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September 3 2012. Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON. I had quite forgotten what a richness of bird species there is to enjoy on a good day at a good bird observatory.  Today was my first opportunity to return to my favourite bird observatory to lend a hand this the fall season.  Bird observatory activities including census taking, mist-netting and banding continues daily throughout September and October.

To refresh, the observatory is located in the grounds of a splendid 19^th Century neo-classical country house that would look quite National Trustish in England but is little short of jaw-dropping in 21^st Century Ontario. The grounds include several acres of wide alluvial river flats, a network of heavily wooded creek valleys, open farm fields and upland forests. This is perforce a very brief introduction; you can read lots more about it and get completely absorbed for hours by visiting its website here and nature blog here.

On my arrival early this morning it was already busy and I was put to work banding a young Scarlet Tanager.  Then a check of the nets turned up Red–eyed Vireo, Philadelphia Vireo, Winter Wren, Yellow–billed Cuckoo, Magnolia Warbler and Ovenbird to name but a few of what I remember.

It sometimes/ often / usually /always falls to me to do the daily census.  A task that keeps me out of harm’s way for a couple of hours and fills a page or two with a list of all birds seen or heard on a walk around a prescribed route.  I am usually accompanied by visitors, sometimes they’re birders, sometimes not, but many eyes and ears are always helpful.

Today we had some great sightings; a single Yellow–billed Cuckoo (not the one banded just before we left the banding lab), many Eastern Wood Peewees singing.  A couple of Red–eyed Vireos were in the sparse branches of a dead spruce and close to about 20 Cedar Waxwings feeding on the abundant blue-grey fruit of a Red Cedar. Along the river a family of four, maybe five, Osprey were patrolling up and down, the parents looking for food to keep their insistent youngsters happy.  A pair of Wood Duck flew by and then shortly afterwards three Green-winged Teal.  On a gravel-bar in the river were 16 Killdeer, 2 Lesser Yellowlegs and a single Spotted Sandpiper.  Then, perhaps the event of the day, an adult Bald Eagle closely chased one of the Ospreys pressing home a point of proprietorship that I never did figure out.

My Birds of the Day were three Chimney Swifts seen circling above the banding lab. Swifts always make me stop and stare because they are irrefutably birds of summer, always flying in high-wheeling chase above us, twittering busily and living a perpetually airborne life.  If given the chance I think I’d like to be reincarnated as a swift.

August 31 2012. Lowville ON. We decided to see what early migrants we could find along a quiet, well wooded river valley.  And except for the rather brisk wind, it was really quiet; the trees and understory plants seemed to have had enough of summer and drought.  Still, there were some interesting birds around.  One of our first finds was a couple of Scarlet Tanagers, both dingy olive-green: an adult female in scruffy molt and an indeterminate youngster. Several Magnolia Warblers, distinct with their bright and faintly streaked yellow breasts, more-or-less eye ring and sharply black-and-white underside of the tail.  My companion with his sharp young eyes also found a Yellow–bellied Flycatcher, a Canada Warbler and a Ruby–throated Hummingbird.

At a break in the tree canopy we looked up to see a soaring hawk wheeling above us which we both immediately took as a Red-tailed Hawk, but as it turned and fanned its tail I could see horizontal bars across it.  Not  Red-tailed Hawk at all, this was a young albeit rather colourless, Red–shouldered Hawk.  Red-shoulders are not rare but they’re not common either; they breed in our general area but their preferred habitat of large expanses of wet woodlands has become increasingly scarce.  Our populations of Red-shouldered Hawks are seasonal migrants and winter in Texas and farther south into Mexico.  But perhaps they prefer to be around here as they are one of the first hawks to return in March while there’s snow on the ground, and the reflected illumination off the snow lights up their robin-red under-wings to dramatic effect.  It was my Bird of the Day even though we ended our hot walk with a close encounter with a Sharp–shinned Hawk and a fleeting glimpse of a stubby- bodied rounded-winged bird flying high and fast overhead, an American Woodcock I believe.

August 30 2012.  Long Point, ON. An on-again off-again family task took me to Lake Erie today and to one of Canada’s best birding hotspots.  Bird Studies Canada operates bird observatories at Long Point, one out on a tip of land in the middle of Lake Erie, another one close to a heavily used camping, cottage and party area.  We spent an hour or so at the latter observatory and watched the team of volunteers checking the mist nets, extracting trapped birds and banding them. While we watched they handled two or three of Black–throated Blue Warblers, a couple of American Redstarts, a young House Wren, a Magnolia Warbler and a Red–eyed Vireo.

