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RBG Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON.  September 25, 2024.  Sometimes while birding, I’ll find or see something just a little bit different or special, enough that it kickstarts writing in my head. Often an assemblage of ideas, phrases and half-baked stories finds their way into these posts.

It doesn’t always happen, most days, like today, are just another day’s birding, a nice day in the country. Things happen, birds appear, are noted but not necessarily celebrated.  I walked the valley today and even though the species count wasn’t high there was plenty to savour against a backdrop of early colour changes.

Two birds whose behavior didn’t quite fit the surroundings caught my eye. I was pleased to pick them out as Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, here is one of them. Not the eye-arresting black, white and crimson of a spring male grosbeak, but a tidy pair of buff, cream, and brown youngsters. At this time of year they have an unmistakable squeaky-toy contact note to give away their presence when otherwise they tend to move slowly among thick bushes. It’s been too long since I last saw grosbeaks like these and they were instant Birds of the Day for me.

The day was far from over and dealt more noteworthy sighting. A Peregrine Falcon and a Red–tailed Hawk in a brief and vocal skirmish, the falcon protesting and taking close swipes at the much larger and slower red-tail. What it was all about is anyone’s guess.

A Bald Eagle drifted high overhead, sliding easily along on an unseen path, while at treetop level, a Cooper’s Hawk– or was it a Sharp–shinned Hawk, they’re hard to tell apart, sat stolidly in an old Red Ash. A trio of young Northern Flickers taunted the hawk until it gave futile chase.  I’ve seen this sort of play before, where a hunter is drawn reluctantly into a catch-me-if-you-can game by a group of flickers or jays. I speculate that there is some mutual benefit: the hunter practices or sharpens its chase skills while the teasers know they have enough of a head start to out-run and out-wit the hawk, learning despite the risk that it just may not work out well.

RBG Arboretum, Hamilton. ON.  September 20, 2024.  After a mid-September birding drought, things picked up this morning. I started one of our transect walks on a fine day, a little overcast, not warm but warming. Things went quite well for a long while with dozens of shrieking Blue Jays streaming south-westwards.

Tree and shrub growth is full and thick, and much birding is, of necessity, done by ear. I used to be pretty good at it but hearing loss (hereditary) makes it increasingly probable that I miss some.  I use an app, Merlin, for back up. Merlin quickly matches and announces an i.d from its vast database of birdsong and what the phone’s microphones pick up .  Merlin is a tool, I read off what Merlin has detected and sometimes scratch my head. It may confirm what I already know or suspect, and it often reports species I did not hear. In that case I’ll listen hard, sometimes I hear it and agree, sometimes too late, but other times know that the song or call is too high frequency for me to hear anyway.  I never accept Merlin’s sole opinion as confirmation of a species’ presence.

I paused for a while among tall pines in a quiet woodland and got Merlin to listen with me. It quickly reported: Chipping Sparrow (no?), White-throated Sparrow (possible), Blue Jay (agree), Red–bellied Woodpecker (agree), Pine Warbler (agree), Tufted Titmouse (skeptical), Brown Creeper (possible but too high for my ears), and most amazingly  “Black-capped Chickadee Your Bird of the Day”. Really?

I had not heard a Black-capped Chickadee then, but it was quite possible, even probable but it definitely was not Bird of the Day, not for me.  Not my idea, Merlin evidently thinks Bird of the Day is its new toy. I’m not about to let Merlin, a bundle of algorithms, make that determination.  What Merlin didn’t hear, after I had turned it off in a fit of pique, was a Pileated Woodpecker that called loudly from a little farther back in the woodland.

I watched for but didn’t see the Pileated Woodpecker, now My Bird of the Day. I didn’t need to, I heard Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers this morning, and saw a dozen Red–bellied Woodpeckers and three Northern Flickers (woodpeckers) too. All good solid sightings or sounds.

Valley Inn, Burlington. ON.  September 16, 2024. I don’t chase birds, not anymore, not the way some do. I used to, but as my tastes have changed and the environmental and social cost of yet another car on the roads seems too wasteful, particularly when I feel I’ve seen and hold satisfying memories of most eastern North American birds.

