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April 23 2013. A bit of a diversion from my usual post, but this is about billions of Birds of the Day.  Our woodlands will soon be teeming with bird life.  It’s getting busy already but the bulk of what we call neo-tropical birds, the colourful warblers, shocking tanagers, cuckoos, vireos and the like, has yet to arrive.   Many, maybe most of them are streaming  northwards from Central and South America up through Mexico towards Texas and Louisiana, and from there they’ll disperse throughout the north and eastern parts of the continent.  Some species island-hop up the Antilles island chain to Florida and move north from there.  The mass of animal life may seem trivial, after all it’s just a bunch of birds each no bigger than a chicken egg; but there’s millions of them, maybe billions.

In the early days of the development of radar, observers were puzzled by ghostly images that appeared when there were no planes flying.  To cut a long story short, it was migrating birds they were seeing; and now you can too.  All you need is access to good live night time (because that’s when the birds fly) radar images. The good news is that it’s available on line at the U.S National Weather Service’s radar loop. What you’ll see on many, or even most, nights between late April and late May is vast agglomerations of birds on the move. Look again at 7.00 in the morning and the eastern half of the continent will likely have gone quiet while the west, which is still in darkness, has birds in the air. You’ll can either take my word for it that it’s birds, but if you need more information, read this article. 

I’ve added a screen shot taken at 10.30 pm April 23 2013.  Most of those big blue blobs are birds.  The more linear yellow, green and blue cudgel shaped bit at the top is a weather system.  Along the coastline of Texas you can make out streamers of birds just offshore, heading for land.

 

22^nd April 2013.  Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON.  Today the sun came out to validate the efforts of countless birds that have arrived expecting a new season of plenty. I spent the morning at the bird observatory and took almost three hours to complete the daily census, a task I can usually do in an hour and a half.  I wanted to find as many species as possible, and besides, there was a group of Grade 4 kids swarming the banding lab; I find that I’m not much into other peoples’ juvenile offspring anymore.

Talking of offspring, the census was full of sightings which, to an atlasser, would qualify as breeding evidence:  A Red-tailed Hawk at its twiggy, platform nest, two Eastern Phoebes evaluating a deep, overhanging porch as a possible nest site, a pair of Belted Kingfishers excavating a hole in the riverbank, the amorously entangled courtship of two Downy Woodpeckers and a mother Raccoon foraging near her den and from which came anxious purring sounds.

New this year included my Bird of the Day, a Spotted Sandpiper.  Standing by the river, scanning the far bank, watching the Belted Kingfishers and trying to keep a mental note of species calling and singing, I heard a tiny distant weet–weet-weet, the unmistakable sound of a Spotted Sandpiper.  I looked for it along the downstream waters-edge expecting to see it picking for food, but instead it was flying towards me.  It passed not ten yards away and kept on heading upstream.  Who knows how much further it has to go before finding its summer home, Spotted Sandpipers breed throughout Ontario as far as the shores of Hudson Bay.  They are the signature shorebird of wherever there’s water.

I heard my first-of-the-year House Wren, watched about 70 Bonaparte’s Gulls wheeling around a flooded field across the river, enjoyed Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets and caught sight of a handful of Yellow-rumped Warblers high in the tops of some White Oaks.

Many times I stood quietly watching and listening, and reveled in the sun’s warmth.  There’s more of that to come, otherwise why would all these birds be showing up.

19^th April 2013.  Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON.  A flock of Bonaparte’s Gulls enjoying (I suppose) a brief respite from their marathon migration was a refreshing midday surprise.  Their spring migration is a long haul, taking them from the Atlantic Coast to the taiga belt of Canada’s sub-Arctic where, uniquely for gulls, they usually nest in trees. They had settled in a flooded field with evidently plenty to eat.  Here’s a shot of part of the flock, the group includes some whose heads have taken on their all black breeding plumage, some part way through and others, probably last year’s young, showing no change at all as yet.

I had just spent the morning, a windy, storm-tossed morning, at the bird observatory.  Relatively few birds had been caught in mist nets and banded because the nets billow in high winds, rendering them ineffective. I walked the census route, splattered occasionally by gusty squalls, a time when birds if they could, would be well advised to go indoors.  They don’t of course, but they do tend to get out of the weather somehow; who wouldn’t.

Notwithstanding the weather, the walk around included some good sights and sounds including a Pine Warbler or two singing in some large old spruce trees, a young wind-blown Bald Eagle that was chased off by a territorial Red-tailed Hawk and a Turkey that bustled anxiously from its hiding place, ran a dozen paces then flew off; it really needn’t have bothered because when I investigated I found its hiding place to be a masterpiece of cover and deception, it could have stayed there quite unseen forever.

