days when the pendulum will swing back.  This warmth made funny things happen at the bird observatory, my census walk was deadly quiet.  I spotted just 17 species; I have no idea why so few, 25 to 30 would be more typical. The mist nets though were catching lots of birds, and some good ones too: Blackpoll Warblers, Blackburnian warbler, Philadelphia and Red-eyed Vireos, Magnolia Warbler, Traill’s Flycatcher and a beautiful Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.

Bird of the Day though was a Yellow-billed Cuckoo that I found in a mist net on the last check of the day.  When I saw it from afar my first reaction to its size was Cuckoo, but that’s such a long shot that I promptly dismissed the idea and thought instead maybe a Blue Jay or, with such a long tail, perhaps a Sharp-shinned Hawk.  Well of course my first inkling was correct.  It squawked loudly as I gathered it up and we banded and let it go as quickly as we were able.  Here are a few shots of it and some of the other highlights.

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8 September 2013. Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON.  In praise of vireos; I could go on about them for a long time, and if you look back you’ll see that I have.  Warbling, Red-eyed, Blue-headed and even Plumbeous Vireo back in January.  If you click this link and look back to just a year ago the family as a whole figured prominently, but It’s been a while since Yellow-throated Vireos really stepped out of the shadows but today they made everything right.

At the bird observatory this morning we heard a Yellow-throated Vireo singing just outside the banding lab.  Like the other vireos they have a two, three or four syllable song. The Yellow-throated’s song is similar to the Red-eyed although it’s husky, hoarse and less melodic, it’s still got the “hear I am— way up — –tree-top” rhythm, although a good throat clearing would help.

Setting out on the census I heard it again and tracked the song to the top of a large Black Walnut tree where there were actually two of them. I managed to get some long-shot photos among the yellow walnut fruit, photos which are okay as for-the-record shots, but hardly the sort of thing you’d pass around except among friends, which you are so here’s one.

But later in the day we banded one of the Yellow-throated Vireos and then we really admired it.  A bit like a Blue-headed with it’s pronounced spectacles, but a sensational almost chrome-yellow breast makes this bird by far the brightest of the vireos. And like all vireos they are pugnacious, that hooked bill, used so effectively on insects and caterpillars, is effective in registering its disapproval of human intrusion.

Warblers passing through today included Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, Magnolia, and Blackpoll. Everyone seems to love the warblers and they do have a lot going for them, but up against the Yellow-throated Vireos well, it’s a tough choice and today the vireos win.

8 September 2013. Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON.  It would have been nice to have picked Bird of the Day from any of: a young Bald Eagle that soared low along the riverbank during my census walk, a Greater Yellowlegs that flew low upstream and settled to feed in sparkling shallows just in front of us, or the bright lime-green-backed male Chestnut-sided Warbler caught up in a flock of Cedar Waxwings, or even the soaring and hunting Osprey, all of them made my eyes widen in near disbelief.  But Bird of the Day was a Black Tern, dead unfortunately, a rare bird and freshly deceased.

The tern was lying ignominiously in a sludgy backwater and for a long moment we had no idea what it was.  I picked it up gingerly and was struck by the long pointy wings, narrow beak and something glistening pinky-yellow at the base of its belly; maybe partially disemboweled we thought.  Then one of our small party seized with diagnostic inspiration exclaimed, Black Tern! and then it all came together: the swallow-like wings and tail, the gull-like bill and the overall gray black topside plumage; Yes.  Holding it at arms length, we admired it for what it had once been but were vaguely repulsed by what it had become, a muddy bird with nothing left to do but decay.

Perhaps the most disquieting aspect though was its left foot.  The glistening pink-yellow thing at the base of its belly turned out to be a foot, distended, swollen and deformed beyond recognition except that claws were discernable emerging from a pair of cherry-sized malformations.  It seems to make sense that the foot with its perhaps cancerous growth had so exhausted the bird that further weakened and drained by the effort of migration it expired at the side of the river .

Here are a two pictures of it.  Viewer discretion is advised.

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6 September 2013. Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON.  A couple of days ago a cold front swept down from the north-west and turned the days from very warm to warm-ish by day and distinctly cool at night. As if to emphasis the change, at the bird observatory this morning there was frost on the ground! It was just a light touch at dawn and once the sun came up it vanished.

The last two days have seen an increase in numbers of migrant warblers, still not big surges, but some species that we know breed at the very limits of the tree line are starting to show up.  Today we saw Tennessee and Wilson’s Warblers, birds of the boreal forest as well as a couple of Gray Cheek Thrushes and a Blackpoll Warbler both of whom have come from very far north.  All of these birds still have a long way to go.  The Blackpoll Warbler outdoes them all on the migratory epics, for, having bred in a broad band of far northern places like Alaska, northern British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, they’re on their way south and east to the Atlantic coastline from where they’ll fly out over the Atlantic for a four-day, non-stop flight continuing south and east until the north-east trade-winds propel them on to Brazil.  It’s for this stupendous effort and the journey ahead that my heart goes out to the few Blackpoll Warblers seen today, and also for what it’s worth the  honour of being my Bird of the Day.

It’s been a good summer for fruit production, the Riverbank Grape vines are loaded with large bunches of ripe, purple-black fruit and both Red-osier and Gray Dogwoods have lots of berries too.  Lots of fruit means lots of fuel for birds like American Robins, Gray Catbirds and Cedar Waxwings all seen today.  The Cedar Waxwings swarmed in large flocks finding tree-tops from which to sally out on fly-catching sorties, the abundant fruit can wait for now.  A crowd of thirty or so, including many young of the year, descended on the upper branches of an aging Norway Spruce and allowed me a few moments to get these pictures.