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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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Safari Road Marsh, Flamborough. ON. June 5 2022. There is a wide marsh, bisected by a busy road, about 40 minutes drive from home. It’s a good place to look for American and Least Bitterns, Virginia Rails, Sora and Common Gallinules, they’re all there. Given peace and quiet you’ll usually meet with some success.

I’m not sure what ‘they’ were thinking when the road was imposed upon the marsh a hundred years or so ago, it must have had a huge impact on the wildlife at the time,  tons of gravel poured in and laid down to make a road bed. And tarmac too in time. But decades on, we birders value that obscene scar on the landscape. We value it for the birding access it affords despite the speeding traffic, beer-can litter and road-killed frogs, turtles, snakes and birds.

I went there this morning and found that the road had been closed to traffic, it was barricaded and detours set up. High water and a tough winter had deteriorated the road surface to the point that the local roads department had deemed it unsafe for vehicular traffic; but importantly it was okay for walking birders.  I was there a bit after first light and other than bird song, the distant coughs of lions at a safari park, and the crackly trail of small planes high overhead, it was all very peaceful.

I was lucky enough to watch a Virginia Rail pace across the road, but it was nervous and soon ducked into thick cattails and was gone. I could hear Common Gallinules singing in maniacal cackles and maybe best of all Marsh Wrens announcing their hold on a patches of reed-bed.

Around me, Barn and Tree Swallows swept the air for flying insects, a Sandhill Crane and a couple of Great Blue Herons laboured by and two Blue–winged Teal were a colourful surprise as they leapt out of the water showing off the wide blueness of their wings in flight.

Marsh Wrens can be a bit quick to take flight so I count myself lucky that this one, above and below, posed patiently, and steadily enough for me to photograph it. Perhaps it was just determined that I should understand its place in the marsh and mine on the roadside. In any event it was My Bird of the Day.