Nesting is high on the agenda and I watched a pair of White-breasted Nuthatches at work making a tree cavity into the perfect nursery. Eastern Phoebes are building a nest too; I saw at least one carrying nest material.  They are a remarkably cautious bird in the presence of people; I’d like, but have yet to, get a decent photo of a Phoebe.  It’s somewhat complicated by their drab grey/brown plumage, I need to catch one close enough to me, posed perfectly, perched long enough in good light and against an uncluttered backdrop; it doesn’t happen that way too often.

The census round produced 35 species including the first of the year for me Barn Swallow, Northern Rough-winged Swallow and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.  I was all for dubbing Barn Swallow as Bird of the Day until I saw the Bonaparte’s Gulls.  They are very similar to Europe’s Black-headed Gull which, since I’m making comparisons is slightly larger and has brighter red feet and a crimson bill.  Both species are light, airy fliers and really elegant birds.  Growing up in the South of England I paid NO attention to Black-headed Gulls (to my discredit) they were just the basic, default, garbage-scavenging seagull.  I know better now. And to illustrate my updated thoughts on Black-headed Gulls, here’s a photo of one taken last September in Iceland, look at how brilliantly crimson the legs and bill are.

15 April 2013.  LaSalle Marina, Burlington ON. The basic premise of this blog is that for me, there’s always a bird of the day, it doesn’t matter how dreary the day, how many or how few the birds, there’s always at least one that makes me say Wow!

With that in mind, today’s Bird of the Day was a Horned Grebe found this afternoon at the frequently visited marina where strange birds often show up.  I stopped there on my way home from picking up a few grocery items, just in case.  The variety that makes this marina so full of potential through winter months, has thinned out.  There were plenty of Mallards, Mute Swans, and American Coots around, but just when I thought I’d seen all there was to be seen, I spotted the Horned Grebe.  It was working its way up and down a length of rocky shoreline, diving and then surfacing ten yards further along.  I soon worked out a way of lying in wait for it and managed to get a couple of decent shots.

I’d spent the morning at the bird observatory and enjoyed it.  The list of birds seen was heart-warming though hardly ‘write home’ material.  The first Field Sparrows of the year arrived overnight, they’re closely related to American Tree Sparrows many of which have been with us through the winter and are just leaving to breed in the far north above the tree line; kind of a changing of the guard.  Yesterday’s wave of Golden Crowned Kinglets has abated and Ruby-crowned Kinglets have started to follow behind, I counted three on the census and there will be many more to come. A Belted Kingfisher coursed around, following the river up and down and then circled over the banding lab. Noting the rather deperate-looking, stop-and-go flight of kingfishers I wondered aloud why it is that some bird species seem built to fly strongly and effortlessly, swallows, falcons and ducks for example, while others like Belted Kingfishers seem to be on the verge of falling out of the sky. Thinking back to my schooldays I’m sympathetic, I bet they’re always last to be picked for the flying team.

April 14 2013. Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON. There are no obvious explanations for the huge wave of Golden-crowned Kinglets at the bird observatory these past couple of days. On this morning’s census I recorded 62, but actual numbers are certainly way higher; add a zero and it might be just as accurate.  On some stretches of the census route my eye would be caught by a flit of movement, invariably a kinglet, then I’d realize there were more, many more.  And they kept moving, jumping and fluttering, so by the time I had an approximate count at that particular spot, it had all changed.  Perhaps a new group had moved in or maybe I was counting the same birds twice, I could never be sure.

It wasn’t all Golden-crowned Kinglets.  Perhaps best, and certainly Bird of the Day, was a Yellow-rumped Warbler that muscled in on a group of kinglets.  And then no sooner than I’d finished mentally applauding the warbler, I caught sight of an Osprey circling high overhead and consorting with a territorially minded Red-tailed Hawk.  There were plenty of other good sightings too: two Eastern Phoebes, a Brown Creeper and a trio of labouring Great Blue Herons among them.  Heard but not seen were an Eastern Bluebird, a House Finch and an Eastern Tufted Titmouse.

I caught sight of my first Northern Ficker of the year, I ‘ve heard them a few times in the past four or five days, but seeing that conspicuous and diagnostic flash of bright white on the rump completed the mental record.

The river that flows through the lands of the bird observatory is one of the largest in Ontario and the heavy rains of three days ago have caused it to overflow its banks.  Whenever that happens the shoreline gets reshaped, low-lying fringes drown and all sorts of debris break loose, creating log-jams and floods.  The census route was impassable in places and deep in sticky silt in others.  Wellington boots were a necessity and I find wearing them very tiring, my still aching calves still remind me of their part in a successful early spring day.