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April 28 2012.  It was grasslands birds that I set out to see before the rest of the household was awake; I wanted to see if Upland Sandpipers had returned to a couple of spots I knew.  They had; although they were hard to find at first.  Later on when they’ve established territories they’re often easier to see standing atop a fence post or utility pole keeping watch.  They are not particularly spectacular birds to look at; in fact as sandpipers go they’re a little gawky.  But there’s something about the way they conduct themselves that makes them so endearing.  Not all sandpipers are birds of shores and wetlands and the Upland Sandpiper is one of these exceptions, they like dryish grasslands where they walk around with their compact beady-eyed heads bobbing just above the vegetation tops.  They have a bubbling widdy-wit widdy-wit call, heard as they fly overhead and an incredible wolf whistle of a song:  “ToowlLEEEt –WhEEEELluuw”  that it uses to proclaim its place on Earth; and then to top it off when it alights it briefly raises it wings, tip to tip, like a victorious marathon man.

The Upland Sandpipers were the best of the morning, and of the day, but in those few hours in the field there was much more that caught my attention. A Wilson’s Snipe was staking his claim by flying a high and looping display flight like a roller coaster, and with every slide downwards his wings made the weird winnowing sound, an ethereal rapid hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo.  I could hear him clearly but it was only by scanning with my binoculars that I could see him.  No doubt his beloved was watching enthralled and adoringly from the wet ground below.  An Eastern Meadowlark sang from the tip of a scrubby hawthorn, his chest an astonishingly bright yellow with a black V-neck medallion. Savannah Sparrows were calling from grass stalks and a liquid trilling song had me baffled for a while until I spotted a vividly yellow-throated Horned Larkstumbling through grass clumps. Horned Larks either stay with us all year or are very early to return in mid winter when they like to mix in with Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspur flocks.

Then when the other spring showstoppers arrive the Horned Larks apparently fade into the background to start nesting on sparse wind-blown and snow-streaked  fields.  Today’s was a reminder that they’re still with us and are raising young too. (This picture was taken in January; note the seemingly astonished look on the Snow Bunting. Click on the picture for full sized version.)

April 25 2012. I was pretty sure a Western Grebe would be my Bird of the Day even before I left the house.  I’d heard that one had appeared on Lake Ontario, just a couple of miles away, and while I never (well hardly ever) chase a rarity (and Western Grebe is a rarity), I really wanted to see this bird simply because Western Grebes are elegant.  It’s as simple as that.

I found it okay but it was heading east, swimming just offshore, but fast; it was hard to keep up.  This picture was taken last October in British Columbia where Western Grebes are fairly common.

The weather was so promising that I decided to visit a number of sites, one of them new to me. It was the kind of satisfying bird day with lots of variety.  I visited a rehabilitated quarry where some ponds, woodland edge and rock faces make for an interesting mix of habitat.   There I found Spotted Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlegs and Solitary Sandpiper.

At a large woodland I heard a Brown Creeper and my first House Wren of this year, a Broad-winged Hawk soared overhead.

Hiking below a march of power lines, along a dry upland area of scrub and exposed rock I heard but could not see, a Brown Thrasher and struggled to get a photograph of a Northern Harrier sailing over treetops; the photos I did get were not keepers.  But the day was.

June 2nd. 2011. I have only knowingly seen one living Least Bittern, it was at Long Point on Lake Erie many years ago. It’s quite possible that I’ve been very close to more, they’re so hard to spot and very elusive.  Five or six years ago I found a dead one alongside a busy road that bisects a large cattail marsh not far from home.  I took the time to admire it closely for Least Bitterns are very handsome birds. But admiring a dead bird is a bittersweet experience.  It makes me wonder about our ancestors’ fascination with bird taxidermy, all those glass cases of birds caught in suspended action, their eyes never quite right, either deadly flat or overly bright.

Anyway… that was then and this is now. In late May I was told that Least Bitterns and American Bitterns were to be seen and heard over that same large marsh where I found the road kill some years ago.  I spent an hour or two hours walking the length of the busy road looking and listening.  The road is heavily used, probably not more than a minute goes by without a car or truck passing. The problem with the vehicle traffic, apart from near death experiences, is the noise.  From a mile away the hum of car or truck gets in the way of listening closely for birds, and of course as it approaches the noise pollution only gets worse.

