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Royal Botanical Gardens. Carrols Bay, Burlington. ON. September 4. 2022. You know about trigger warnings don’t you? Well this Bird of the Day story may be hard on sensitive souls, it’s about short life and ugly death in the mud.

Mid-afternoon today, a message about some interesting shorebird arrivals caught my interest and sent me off to an expanse of wet and gooey mudflats about twenty minutes from home. In the absence of birds, I don’t normally give these mudflats two minutes of my time, there’s far too much anthropomorphic debris and discard there. But today I had some hope of seeing reported Stilt Sandpipers and maybe a Red Knot (but failed on both) and maybe Short-billed Dowitchers (success) as well as Least and Semi–palmated Sandpipers, Semi–palmated Plovers, and Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs. All of the last noted were there, as they had been for a few days. (‘Semi-palmated’, by the way, is a reference to the presence of some webbing between the toes. Useful for pattering around on soft silts.) These birds are all south-bound migrants making a refuelling stop having already flown several hundreds of kilometres from their Arctic breeding grounds.

With a quick binocular scan I could see dozens, maybe hundreds of birds and, mysteriously, one unusually low in the water as if it had wandered out of its depth into too deep water and had decided to stop and think about it for a while. I couldn’t make out what it was, surely too low for a shorebird most of whom stay well up on long legs, and not a duck, who are larger and always buoyant; this mystery bird seemed to be anything but buoyant.

I was relieved to see it take flight and pleased when it flew closer to me, I was really keen to see what bird would behave in this manner. It came to rest a short distance away, and rather than alight as I’d expected it to, it belly flopped onto mud, wings splayed (above).

Now I understood, an injured bird.  In fact I could now see it was an injured Lesser Yellowlegs.  What befell it is anyone’s guess but I’m certain that it had lost the use of one or maybe both legs; in the picture you may just be able to  make out its yellow leg splayed out to the right, not where it belongs.

Another flutter and it came to pathetic rest to lie in grimy mud for perhaps 20 minutes. A companion Lesser Yellowlegs came over, looked at it for a moment or two and stalked away.  It looked around for a while, then stopped struggling and died.  Unable to stand it would not be able to feed the way a yellowlegs should. I suspect that it soon became soaked and cold.

Other than that it was a joy to see so many shorebirds who in a week or two will be anywhere from the Gulf of Mexico to Patagonia. Below is one of the Short-billed Dowitchers.

Royal Botanical Gardens. Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. August 26 2022. I walked the valley this morning, I wanted exercise for one thing and I was curious to look for hints on what to expect when we resume regular transects next week. There was a Mother-Nature’s-up-to-something feel in the air,  it was all about summer winding down to let fall take over.

It was an encounter with a Cooper’s Hawk that made my morning. As I made my way up an inclined trail, I turned to look back and could see the silhouette of a largish bird strategically high in a bare tree, quite far away. A quick look and I felt it was probably a Cooper’s Hawk but possibly a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Cooper’s are more common around here but a Sharp-shinned can’t be ruled out. It was a long way off, partly obscured and they are confusable.

A young family came down the path towards me and two of them, a bold and cheerful girl of about 7 or 8 with her brother, perhaps 10. She came up to me and asked brightly. “Have you seen any interesting birds?”

“Well yes’ I said, ‘There’s a hawk in that tree way over there. Can you see it?”

She had a monocular and searched briefly. “Yes, I can see it. It’s hard to see in the bright light. What do you think it is?

“I think it’s a Cooper’s Hawk.” I said, now quite enjoying this lively wiser-than-her-years birder.

Her brother seemed only mildly interested, said nothing and continued on down the path, their mother took over his spot beside us to listen quietly to our hawk conversation.

“Is it a Red-tailed Hawk?”

“No, I think it’s a Cooper’s Hawk.  It might be a Sharp-shinned Hawk, but I think probably a Cooper’s.”

“Hmm. We should ask my brother. He’s a bird expert. He’s got a big book of bird pictures and knows all the differences between them. He reads it all the time and won’t allow anyone else to look at it.  Should we go closer?”

“Yes, I think it’s worth a try.”

Getting closer meant a bit of backtracking for me, but happily so. In time we all gathered at a spot where a decent gap in the trees afforded us a much better look.  Even so the bird was high up, still strongly back-lit and we were only debating a silhouette.

Now the brother became fully engaged, he had drawn his own conclusion. “It’s either a Cooper’s Hawk or a Sharp-shinned Hawk.” He proclaimed. I was impressed.

I managed to take this photo which, despite the distance and back-light, was helpful. We gathered around to inspect it. The young birders were engaged, enthusiastic and knowledgeable, it felt like a teachable moment.

For a few reasons I favoured Cooper’s Hawk and I shared my thoughts.  “I think it’s a Cooper’s, and here’s why: Cooper’s have a rounded tail whereas Sharp-shinned Hawks tails are more squared; and the head profiles are different. Also these little fluffy plumes at the edge of the tail are more often seen in Cooper’s.”

They considered the photo evidence, weighed my contribution and I think the brother was close to agreeing with me.

“Hmmm, you can’t make out the tail shape very well, but you really know your stuff.” He said. Their mother shot me a raised eyebrows look.

That Cooper’s Hawk (for that is what I believe it was) was My Bird of the Day.

