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Burlington Bay, ON. June 17 2022. A week or two ago I walked a stretch of overgrown and unloved beach.  It can be interesting birding but the charm is rather diminished by the washed-up litter, plastics and boating paraphernalia. It is tangled and overgrown with non-native vegetation, mostly it seems plants that produce seeds-that-cling, things like Common Burdock and Rough Cocklebur.

As I picked my way along, dodging Stinging Nettles and generally watching my steps, I saw, on the gravel in front of me, what I took to be a dead Northern Flicker. It was splayed out in a crash-landing pose, Tail spread awkwardly, one wing at an odd angle and head askew. ( It’s a bit like the one in the photo except….) I thought perhaps it had fallen from the air, mid-flight, felled by a mysterious, perhaps alien, infection. Or maybe it had been dropped there by some kills-for-the-fun-of-it predator perhaps a Peregrine Falcon or Coopers Hawk.

I stared at it for a while, probably a few seconds only. As I was stooping to take a closer look, it opened its eye, turned its head to look at me and with a quick scramble took flight, apparently well rested and perfectly healthy. Taking a nap I suppose.

Royal Botanical Gardens. Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. June 24 2022. A gorgeous mid-summer morning and I was up and out early to hike the valley; once again looking for evidence of breeding birds. I made a little progress by confirming the presence of fledged young,  in this case Belted Kingfishers.

But first I spent a long, quiet spell comfortably seated beside a pond, first watching this Great-crested Flycatcher making the most of early-hours peace and quiet; and very shortly afterwards, its cousin, an Eastern Kingbird. Two of my most admired birds.

I spotted the kingfishers on conspicuous perches over water and within a few yards of where I had long suspected there to be a nest. They were sitting quietly and quite a long way off but I could tell they were smaller than adults, still a little fluffy and perhaps a bit stubby-tailed, so definitely fledglings. I took many photos but couldn’t remember how to manually focus, very frustrating.  I found another and better viewpoint, overcame my camera lapse and spent many minutes watching these youngsters. A parent appeared briefly and pushed a small silvery fish down one throat but other than that it was just the pleasure of the birds, the time and the place that made them my Birds of the Day.

As I made my way back I was lucky enough to come across an adult female Belted Kingfisher sitting quietly on a branch and just visible through a thick Multiflora Rose bush. Kingfishers are usually very quick to fly off at the first sight of us but she apparently hadn’t seen my approach. The sunlight and deep shadow contrast was a challenge, but here she is, Mother Bird of the Day.

Royal Botanical Gardens. Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. June 22 2022. On a day forecasted to be a scorcher, I did a quick and early hike of the length of the valley looking for better evidence of certain breeding  birds. This was as part of my data-gathering efforts for the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas.

I’m particularly interested in spotting higher levels of breeding evidence for Green Herons and Yellow-billed Cuckoos. I’m pretty sure the herons nest somewhere along the creek and I’ve watched a pair of cuckoos that seemed well settled in. For the record I didn’t see either species today, but I did happen upon a surprise colony of Cliff Swallows.

The valley is crossed by a lofty road bridge, the supporting piers of which are enjoyed as wide canvasses by spray-paint artists.  Those decorators’ reach is about 3 meters at best, but some 30 or 40 metres above them, where the piers meet the road deck, Cliff Swallows have built their gourd-shaped nests. Their nests are constructed of mud, and adhere, largely by the grace of God, to the underside of concrete bridge decks and ledges. Here they’re using a road bridge, which evidently works well for them, but railway bridges with all of their attendant vibration are high-risk nest sites.  Collapse and disintegration of the nests are an unhappy fact of life and death for the species.

Cliff Swallows are considered common, yet I don’t see them very often, probably because of their rather preferred habitat. Originally, they were birds of the western mountains, they have spread east and are adapting to man-made structures that substitute for steep canyon walls with overhangs.

Today’s colony is the third that I know of within my 10Km.X10Km. atlas square. And I probably wouldn’t have noticed it had it not been for a lively group of swallows, mostly adults as far as I could tell, alighting along the water’s edge and apparently picking at the soft mud. Adults  are distinctive for having a bright white or cream triangle on the forehead, like a headlight. It seemed to be a social gathering with much wing fluttering and apparently brief, good-natured tussles. I tried for photographs but my results were disappointing, too gloomy or, more likely, too much handshake, but here’s one, for the record…..

 

Scarborough Marsh, Saco, Maine. June 8 2022.  I spent a week in early June birding with Dan, my friend from British Columbia. We travelled to Maine, heading first (with some good birding along the way) through Quebec, Vermont and New Hampshire. Dan had a handful of must-see birds including Bicknell’s Thrush (which led us into a very obscure corner of New Hampshire – without success) and Atlantic Puffin (offshore from Boothbay Harbor Maine. With success). But one other bird species had special appeal, the Saltmarsh Sparrow.  It is an uncommon bird of Atlantic salt-marshes and we were in the right part of Maine to find it.

Scarborough Marsh is a well-known place for Saltmarsh Sparrows and a guide at the marsh’s Audubon Center gave us easy directions, “Follow this road for about a mile. You’ll see a parking lot on the left, park there. Follow the trail out across the marsh. They’re about 400 yards down that trail.” Well his advice put us on the right track, but it turned out to be a very very long 400 yards, and he didn’t mention the little biting flies.

Dan was more driven than I and moved on ahead. I was intrigued by the marsh and its tidal ecology as a whole, specific birds could wait. The tide was low and I paused to admire a Herring Gull foraging for crabs. It paced a bare trickle of water along a narrow tidal creek, all the while peering up and investigating the overhanging vegetation. As I watched, it worked its way up and reached in, several times, to grab a flailing crab.

Taken to the flat bottom, and with one stab of the gull’s bill, the crab was opened up and cleaned out. I was fascinated by the gull’s hunting efficiency and that the vegetative overhang held so many crabs. They were probably European Green Crabs, one of the world’s worst invasive species.

I caught up with Dan and he pointed to a narrow expanse of salt-marsh where another birder said to look for Saltmarsh Sparrows. His tenacity and patience paid off and it wasn’t long before he was able to show me one. A couple of old timber piling made good vantage points for claiming territory, and at least one, perhaps two, used such high spots to make sure their houses were in order.

We both left Scarborough Marsh satisfied with our days’ work.  We could say we’d seen a Saltmarsh Sparrow and I had been intrigued by the Herring Gull’s learned approach to feeding success.

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