Somehow the birds seem not to mind. At this time of the year they’re busy staking out territory or finding a mate, so seeing birds was not a problem.  Not the birds I’d come seeking, but Sora, Virginia Rails, Marsh Wrens, Green Herons and Great Blue Herons were easy to find and I even suspected a Red-headed Woodpecker calling in the surrounding forest.

I consider hearing a bird to be the equal of seeing it, so I was thrilled to identify the calls of Least Bitterns from three or four locations deep in the marsh.  They call softly, but persistently, it’s best described as a muted ‘poo-poo-poo, poo-poo-poo, poo-poo-poo.”. , These singing Least Bitterns made my day. The call of its congener the American Bittern is weird, it’s hard to find a better adjective and I won’t attempt to characterize it, better you Google it and listen to someone’s recording.

Either Bittern (American or Least) is a wonderful sighting.  They are both secretive and both are threatened by humankind’s practices of destroying their marsh habitat.  In our more ignorant days marshes were seen either as opportunities to drain and cultivate, or backfill to eliminate the nighttime miasmas that caused diseases such as typhus, smallpox, cholera and apoplexy (whatever that was).

August 12th. 2011.  Seeing an Acadian Flycatcher in Southern Ontario is noteworthy, but I probably would not have made much of a deal of it if not for the fact that it was a very late and barely fledged nestling that caught our attention and it explained a mystery bird that I’d been unable to place half an hour earlier.

August is a time to turn your attention to migrant shorebirds.  The Arctic nesters, having raised their broods, are starting to head south and birders check out mudflats and sewage lagoons (more on this another day) in quest of shorebirds: sandpipers, dowitchers and plovers.  My companion and I had spent a couple of hours on the fringes of a local wastewater treatment facility (government-speak for sewage pond) enjoying the varied bird life.  Sitting protected from the wind we’d watched Solitary Sandpipers, Lesser Yellowlegs and Semi-palmated Plovers find delicacies in the half digested human waste. A Northern Harrier swept by sending the shorebirds piping in wheeling flocks and dozens of Bobolinks, the males no longer  dressed in black, white and yellow, fed in the nearby goldenrods and thistles.

But we left that feast of migrants to check out a quiet wooded valley to see what late summer does for trout streams and fern glades. As we explored the forest I heard a constant and metronomic ‘pikk’  ‘pikk’. It was a small bird that hung close but refused to show itself. Frankly I gave up trying to identify it because it doesn’t really matter much what it is; it’s far more important to let it be.

As we went to leave the forest my companion pulled me to an abrupt stop to point out an eye level bird just a few feet ahead of us.  It was juvenile, barely fledged and obviously dependent on parents for food, within moments we could tell that we were intruders in the middle of a family group as more youngsters hopped around and adult birds moved in.

The youngster ahead of us and then the parent that came to feed it were clearly flycatchers, and then it all fit together: Acadian Flycatchers, the habitat and the mystery calls. A delightful Southern Ontario rarity and bird of the day. 

October 11th. 2011.The signature colours of N.W British Columbia in mid-October are gold, orange and yellow set off against the dark expanses of the spruces and mountains. This colour scheme is taken up by the Varied Thrush, a striking bird, similar and closely related to the American Robin, and found in dense, moist coniferous forests. My first fleeting view of a Varied Thrush came this cool morning against a soundscape of rushing mountain streams.

I spent part of the afternoon scanning a still, small lake trying to make out distant birdlife. It was the right time and place because within minutes a Western Grebe paddled past at close quarters. It was my bird of the day. Two Red-necked Grebes and a pair of American Cootes fed not far off, a small group of Lesser Scaup wheeled by in tight formation and in the distance a Black Tern (BLTE) picked food from the lake surface.

The BLTE had been a puzzle to me for several days, I had seen it before but at such a distance that I was far from sure about it. It was swooping in large loops and twists with a light flitting flight, rather like a nighthawk, and making low passes over the water to pick at food. No field guide lent support to the idea that it might be a BLTE, but today it was close enough to make out clearly.  One of the lessons of this week (learned with Sandhill Cranes and now BLTE) is that the field guides are rather sketchy about range when it comes to places like the interior of British Columbia.

Anyway, here’s the Western Grebe.