At a marsh lookout platform we watched a female Marsh Hawk quartering the wide expanse of cattails and sloughs, and far in the distance a large group of Turkey Vultures was circling and playing in a column of rising warm air.

A stop at some sewage lagoons turned up some interesting groups of shorebirds, mostly Lesser Yellowlegs and Least Sandpipers with a couple of Pectoral Sandpipers for variety.

Out in the deeper water a dozen or so Lesser Yellowlegs were swimming and behaving like phalaropes, which was at first rather confusing because three Red-necked Phalaropes were nearby, also swimming and also, quite properly, feeding like phalaropes.  The confusion was cleared when the yellowlegs rejoined their companions and I was then able to concentrate on the phalaropes and make out the rather fine distinctions between these Red-necked Phalaropes and the Wilson’s Phalaropeof a couple of days ago.  The adjective ‘Red-necked’ only truly applies during their brief courtship and breeding season of April, May and June, otherwise they are mostly grey and white, and strikingly similar to the Wilson’s.  A fairly bold smudge of black behind the eye marked these birds as Red-necked.

Just because I’d never knowingly seen them before, these fascinating Red-necked Phalaropes were my Birds of the Day.

August 28 2012.  Woodland Cemetery Hamilton ON.  The past 24 hours has seen a change in weather, which has given the birds a migratory push.  This afternoon after sitting through an indoor presentation about hiking in Peru I spent an hour or so in a nearby area of rock outcrops and scattered trees and shrubs; actually a cemetery.  It is strategically placed along the Lake Ontario shoreline so birds are sort of funneled through it, and the spacing and variety of trees makes for quite rich bird viewing in late summer and fall.

I sat for a while in a microburst of migrants and noted Black and White, Magnolia, Black-throated Green and Pine Warblers, a deliciously peachy-gold marked female American Redstart , a Blue–gray Gnatcatcher and a couple of Philadelphia Vireos.  They were all difficult to hold in my field of view because they were jumping and flitting around busily fuelling up on high protein insects.  Here’s a photo of a Black-throated Green Warbler taken in May.

I heard the clear song of a Black–throated Blue Warbler; “Zhrurr zhrurr zhree”, a sound I haven’t heard since May and it sure caught my attention. Moments later I was treated to a long look at a full-colour male, handsome with his blue back, white belly, black face and throat and the diagnostic little square of white on his primary wing feathers.  It was a pleasant hour or so anyway but this Bird of the Day made it extra special.

August 26, 2012. Cootes Paradise, Hamilton ON.  Dams and other devices at its downstream, east end artificially control the water level in Lake Ontario. So what’s good for shipping balanced in the context of rainfall, generally sets the tone for water levels from end to end.  One of my best birding spots this year has been a large expanses of mud flats at the extreme west end of the lake; the shorebirds love it there.  This morning I went out early to see what may be around on a small, just-emerging mud-bar, I found a vantage point with the sun at my back and was astonished at the numbers of birds out there.

Caspian Terns noisily dominated the area but dozens of Lesser Yellowlegs prowled around picking hungrily.  Some, like this one, came quite close to my shore and allowed close study.

A careful sweep of the mudflat turned up a couple of Stilt Sandpipers, a Short–billed Dowitcher, several Semi-palmated Sandpipers and best of all, indeed Bird of the Day, was a graceful Wilson’s Phalarope.  This was a teachable moment self-taught.  It was too far off to photograph, but I was able to make some field notes including “pinkish/yellow legs, clear white under, small eyeline”.  There are three phalarope species: Wilson’s, Red, and Red-necked.  In their Arctic breeding plumage they’re quite distinctively different, but they soon molt back to their basic nine-months-of-the-year attire when, at a distance, they all look much alike.  The lesson learned today was the value of my written field observation of the pinkish/yellow legs. Oh, there are other determining and distinguishing details like extent and definition of the eye-line and darkness of the upper body, but good viewing conditions may make or break the reliability of these.  Leg colour is diagnostic for a Wilson’s Phalarope.