Category: Uncategorized

August  14 2012. Hamilton ON. Cootes Paradise.  A heavy blanket of rain swept over us in the middle of the day.  Afterwards I happened to read a hotline report of an adult Bald Eagle seen nearby and thought I’d go and have a look.  Well, I didn’t see the eagle, and that’s okay because there was plenty more to see, in fact my cramped field notebook was soon overflowing.

Arriving at the shore of a large muddy and shallow lake I heard the peevish “Chip chip chip chip” of an Osprey and looked up to see it patrolling closely along the shoreline.  Hey! bird of the day I thought.  But a little later as I stood on a large platform lookout, a Least Flycatcher popped up to see what I was doing there, it paused just long enough for me to satisfy myself that it was a Least and not a Willow or Alder or some other look-alike Flycatcher; nice I thought; maybe that’s really my bird of the day.

I walked on down to a boardwalk that leads out through a cattail marsh to a platform overlooking expansive mudflats.  Maybe the mid-day rains had brought the birds down,  but whatever the reason the mudflats were lively with interesting birds.  Least Sandpipers filled in the gaps between legions of Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs, and one of the Greater Yellowlegs appeared to have lost a leg; posing the question I suppose of whether it was still appropriately named. Nevertheless it seemed to be quite able; if it were not it would have perished long ago.

Herons were represented by 9 Great Egrets, a single Black–crowned Night Heron and a couple of Great Blue Herons.  Lots of Mallards and just as many Green–winged Teal were shuffling around in the shallow silty margins.  Its quite striking how small Green-winged Teal are, they’re perhaps two-thirds the size of Mallards, and bodywise the same size as a Greater Yellowlegs. They are also a very pretty duck, even now when they’re going through their late summer moult they have very warm chestnut speckling on their backs and breasts.

But best birds were a distant Short–billed Dowitcher (which really should have been examined through a telescope just in case it’s a Long-billed, but with the weight of probability on my side, I feel safe in my identification.) And quite close to me, my last and final candidate for Bird of the Day, a Black–bellied Plover.  They’re quite unmistakable, in profile they have the classic sturdy look of most plovers, and Black-bellied Plovers could almost be described as thuggish looking except that they have innocent doe-like eyes that seem to render them harmless.  This one was in the middle of its post breeding moult, its handsome black belly feathers were more or less all gone making it rather less handsome than usual, but still it was nicely speckled in black, grey and white.

This Short-billed Dowitcher was one of the many I photographed in May.

August 13 2012. Normandale ON. Feeling a little starved of in-the-field time I visited a favourite forest preserve today.  I’m working on fern identification skills and this particular piece of unspoiled forest is one of the botanically richest in Ontario.  It is also known as a great birding spot but even it is not immune to the bird doldrums of August.

The fern expedition was a success, I added a couple more species that I think I can now identify if asked, but the quid pro quo is that some fern species that I thought I knew I am no longer so sure of.  It’s like getting to know difficult birds like vireos and sparrows all over again. This 6-inch high fern was new to me and I believe it to be a Ternate Grape Fern; but there’s a good chance I’ll change my mind about it another day.

Today’s list of birds was varied and interesting and short enough not to be tedious in the re-telling:  A Yellow-billed Cuckoo calling slowly and deliberately: “cowp cowp cowp”. A Red–eyed Vireo high and distant and sounding tired of summer. Blue Jays flitting in the treetops. A couple of Red–bellied Woodpeckers, which for a bird that can seem so omnipresent much of the year, has been quiet for the past two or three months.  Today I heard them again, their edgy “Chak chak” contact notes remind of the European Jackdaw. A Pileated Woodpecker, I only heard it to begin with, it was bashing away methodically at a something high above, then I caught sight of movement between branches, its bright red crest and moustache caught my eye and then I could see chips of wood flying as it kept whacking away . Somewhere a young Red–tailed Hawk was calling for food and parental attention and in the distance I just caught the song of an Eastern Tufted Titmouse.

The Bird of the Day was an Ovenbird that watched me carefully from about 10 feet overhead.  You hear Ovenbirds a lot in spring and early summer, their ringing “Tea-cher Tea-cher TEAcher TEACHER “ song increases in volume with each phrase and comes from the forest floor where they build their oven-shaped nest.  But actually seeing an Ovenbird can be pretty hit and miss so it was an unexpected treat.

It was an overcast day and very gloomy at forest-floor level but I managed to photograph some interesting ferns and a rather stunning mushroom.  Below is what I think is a Parasol mushroom or Lepiota procera.  As to edibilty, my field guide to mushroom lists it as “choice with caution”, and says: “Parasol  is a favourite edible among experienced mushroom hunters.”  I’ll leave it to them.

August 8, 2012. This entry may be more about decaying industrial landscapes than birds, but I make no apologies.  I live close to a major heavy-industry city, a place of steel mills (one of them mothballed), fading manufacturing and gritty neighbourhoods.  Industry settles in places with the most favourable combination of the factors of production: Land, Labour & Capital.  It so happens that these happened to converge at one of Mother Nature’s most beautiful and wildlife rich places on the Great Lakes.

Today, concentric circles of urbaniztion start at the industrial core, encircled by wreaths of transportation facilities: a deepwater harbour, 6–lane highways and railways, and after that lies housing and eventually, fully withdrawn from the smokestacks, suburban sprawl.  Beyond it all lies farmland and countryside, which I think, I’ve sketched effectively in my About Me and This Collection page.

