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8 June 2013. Norfolk County ON. I wish I could say that I actually saw a Louisiana Waterthrush, I didn’t;  I heard two or maybe three.  It was a day of auditory ‘sightings’ because I was in unfamiliar territory and being shown around some of Ontario’s richest birding areas by an expert who sees and hears birds that most of us miss, a knack, which, I’ve learned, comes with local familiarity and time spent in the field.  I know that I see birds that others don’t simply because I’m half expecting them and am attuned to the nuances of behaviour or song that will give the bird away.  It’s a bit like picking out a friend in a crowd.

This day I had joined a large group of birders on a hike organized by the Ontario Field Ornithologists, we’d been sold on the trip by the near-promise of Cerulean and Prothonotory Warblers, Acadian Flycatcher and Louisiana Waterthrush; all rare, endangered or otherwise long-shot birds.

I left home around 5.15 for a 6.30 start some 120 Km distant.  I joined the group gathered on a large platform overlooking a marsh as our young leader was giving his here’s-what-to-expect briefing.  As we stood listening, I thought for a moment that I heard a Least Bittern but dismissed the idea as improbable, fanciful and overly optimistic; it turned out not to be so improbable for when we returned to base at the end of the day, one was seen stalking around the edge of some cattails, although not by me. I put it down as a ‘heard-but-not-seen’, one of several this day.

We spent most of the morning in a deep, intensely green cathedral of a forest brim-full of Red-eyed Vireos, Great-crested Flycatchers and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks.  We soon found (or at least heard) our first Louisiana Waterthrushes.  I’d never knowingly seen one before so this was a highlight – even Bird of the Day. According to our leader, a young waterthrush brood had fledged here a day or two earlier, we could hear the parents’ tiny ‘chip’ note as they maintained contact with their hungry dependants.  Then as we waited hoping for a glimpse, a Cerulean Warbler started singing close by and we followed its progress through the leafy canopy straining for a sighting, which, alas, never came. But we’d heard it – and the Louisiana Waterthrush, so clearly fortune was smiling on us.

Some hours later we tried to find Prothonotary Warblers, we checked three or four known sites, heard song at two of them but in the end had to be content with song only.  Then to complete the theme of the morning we went to the only known location for Acadian Flycatcher, where again we heard but didn’t see the bird. So there it was, four longed-for birds heard but not seen, the very antithesis of the now dated adage about children: that they should be seen and not heard.

But I perhaps paint a picture of a let-down that is unjustified, for the day produced a longish list of great birds, mostly sightings. On the forest edges we encountered Eastern Towhees, Indigo Buntings, Blue-winged, Yellow, and Pine Warblers. Deep in the leafy, mosquito rich, canyons were foraging Red-bellied Woodpeckers; loud Ovenbirds calling emphatically “teacher Teacher TEACHER“; Scarlet Tanagers singing their raspy song; and Hooded Warblers all around.  Eastern Wood Peewees calling “pee-a weee….pee- uur“, a family of Hairy Woodpeckers objecting loudly to our presence and a Yellow-throated Vireo trying ever so hard to sound as clear as its cousins the Red-eyed Vireos who out-sang him from every quarter.  While we stood waiting and hoping for a Prothonotary Warbler a Northern Waterthrush carrying food for its young and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo calling loudly overhead made up for any waning enthusiasm.

We ended the day at every birders’ favourite, a sewage lagoon.  There we saw a few shorebirds: Killdeer, Semi-palmated Plover, Spotted Sandpiper and a White-rumped Sandpiper; this last bird a distant vision seen through a telescope as it pattered among clumps of Cattails, and had it not been for the experts around me I never would have recognized or interpreted the subtle field marks that distinguished it from a nearby Least Sandpiper.

My field notes for the day recorded 55 species, Our leader tallied 70, adding in all the usual background species like American Crow, Canada Goose and the like but he also noted (among others) Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Green Heron, Orchard Oriole and Wood Duck, none of which I recall seeing.

 

June 1 2013.  Flamborough, ON.  I’m still scouting ahead for the dawn chorus trip a week from now, and I’m starting to wonder what has happened to dawn-choruses?  These scouting trips make good quick-fire birding, but there’s hardly a symphony of bird song.  Maybe the best is past – or maybe it’s yet to come.  I do hear birds when I listen for them, but not the dawn choruses that I remember.  I’ve certainly heard sensational dawn choruses here in Southern Ontario.  Just not this year, not yet, and not where I’m listening it seems.

In my childhood, my dad & I took early morning bike rides looking for mushrooms and listening for bird song.  I have memories of bird-song all around: blackbirds, thrushes, and finches.  The bike riding wasn’t for exercise, it was the only mode of transportation we had and I recall that many of those excursions were knuckle-stiffening cold, but they were truly memorable for bird-song as well as for the fresh field mushrooms fried up later for breakfast.

One of my stops today was at the edge of a large hay field, in fact there were open fields on both sides of the road.  The grass is far from full grown so hasn’t been cut yet, which is as well because it holds a fairly large population of nesting Bobolinks and sparrows.  I was delighted to hear four sparrow species around me: a distant Field Sparrow calling just as all the texts describe it like a ping-pong ball bouncing ever faster to a stop “ Pee…pee…pe… pe..pe..pe..pe.p.p”. And a Savannah Sparrow, also distinctive with its dry “tsit-tsit-tsit-tsit- seee-ss“, the “Chp chp chp chp chp chp” of a Chipping Sparrow and the electric “B-zzzzzz” of a Grasshopper Sparrow. Actually I didn’t see any of them, these were all auditory ‘sightings’, which is often the way it goes with sparrows. And since they’re such uniformly little brown flitting birds it’s just as well that their songs are distinctive.

