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June 18 2012. I spent the early daylight hours of today in an old-growth forest preserve near Lake Erie helping a university undergraduate with a research project.  My job was to do point counts which are a widely used technique for research into bird populations.  The point counter’s task is to identify and record all birds seen or heard within a 100M radius and within a limited time period (usually ten minutes).  It can be quite a mental workout to listen, focus, separate one call from another and identify the species. While few birds are visible now that the trees are fully leafed, out many are actively singing to mark the limits of their breeding territories.  Different species’ territories overlap without conflict so there can easily be several different birds close at hand and all singing at once.    Interestingly when I step away from the point count site some songs are quickly absorbed by the forest while others ring loud and clear and carry a long way.

I had four different point counts to do, two at each station.  The list of birds at the first station included the clear songs of: Black-throated Green Warbler, Wood Thrush, Veery, Scarlet Tanager and Ovenbird. But there were many distant fragments, many part songs, clucks and chips.  I was able to clinch a Pine Warbler after a while but could not be sure whether a few soft ‘pips’ belonged to an Acadian Flycatcher; then far off I caught the tight tangle of high pitched trills of a Winter Wren.  I strained, blocking out everything else until I heard it again and then yet again, a little louder each time.

Winter Wrens are among my favourite birds. As simply the Wren they were familiar to me in my English childhood, I admired them as small busybodies who would appear and disappear like a mouse. The male builds compact domed nests which we would occaisionally find, sometimes in a crevice among the mass of roots of an upturned tree, in a stream bank or perhaps the corner of an old shed.  The male Winter Wren builds several nests, each tucked carefully and tidily into a compact hiding space and when complete the female is offered her pick from a range of desirable residences.

Until fairly recently Europe’s Wren was considered to be the same species as America’s Winter Wren, both Troglodytes troglodytes; an amusingly Tolkienesque name.  But recent study has led to some splitting of the species; so from T. troglodytes has come T. hiemalis (Winter Wren) and T.pacificus (Pacific Wren); and perhaps more to follow.

At our second station, where we also found a Common Yellowthroat and a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers, a Winter Wren, probably the same bird, came close to us and singing at intervals as he checked his fences lines. I caught sight of him eyeing us cautiously, evidently our point-count site intruded into his territory and with his assertive songs he made sure we knew it.  Winter Wrens are usually considered to nest farther north spreading well into the boreal forest zone, so seeing and hearing one today was both notable and welcome.

June 14 2012.  This morning I led a small group to see what we could find in an area of bogs, swamps and dry fields.  A beautiful June day in every respect with an interesting selection of birds including: Common Yellowthroat, Cedar Waxwings, Eastern Kingbirds, Spotted Sandpipers and Green Herons.  All nice to see but not exceptional.

Two sparrow species stood out as special today, even though we couldn’t see them, only hear them: a White-throated Sparrow was singing deep in a tamarack and spruce bog.  He was special because we are really quite a long way south of the White-throated Sparrows breeding range, but the particular area we were exploring bears many similarities to more northern landscapes, so the white throats are content to stay.  I think he was my Bird of the Day just for being here and entertaining us with his patriotic ‘Oh sweet Canada Canada Canada’ song.  At least that’s what Canadians like to make of the song  while Americans (I think) prefer: ‘Old Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody’.  I started wondering who Sam Peabody is, or was, and found a real live one in New York; and for what it’s worth he’s described as: “.. the scion of an old New England family and husband of the socialite Judy Peabody.”

Several Swamp Sparrows were calling loudly on the edges of small marshes. A decade ago when I was doing survey work for the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas, I became very familiar with the range and variation in the song of Swamp Sparrows.  The songs are all basically the same rapid-fire loud chip notes, about a dozen in quick succession fading towards the end, but they vary from a mellow, even discreet trill like an upgraded Chipping Sparrow, to a slower almost shouting, two-note “  Tchinga tchinga tchinga tchinga tchinga tchinga….”.

Probably our best encounter was with a small group of Showy Lady Slippers growing on the opposite side of a small creek.  These orchids are very pretty and consequently they’re often the targets of gardeners who figure they can grow them in their back yard; but rarely if ever succeed.  As victims of their own success they’ve become quite rare, we were privileged to see them .

June 8 2012.  “So what was your Bird of the Day today?” My companion asked as we drove home.  Hmmmm. Well, I kind of liked the female Wood Duck with her two babes, but the Savannah Sparrow was really unusual and showed no fear of us, and the two sparring Spotted Sandpipers were quite a spectacle; and then there was a surprising Purple Finch on the tip of a tamarack.  Hard to decide.

We’d had a long day in the field, most of the morning was spent helping a university student with a project involving bird populations.  It was there that we saw the female Wood Duck. We were watching over a pond when first, a female Mallard with about eight well-grown youngsters erupted out of hiding, quacking and paddling furiously away from the edge of the pond, and then a Wood Duck and two ducklings followed squealing and panicked.  I caught a momentary glimpse of a Red Fox following along the bank; presumably it had tried an ambush.  Female Wood Ducks have eye make-up to rival Cleopatra, long sweeping teardrop lines emphasize their doe-eyes. From this human male’s point of view they are very cute but just a bit too precious at times.