All of this to set the stage for an early morning stop at the side of a busy service road to take a look into a large and unpleasant pond that is a happy home to hundreds of Double-crested Cormorants, a few dozen Mallards and many juvenile Black–crowned Night Herons. It was not a nice place to stand and even as I write this I imagine little tickly things crawling inside my socks and around my bare summer legs; at least I hope it’s just my imagination..

I’m sure the cormorants’ mothers love them, but that may be the extent of it.  As I watched them I looked for their redeeming features: They are graceful in flight, Really good swimmers and Expert fisherbirds.  They’re kind of elegant too in their glossy, slightly iridescent plumage and, well I think the first of these picture has a barbed-wire beauty about it.

The Black-crowned Night Herons around the pond were all youngsters, not nearly as elegant as their gray, black and cream coloured parents; but that‘ll come in time, provided they survive the winter months ahead. Some of them were hanging at the edge of the water waiting patiently for a meal; others were roosting quietly, deep within some of the scrubby trees that struggle to survive in this harsh and unloved place.  They’re wary birds night-herons, but I managed to get a picture of one before he stalked uneasily away into the darker recesses of his tree.  Daytime is Night Heron bedtime and it really just wanted to go back to bed.

August 7, 2012.  Many years ago a seasoned birder told me that winter birding is far better than mid-summer birding.  I didn’t, and still don’t, believe him, but I understand why he thought that. Where have all the birds gone?

At the end of another hot day I went to see what was happening along one of my favourite woodland trails, – not much as it turns out.  This trail is one of three I enjoy, all of which start out on high ground with spectacular long views across quiet farmland, then descend quickly to cut across a flat, densely wooded swamps; swamps which a month ago were ringing to the songs of Wood Thrushes, Veerys, Canada Warblers and Northern Waterthrushes.  But not tonight; in fact very few songbirds tonight.  Where have they all gone?

So this woodland walk was something of a letdown although I did find a family of Wood Duck on a small pond, was buzzed by a female Ruby–throated Hummingbird and challenged noisily by an Eastern Kingbird.  I love kingbirds’ pugilistic attitude, their chittering in-flight challenge sounds like a couple of small pebbles rattling in an empty old tin can, and when delivered from their fluttery, almost stand-still flight it says: “I’m watching you. Approach at your peril.” And chastened by the kingbird I left to see what shorebirds might be visible in the fading evening light on the mudflats of a nearby reservoir.

This second stop was enjoyable perhaps more on account of the late-day cooling, quiet roadside and evening light than the birds, which were a touch too far away for binocular birding.  But I was able to note: Osprey, Killdeer, Green-winged Teal, Caspian Tern, Lesser Yellowlegs and, as my Bird of the Day, a Green Heron.  The Green Heron first caught my eye as it fluttered to a landing atop a distant tree stump, but it was so far away and so apparently small that I wondered for a while whether I was seeing a Least Bittern. The setting was quite wrong for a Least Bittern for they are reclusive deep-cover marsh birds, but with our sustained drought affecting water levels, bizarre things sometimes happen; and it was the apparent size that had me thinking about a possible exception to the rule.  Well I was saved from a sleepless night of torment, wondering ‘was it or wasn’t it’, by the arrival of an amiable fellow birder who quickly slapped his telescope onto the bird and confirmed Green Heron. A lesser ranked sighting than a Least Bittern, but still a good bird well seen and well identified; and it enriched a midsummer evening.

August 3 2012.  Today we ventured to check a highly regarded shorebirding spot, a large fossil encrusted shelf of flat rock near a long sandy beach on the north shore of Lake Erie.  On this hot August day the beach was busy and perhaps the sunbathers had the better deal.  Although we found plenty of shorebirds the price was rather high: No shade, a scorching sun and a throat-tightening raw-sewage smell from dense mats of decomposing algae. The birds found a plentiful supply of food here, our sightings included many Greater Yellowlegs stepping daintily as if offended by the prospect of their feet getting wet or dirty, they appeared somehow more delicate than their cousins the Lesser Yellowlegs.  A few Pectoral Sandpipers, a pair of baffling Sanderlings in worn plumage and some Spotted Sandpipers added to the mix.

And then there were the Semi-palmated birds.  We regularly see Semi–palmated Sandpipers and Semi–palmated Plovers around here. The adjective semi-palmated refers to partial webbing between their toes, not something you’re very likely to see in the field; although I suppose in the days of birding by shotgun it was a good distinguishing field mark. Semi-palmated Sandpipers were everywhere, they can be devilishly difficult to distinguish from Least Sandpipers (which weren’t), both being little brown shorebirds that wander around mudflats and shores in large numbers picking at invertebrate delicacies. A handful of Semi-palmated Plovers enchanted us too, they look like miniature Killdeers and because they’re so immaculately turned out they were my Bird of the Day, displacing a couple of immature Orchard Orioles seen a little earlier.

It was a productive day with around fifty species seen and/or heard including Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and Carolina Wren. And as we started our homeward journey we stopped beside a small pond that held a dozen Wood Ducks, many of them youngsters led by adults in the midst of a dreary moult. Usually Wood Ducks very quickly head for cover or take flight, but the pond was so completely covered with bright green Duckweed that they hardly moved.