Taken together with an earlier White-throated Sparrow singing deep inside in a dense forest, sparrows were collectively my birds of the day.  I hope they perform for me next weekend. Here’s a few of those birds, photos taken at different times and places of course.

May 29 2013.  Flamborough, ON.  In a few days I will be co-leading a morning-chorus birding walk.  I dreamt up the idea back last winter nurturing visions of beautiful bright green, song-filled mornings exploring some of my favourite birding haunts.  Well those days are here: it’s bright green sure enough, the birds are on territory, they’re singing; now all I need to do is scout out where to take the group to get the best performances. So this morning, starting at 5.30, I visited six or seven different good spots and while I didn’t ever find myself surrounded by song from all sides it was a good and productive few hours.  In a few days I’ll retrace my route but in reverse because what may have been active at 6.00 may not be at 8.30, and vice versa; and things change anyway.

At 6.05 I was at a boggy area which produced several tree-top singing Alder Flycatchers, a White-throated Sparrow and a Gray Catbird, all good songsters, but the few Cedar Waxwings I saw won’t add much to the musical interlude if they’re there next time.

Three stops and an hour later I pulled up at the edge of a beautiful open hay field and heard Grasshopper Sparrow, Field Sparrow and an Eastern Meadowlark.  Nice to see and hear but not quite the musical interlude stuff I dreamed of six months ago.

My last stop is a favourite birding destination of mine.  It starts atop a gravelly hill with a long and commanding view across fields and woods. Here were Brown Thrasher, Warbling Vireo, Bobolink, Gray Catbird and Savannah Sparrow all in full song.  I followed the path down into a swamp where swarms of mosquitoes ambushed me and took blood at will while I listened to Canada Warblers, Northern Waterthrushes and Veerys.  Provided my dawn-chorus tour group is prepared to deal with biting insects I think they’ll like this place.

Returning to my car I found this Bobolink singing, first from the top of a cherry tree and then a Crab Apple and while he loudly proclaimed his ownership of the lands all around, a female Red-winged Blackbird came up behind him.  She waited until he paused for breath then took a swing at him perhaps to point out that she belonged there too. Together they were my Birds of the Day.

26 May 2013. Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON. The Tyrant Flycatchers, or Tyrannidae, is a large New World family of some 425 species of mostly insectivorous birds.  Many of them are maddeningly difficult to tell apart although here in southern Ontario we have relatively few members of the family so not too many lookalikes.  I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many of the Tyrannidae this year including the Scissor-tail Flycatcher, Great Kiskadee and Vermillion Flycatcher in Mexico, and Tropical Kingbird and Masked Tityra in El Salvador.  I have to admire Tyrant Flycatchers when I see them, even if I’m sometimes (often) stumped trying to decide which of Least, Willow and Alder Flycatcher I’m looking at.

This morning at the bird observatory we had a Least Flycatcher, Eastern Phoebe, Great-crested Flycatcher and Eastern Wood Peewee whilst doing the census and banded an Eastern Kingbird a little later; a five tyrant morning.

Two of us did the census starting early around 6.45 when there was still a touch of frost on the ground (!).  We spent well over two hours scouring the grounds, woods and river valley, determined to see everything possible. In the end we did reasonably well although there were some conspicuous absences, but we were pleased with a careening and wheeling family group of ten Chimney Swifts, several Orchard Orioles, countless Baltimore Orioles and with finding a Rose-breasted Grosbeak at her flimsy, twig-platform nest.

Last year whilst birding with a visitor from Quebec I learned that the French name for the Eastern Kingbird is Tyran Tritri, an onomatopoeic nod to its tin-can-rattle  “tri-tri-tri” call of indignation. I’m hard put to choose between the Eastern Kingbird and the Great-crested Flycatcher as today’s Bird of the Day, they’re both birds with attitude.  Here they are.

May 22 2013. Hendrie Valley RBG Burlington ON. I had the pleasure of showing two visitors from the U.K around one of my favourite birding spots today.  We’d never met before today but through the Birdingpal website , an excellent way to find local birding help when you’re travelling, we arranged to share some good Ontario birding.  I’ll admit that I harboured some minor concerns that the valley and trails I’d pre-selected might not live up to expectations but I needn’t have worried, indeed it would be pretty hard to fail at this time of year with so many migrants around.  The local birds were in full feather and voice and we enjoyed a good three hours and compiled a tally of about 40 birds.

The chosen trail is always popular with visitors, especially families, because Black-capped Chickadees, White-breasted Nuthatches and sometimes Hairy Woodpeckers will happily and greedily take sunflower seeds from your open hand. This experience is always a showstopper and it can take half an hour or more to cover the first leg of the trail.  We enjoyed the chickadees and nuthatches for a while and then reveled in close encounters with a Red-bellied Woodpecker, a singing Common Yellowthroat and an inquisitive Baltimore Oriole.

Moving along a woodland trail, we encountered a lone female American Redstart bouncing around in some bordering dogwood bushes, searched tree-tops for a singing Warbling Vireo and watched an Eastern Phoebe sallying out for flying insect food and proclaiming territorial ownership with its wet-throated ‘wee-bee’ call.

We found a Green Heron standing motionless in an about-to-strike pose on the edge of a woodland-edge pond and a trio of Wood Ducks, a female and two handsome males, perched warily on a downed tree limb.

The Bird of the Day, for me anyway, was a Scarlet Tanager found as we were winding up our morning’s birding.  It’s been a while, but as soon as I heard the tanager’s distinctive “chik-brrr…….. chik-brrr”, I knew we had a very special sighting to close the day with.  It took a while to find him, he was high up in a Red Oak and cussedly determined to stay just out of sight. A Scarlet Tanager is always a winner for me because of the red-hot intensity of the breeding male’s plumage.  This photo was taken last year before it was possible to hide.