Royal Botanical Gardens. Arboretum, Hamilton. ON. August 16 2022. This morning I was reminded of a recent radio discussion about collective nouns; you know: a charm of goldfinches or a murder of crows, that sort of thing. The reminder came from seeing this carpet of Double-crested Cormorants over and all around a small island at the end of Lake Ontario.

As far as I know carpet is not anyone’s collective noun for cormorants but it seemed appropriate.

Collective nouns are a far more ancient part of English language than I knew. I’d always assumed they were the products of harmless Victorian parlour games but no, the earliest known written source of collective nouns is the Book of St. Albans, compiled in 1486 by Juliana Bernes, the Benedictine prioress of the Priory of St. Mary of Sopwell, Hertfordshire. To me, it seems like an odd conjunction that a superior in an order of nuns, should be the compiler of a compendium of terms for hawking, hunting and heraldry, I thought they were supposed to spend their day in devotions. Whatever the origins, it must have been important to many, for the work soon sold out and was reprinted several times.  Perhaps collective nouns somehow served to discriminate between the hunter, the hunted or just an onlooker, though I must say I can’t think how. Or more prosaically, possibly they were just winter, fireside entertainment, early (not Victorian) parlour games. I suppose it was important to some to know whether you had encountered an unkindness of Ravens, a cast of falcons or a flight of Goshawks.

The cormorants, who started this contemplation, were a little unsightly through no fault of their own. Their huge population here is demonstrably tied to human-induced changes to the ecology of the Great Lakes.

Far more appealing to the eye was a siege of Great Egrets (‘A siege of Herons’ according to the Book of St. Albans) who stilled the morning with their slow delicate pacing and occasional stab at fish.  Bright white they were eye-catching and rated as my Birds of the Day despite pretty stiff competition from a couple of flings of Lesser Yellowlegs (ibid. Fling of Dunlin. The closest I could find.).

A vocal and busy flock of forty Caspian Terns (ibid), young and adults, gathered on a mud bank for a teaching event. The parents were showing the kids how to spot and dive for fish, and the kids would have been wise to pay attention, which I think they understood, they were certainly staying close.

Writing this required quite a bit of research along the way, and I found that ‘gulp’ is the accepted collective noun for cormorants. A gulp of Double-crested Cormorants then.

Royal Botanical Gardens. Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. August 5 2022. These are often days of steamy weather but after a night of cleansing thunderstorms it was measurably cooler today, so, I visited the valley again.  Well, it’s close, not too heavily peopled and always delivers something interesting bird-wise.

It was warmer and moister in the shelter of the valley, I was soon sweating but still enjoying the green closeness of it all. No-one else around, and no birds either until I came upon this Song Sparrow cooling off at the creek-edge.

The Green Heron of my last post was back in the same pond and I found a shady spot from which to photograph it. It seemed to be enjoying a well fed, low stress day in the sun, mostly preening, sometimes watching other birds overhead and every now and then inspecting odds and ends on the Duckweed.

 

Before leaving to head back to my car (in the shade), I stopped at a favourite lookout platform and was wowed by a female Baltimore Oriole picking seeds from the inflorescence, or panicle, of Wild Rice. She just made a great picture framed by a starburst of rice stalks. Her easy beauty and proportions, especially without the gaudy distractions of a male’s plumage, makes her naturally graceful; for that reason she was My Bird of the Day.

Royal Botanical Gardens. Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. July 28 2022. This evening, with two hours of daylight in hand, we walked the valley for no better reason than its stroll value.

There was no choice but to go single-file along the first half of the trail, it was thickly overgrown, head-high and smelled heavily of mid-summer. Over my shoulder, I commented that last March I’d wondered whether anything could ever possibly regrow here, the flood-scoured ground, frozen with drifts of pan-ice seemed so impossible. But now, as is inevitably the case, countless millions of plants clambered over and through each other in their crush for light and space to reseed.

We reached our turnaround point on a small boardwalk that cut across a shallow pond, green with Common Duckweed. It is a favourite stopping place and often the place to see our familiar Eastern Screech Owl (but not today). A female Wood Duck was quietly sifting the waters, but other than that there was little bird life to see. With close listening I could pick out a mewing Gray Catbird, a couple of Blue Jays, Black-capped Chickadees and the occasional far off croak of a Great Blue Heron.

A Green Heron flew quickly across a patch of sky uttering its short, metallic shriek to announce its descent into ponds a couple of corners away from us.

Then quietly another Green Heron drifted over, turned and wheeled down towards our pond and settled not five meters from us.  Funny how hard it is sometimes to see a Green Heron, but they’re not big like a Great Blue, they are crow-size, often inconspicuous and they just mind their own business stalking fish along the edges of quiet ponds and waterways. Sometimes they will hold a pose in ambush, motionless for many minutes at a time. I watched this one make its careful way, along a zigzag log, each step taken slowly, almost daintily, allowing its long toes to wrap a secure grip each time.

It made several rapid stabs for small fry and then one particularly satisfying lunge for a small Brown Bullhead (catfish). A quick down-the-hatch swallow for the catfish, followed by dipping its bill like a cleansing ritual, and it turned, retraced its steps and hopped over to another log to start again. I managed to record about four minutes of video and this is taken from the catfish moment.  A quiet evening and the Green Heron was an easy Bird of the Day.