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Bernal, Querétaro, Mexico  November 2. 2021. I write this having just returned from a birding journey with a small group of friends exploring Mexico’s Sierra Gorda, a series of mountain ranges three hours north-east of Mexico City.

For Rodrigo, our leader, it was his first return there since Covid had paralysed the travel and tourism business around the world. He knew where to take us and what to expect and had arranged a 10-day itinerary rich in cultural, natural and scenic texture. Inevitably we were testing the post-covid waters a bit to see how well the people and facilities had come through. We needn’t have worried, we found eagerly welcoming, warm and well-prepared people everywhere.

Bernal is a busy, modern town with an old-world Mexican heart. It is dominated and overseen by La Peña de Bernal an ancient volcano core, an unmissable point of reference.

We hiked around the base of La Peña on our first morning. As is always the case in new-to-me places, I was forever being stopped in my tracks to examine and wonder at plants, spiders, butterflies, and the like (as well as birds), things that were exciting to me but were probably commonplace to locals.

Over dinner at the end of this first full day of birding, I canvassed the table asking, ‘What was your bird of the day today?”  There was plenty of variety including a colourful Townsend’s Warbler, a subtle Ash–throated Flycatcher, a faraway Black-vented Oriole and an ever-dramatic Vermilion Flycatcher.

My choice was this Phainopepla seen and photographed commanding the world from atop a thorny bush. No-one argued, it was a beauty, not showy but elegant and apparently always a valued sighting.

I have never used this site to advertise, but Rodrigo, through his company Travelian Tours delivered such a first class 10-day experience that I can’t let it go without recognizing and recommending him, his expertise and attention to detail.

Woodland Cemetery, Burlington, ON. November 2. 2021. Early November brings abrupt changes after the sometimes heady days of October,  now we meet reminders of winter to come. Not that it’s particularly cold these past two days but the skies are troubled and stirred by buffeting north-westerly winds.  November is when the last of our south-bound migrants had better get a move on.  Birders know these days for good sightings of birds of prey on the move: eagles and falcons in particular.

Not far from home, there is an elevated horseshoe of land that looks east and west over stretches of open water.  Choose the right wind on the right day and these are good places to watch for migrant birds of all shapes and sizes.  The cemetery is particularly good on days of strong westerly winds.

Yesterday a friend spent half a morning scanning the skies for some of those birds of prey, I turned down his suggestion that I might consider joining him, claiming that tidying the attic was more important. He sent me this brief text around lunchtime, “Adult GOEA just went over.” GOEA is shorthand for Golden Eagle, just about the Holy Grail of birding. Well, that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Today those strong westerlies continued, chilly winds that made finding a good windbreak important. I spent an hour or so in a such a spot watching for large birds on the move. I admired a pair of local Bald Eagles, an adult and a youngster, riding and slip-sliding the updrafts and a young Red-tailed Hawk hanging motionless on those same airs.  And then came My Bird of the Day, a Peregrine Falcon. Circling overhead, one moment behind trees, next moment spiralling high up, it moved too fast for me to get a photograph. But no matter, a peregrine is a treat any day.

RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. October 22^nd 2021. I was captivated today by a bunch of Yellow-rumped Warblers who put the icing on the cake of a late season transect.  The transect was a pleasure in its own right with a first-of-fall Fox Sparrow, a long stream of migrating Turkey Vultures and an all too brief, flash-by Cooper’s Hawk.

I had wrapped it up, had dropped my binoculars, camera and notebook in the car and was ready to leave when I noticed birds moving around in the tree nearby. Investigating bird movement is something I do a lot of so, I paused and saw that Yellow-rumped Warblers and American Robins were all over those trees. Two Amur Cork Trees (I think) were loaded with bunches of wrinkling black berries and nearby was a Catalpa, still covered with heart-shaped leaves, it was the warblers’ occasional refuge.

Well it wasn’t much of a mystery, there was lots of food to be had here: The desiccating berries were attracting insects, presumably for the sugars, and robins who gulped them down whole. The warblers, in turn, were there for the insects.  