And yet I made a short trip today to see if a recently reported Wilsons’ Phalarope was still there. It wasn’t.  Too bad, it’s been years since I last saw one, they are a dainty and at certain times very pretty shorebird. They winter in South America and breed in the north-western quarter of North America and are only very occasionally seen this far east. This photo of a flock of migrant Wilsons’ Phalaropes in their breeding finery was taken by a colleague in El Salvador some twenty years ago; see what I mean about pretty?

The substitute was the pleasure of watching several Lesser Yellowlegs, a few Killdeers, Great Egrets and an Osprey. The yellowlegs have the same winter/summer distribution as the phalaropes but can be seen across the whole of north America during spring or fall migrations. I enjoyed watching them quite close to me and busily striding, sometimes knee-deep, picking for unseen invertebrates in the mudflats.  They are busy birds and there was quite a bit of anxious vocalization with a short, sharp, almost piercing, keup note. For their charm they were my Birds of the Day.  Both Lessser and Greater Yellowlegs are fairly common at the right time of year but are not often seen together.  Here’s one of each, an instructive  photo from April 2017.

A Great Egret caught my attention as it lowered itself into this curious sitting position. You can easily imagine this posture being appropriate for a bird on its nest and incubating, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this resting position before.

RBG Arboretum, Hamilton. ON.  September 2, 2024.  Today started cool so I wisely pulled on a fleece sweater. The transect was modestly busy with bird life, mostly things I’d expect but two birds made my day. A Yellow-bellied Flycatcher obliged by foraging quite low, almost at eye level, and allowed me to get a handful of decent photos.  It looks rather like the Least Flycatcher of a couple of days ago but is distinctly yellow on its belly and that gives it a bit of pizzaz. It’s been a few years since I last saw one, I don’t think they’re particularly uncommon, but they nest further north across the boreal forest and don’t waste much time on migration either coming of going, they’re probably easily overlooked.

A few moments later a female Black-throated Blue Warbler showed herself briefly. Had it not been for one key field mark I would have scratched my head for a long time and probably shrugged and given up on identification.  The male (on the header above) is distinctive, but the female is definitely not, she’s just about all featureless olive drab, except for a little slash of white on her primary feathers. Both sexes have that white mark but for the male it adds little, while on the female it is diagnostic.

Apart from these two happy finds, there were several times when lingering and enjoying was pleasurable: A few Great Egrets, a young Osprey, a ragged looking Carolina Wren who was obviously in the midst of a molt but singing boldly anyway, and a rather distant shorebird that I concluded was an early southbound Dunlin.

Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON.  August 30, 2024.  Today marked the start of two months of interesting and sometimes intense birding. A team of us will be undertaking transect walks on four roughly circular routes on lands of Canada’s Royal Botanical Gardens. Our task each time is to record all bird species seen and heard, and to estimate abundance.  Our four transects are quite different and variously make their way through woodlands, river  valleys, grasslands and other natural areas. We undertake to collectively complete at least three transects per route, per week. That’s a lot of happy birding: four routes, nine weeks, three times per week.

On this comfortable late summer morning I was half expecting to find a lot of birds, but it was relatively quiet; just yesterday colleagues on other transect routes were challenged with good counts and good variety including many migrant fall warblers. The warm comfort of late summer was enjoyment enough even though the birding was thin. There were dozens (I suspect) of Blue Jays, calling, socializing and building relationships to carry them south in weeks ahead.

It was all a bit routine until I reached a turning point when I caught a glimpse of two Least Flycatchers. There’s nothing particularly head-turning about a Least Flycatcher, they are grey drab, a little reclusive and not at all musical. Perhaps appropriately they have a humble Think-what-you-like-eating-flies-is-what-I-do -attitude. Anyway I was pleased to see them but unable to get an in-focus photo. The shot above is from a spring morning a decade or so ago.

I was still feeling a bit of a glow from the flycatchers when I got my binoculars focused on a little trailside activity, and there was a lovely little Philadelphia Vireo.  I like all vireos for their sometimes-pugnacious air. This little Philly was just getting on with life, making its way south to Central America in due course, no hurry.   It had a bright sulphur yellow breast to cement itself in my books as My Bird of the Day.