In the afternoon we were exploring an abandoned water-filled quarry and sat for a while to enjoy the sounds and coolness of a fresh water spring.  As we sat quietly, about fifty meters away two Spotted Sandpipers started an elaborate and energetic face to face display.  Spotted Sandpipers are pretty diminutive birds but in an effort to look bigger both raised themselves on tiptoe, puffed up their shoulders and flashed their underwings.  Sometimes it seemed to be a display of aggression and at other times maybe courtship, but the eventual arrival of a third bird into the mix convinced us that we’d been watching two males sparring over one female; and all that goes along with that.  Watching the display reminded me of a similar confrontation I’d seen last year between two male Pectoral Sandpipers, I could never figure out what that scrap was all about since the birds had left their Arctic breeding grounds and were well on their way south; perhaps their ‘she’s mine’ hormones were still at work.

I think though that the Bird of the Day was the Savannah Sparrow that was cooling its feet and drinking in the nearby fresh water spring. It seemed an odd place for a Savannah Sparrow, we usually associate them with the margins of dry field where they perch atop a post or scrubby branch and sing their appropriately dry song: “Tsit Tsit Tsit Tsit Tsit-Seeeeeeeeee -zah.”  This photo shows quite clearly the bold yellow area that runs from the beak back and over the eyes; without that it might easily be taken for a Song Sparrow.

June 7 2012. This Bird of the Day Northern Waterthrushwas anxiously patrolling its nest site as I made my way through a rich hardwood forest this morning.  It was carrying a succulent morsel for its nestlings and my presence was clearly unwelcome.  I stopped for a minute as it flitted around from branches to ground and back up. In that time I managed to get this shot, but it was quite tricky in the low dappled light and with the bird moving around so quickly.

I spent 2 or 3 hours of the early morning, as stand in for another birder, conducting a survey of forest birds.  He is out of the country for a while, but for nearly twenty-five years has maintained the same string of 5 survey stations; it would be a pity to let it drop now, so I agreed to take on this year’s survey effort. These and many other sites are monitored annually under a province-wide initiative called the Forest Bird Monitoring Programme (FBMP).  Under FBMP fixed sites are visited twice every year in the late spring and early summer, and at each visit the observer records all birds seen and heard within a one hundred meter radius.  The sampling is done by point counts whereby the observer remains at the fixed station to record his/her observations over a period of ten minutes.  Most of the identification is only possible by identifying songs and calls; few birds let themselves be seen.

This particular mature forest has lots of standing water, a good mix of hardwood trees and plenty of understory saplings and shrubs.  It was quite brisk when I started at 7a.m; but had the weather had been warm the mosquito hordes would have been a nuisance. This damp, cool, early June freshness made the walk pleasant, if rigorous, and the forest was full of assertive territorial songs; there was plenty to hear and enjoy.

I stopped at Station A and set a timer for ten minutes, in that time I heard fourteen different and distinguishable birds (seven species) either singing or calling.  My notes for that station included Eastern Wood Peewees, American Robins, Northern Waterthrushes and Great-crested Flycatchers; all of them singing or calling.  The species mix contained many of the same at each of the 5 stations and the morning also included Chestnut-sided Warblers, Scarlet Tanagers, Veerys, Red-eyed Vireos, Ovenbird, Blue-winged Warbler and Wood Thrush. Twenty species in all.

I’ll be repeating the process again later this month.  Things will have changed, there will likely be a lot more activity from parent birds feeding fledglings, and it will be interesting to compare which species were evident today but not next time, and vice versa. Collecting, compiling and analyzing the data builds a greater picture of trends in bird populations, and therein the purpose of the FBMP.

June 5 2012.  I am taking part in a bit of Citizen Science, doing Marsh Monitoring. As a Marsh Monitor I am one of thousands collecting data on the abundance of amphibians and birds in marshes around the Great Lakes.  Last night my wife and I were doing a final abundance count of frogs in a nice compact cattail marsh not far from home.  The count had to be done at least half an hour after sunset, so that put us on station around 9.30.  It was a warmish and still evening with no mosquitoes; all you could ask for really when it comes to hanging around squishy wet areas.

In the middle of my second count, with the light so weak I could hardly see the page to make my notes, I spotted an oblong shape in the top of a dead Elm; something new. I pointed to it and said to my time-keeping wife: What’s that?”  Before she could get the binoculars up to her eyes a Great Horned Owl swept down and did a fast silent arc low over the marsh.  A scurry of anxious plopping noises confirmed that the frogs knew all about the dangers of an owl.  And then it was gone, invisible against the dark trees ringing the marsh.

A few minutes later as we packed up to leave, my wife said: “I wish we could get one more look.”  And with that it swept past us.  A low, dark and round-winged shape; then gone again.