Yellow–rumped Warblers are eye-catching in spring but much less so in fall; now they are quite subtle and can easily be overlooked or mis-identified. Many times, I’ve peered hard at a small, busy and undistinguished bird high in branches and been relieved to finally catch a glimpse of the bold yellow rump, it is diagnostic. When you get to appreciate them more closely and more slowly, as I did today, then the soft yellow blush somewhere around its armpits, adds another touch of welcome colour.

I got lots of decent photos and include a few of today’s Yellow–rumped Warbler Birds of the Day.

Burlington and Hamilton ON. October 18^th. 2021. I spent a morning birding with two friends, a marvellous, thirty-five-species morning that included a single late migrating Blackpoll Warbler, a handful of shy Hermit Thrushes , a couple of high-overhead Red–shouldered Hawks, handfuls of Golden and Ruby–crowned Kinglets, Blue Jays, a Sharp–shinned Hawk, two Blue–headed Vireos and at least one Yellow–bellied Sapsucker.

The day started with a sombre assembly of early morning Turkey Vultures gathered on a transmission tower. I pulled over to get this photo of one that has spread its wings to the sun.

A little later as we started our days birding, a spiralling column of Turkey Vultures rose and assembled from behind a woodland, twenty at first then another thirty, rising on a column of warm air, turning and circling until they found the top floor and then slid away, one after the other, gliding and sliding westward with scarcely a wing flap.

There was hardly a moment in the day without a few vultures in the sky. And all because we’ve been overtaken by a change in the weather that started with a drenching but is now made of dramatic skies, colder temperatures and a brisk west wind. Birds take these cold fronts as their cue to head for the exit. Perhaps the last big autumn rush of the year is now on; many smaller birds slip by unseen at night but larger birds: eagles, vultures, buteos, accipiters, and falcons fly by day.  

I was inspired to write this when, late-afternoon, a neighbour came knocking at our door to tell me he’d seen seventy vultures circling over his house. He wanted to know the whole story: who, what, why, when, and where. As we talked, more vultures, a dozen in ones and twos, drifted over. It dawned on me then that this day belongs to Turkey Vultures.

RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. October 13^th. 2021. I started to write this on Sunday, three days ago, because, while conducting one of our morning transects I had happened to see two Soras. They were quite unexpected, definitely post-worthy and in some ways a puzzle piece that had been missing for years.

Soras are rails. To expand on that a little bit, rails are chicken-like birds of marshes, sometimes heard but infrequently seen. They are elusive, perhaps not intentionally, because they spend their days deep within large expanses of reeds, bulrushes and cattails, picking their way through in search of food: seeds and wriggly, soft-bodied invertebrates. There is really no reason for them to venture very far into the open where they might fall prey to a predator or be seen by birders.

I had intended to post the note about Sunday’s birds but time ran out and other things happened. But the Sora story became especially intriguing when other birders reported seeing these same birds in days that followed. So when we set out on a transect today, we had our fingers crossed in hope of catching sight of them; which we did.

Soras aside, the transect was rewarding in many ways, the valley was full of bird sound, mostly American Robins I think, chattering, whistling and singing softly among themselves. But Carolina Wrens were loud and vocal in many places and there were flocks of Cedar Waxwings, Red-winged Blackbirds and Blue Jays all adding to the sense of continuous bustle. I spotted a Brown Thrasher and we followed its antics for a while as it either chased, or was chased by, robins. They were all very excited about something that we would probably never understand. We thought the thrasher was perhaps a little late in the year and should have left for warmer weather some weeks ago. But a bit of research revealed that some delay departure until quite late in November and that a few spend the winter here. So, perhaps it was just the general scarcity of thrashers that made it special today.

But back to the Sora.  We had just about wrapped up the transect and decided to take a last look for it along the margins of a plausible stretch of marsh, it didn’t take many minutes. We soon spotted it just minding its business picking through marsh debris and turning over fallen leaves in search of food. We were on an elevated boardwalk some two or three meters above and it was apparently oblivious to our presence. The intrusion of a handful of Mallards disturbed it and prompted a bit of wing-flapping and short low-level flights, all normal display behaviour I believe but it added to our appreciation of the moment. Just seeing a Sora is noteworthy but to witness this little flurry of antagonistic behaviour really added to the episode.