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Woodland Cemetery, Burlington ON. September 1 ^.2021. I had quite forgotten how exciting, and at the same time frustrating, fall warbler-ing can be. Fall migration brings us all the same birds we met in May but now their young too; so, perhaps twice as many individual birds. To we onlooker-birders it’s complicated considerably by the changes in appearance wrought over the past 4 months: In spring there were males, often showy and cleanly marked, and their female companions looking very much like the males but usually a little paler, washed out and less precise – but still head-turners.

But in fall many warbler species look quite different. Without belabouring the point the mix is much enlarged: some adults are quite unchanged (males and females), other adults (m&f) are subtly changed, even more adults (m&f) are drastically changed and finally, there are all those juveniles who may not look anything like their spring parents. Today I spent a lot of time watching and photographing Bay-breasted Warblers of both sexes and all ages, and none of them looked in the slightest like this typical adult male photographed back in May.

I was not particularly expecting to see Bay-breasted Warblers any more than other species; anything can happen, anything could pop up on days like this that follow a change in the weather.  I was certainly surprised to see so many Bay-breasteds and to be honest many of them may have gone unidentified or misidentified by me had it not been for the assurances, tips and prompts of other birders.

Birders anticipate and enjoy encountering warblers when they move through in waves. It is as if pockets of them descend around you and are everywhere for a few minutes, maybe for as much as half an hour, and then they seemingly fade away. I think today I walked into a mega-wave of Bay-breasteds, they seemed to be on every tree flitting to every other tree, never staying still. I took 132 photos and deleted all but about six. I had many like this.

Although they were my Bird of the Day it wasn’t a Bay-breasted Warbler monoculture.  I was also treated to Black–throated Green, Black–throated Blue, and Magnolia Warblers, a surprise Ovenbird, several Northern Parulas, Red–eyed Vireos and perhaps a Philadelphia Vireo. After a full morning I noted that there will be many more such days ahead when I can fire off hundreds of photos to no effect, so why continue spoiling today, so I left for a late lunch.

RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. August 27 ^.2021. It was a funny start to birding today, we’d had a cataclysmic thunderstorm late yesterday and the morning dawned dripping and a bit battered. But it was quiet and I wondered whether all the birds had dissolved and washed away. They hadn’t of course and as the sun emerged everything reverted to normal and my transect walk was really quite rewarding. This is the start of the fall transect season, it marks the beginning of two months of fascinating birding, watching late summer give way to autumn and autumn to early winter. For a refresher on what I mean by transects, this post from last year should help, http://www.mybirdoftheday.ca/2020/09/29/birding-a-transect.

There were a few new faces to sort out, almost certainly birds on the move making their way south: couples of Least Flycatchers and American Redstarts and a nice little Spotted Sandpiper. I enjoyed watching a Green Heron stalking a small fish. It stood motionless on a duckweedy log for ages, then eased slowly, and deliberately into a strike pose. It paused, held for a minute and, in a flash, pounced to grab a small catfish; gave it one quick shake and swallowed it.

It was that Spotted Sandpiper that made my day. It was working the storm-swept muddy banks of the creek, lifting and placing its feet carefully, almost ballerina-like, as it picked for food.  Its body bobs and teeters as it moves, a characteristic it shares with Eurasia’s Common Sandpiper, a sister species. These two are closely related and so similar in behaviour and appearance that they almost certainly have a common ancestor. Our Spotted Sandpiper lives up to its name in spring and summer with a boldly spotted breast, but it fades or is moulted out to a very light grey or white by late summer, then it is virtually indistinguishable from its Common Sandpiper sister.

As I walked back to my car, this young male Ruby–throated Hummingbird allowed a couple of photos while it paused briefly between visits to the still wet flowers of Spotted Jewelweed.

RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. August 14 ^.2021. It was an Osprey morning in the valley, they quickly became my Birds of the Day. I had walked in early to see if there was any evidence of early migrant activity among songbirds, (there wasn’t) but local resident birds were active, a few still tending this year’s crop of young.  I think that’s what was busying the Ospreys, there seemed to be one at every turn. Probably the fledglings from a nearby nest had been led there by their parents, an important part of their education in self-reliance conducted in a place with good fishing.

The young Ospreys, two I think, were stationed at safe waterside perches from where they called steadily, a resonant ‘cheep’ note that means ‘Here, hungry.’   I don’t know whether the parents brought them food, showed them where to hunt and how, or left it for them to figure it out, maybe a bit of each. On my way back to my car, quite a long way from any of those hungry youngsters, I watched this adult pull apart and eat a large Brown Bullhead (a locally common species in the catfish family), perhaps it needed on a bit of quiet time for itself.

People traffic was quite high too, the usual weekend effect, of course, and it was a bright, fresh morning in contrast to a long run of oppressively hot and humid days. I was lectured by one father figure who told me I was walking the wrong way along a trail; well, sooner or later I had to return the way I’d come so presumably that would put things right by him.

This Green Heron stood quietly beside one of the valley’s minor ponds now bright green under a carpet of Common Duckweed (Lemna minor). A small group of Mallards made vague open-water trails as they ate their way through the duckweed; clearly it is appropriately named. Last year I noted how hundreds of local or just-passing-through waterfowl cleaned up almost every last trace of it, fuel for their flight south.  

It’s easy to understand how some might think the pond is covered in something repulsive, slime maybe; but duckweed is not slimy, the pond is just covered in what is almost the world’s smallest flowering plant. There must be millions if not billions of individual duckweed plants afloat on this little pond, each the size of a finishing nail or carpet tack. (The smallest plant honour goes to Wolfia, about the size of a candy sprinkle and a close relative to Lemna) With a bit of reading, I found that duckweed is frequently cultivated and harvested as protein-rich animal fodder, it can be used to remove heavy metals from polluted waters, and to recover nutrients from wastewater. There’s something new every day.

Marsh boardwalk, Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton ON. July 31.2021. A change to cooler weather followed a stretch of warm and rather humid days and the freshened air inspired me to walk a few familiar waterside trails. It was time well spent with several interesting bird encounters and, importantly, a couple of quite different moments too: The first, discovering a small stand of Cardinal Flower along a drying watercourse, and second, the flypast of an Avro Lancaster, one of only two still flying in the world. It is as old as me and in about the same condition I think.

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I lingered at the look-out terminus of a boardwalk that leads out across an expanse of cattails. A scattering of kayakers, the rattling sound of a Marsh Wren song, and a couple of Caspian Terns patrolling the waterway made for an interesting yet peaceful stopping spot. I made myself comfortable and waited to see what would turn up.

What I hadn’t at first noticed was a Great Egret perched in a faraway tree, it was preening intently and I captured the moment it discarded a flight feather that had obviously served its purpose.  In time, another Great Egret appeared and settled quietly much closer to me at the water’s edge, however the first one, the preener, took exception to the interloper and launched a silent attack, drove off the newcomer and went back to its feather work, this time settling near a Great Blue Heron who acknowledged its arrival with a lazy gaze.

There were other sightings on this comfortable morning, a Coopers Hawk soared across the marsh putting to flight some of the smaller birds and in the distance two Bald Eagles soared around and over the site of this year’s nest. Then, as I made my way back along a woodland path, I disturbed an Indigo Bunting family, adult parents and fledglings. The adult male in breeding plumage is spectacular, but the female and young are as plain as can be as this photo of one of the fledglings shows.

There was little about this morning’s watching that I haven’t enjoyed before but the Great Egret, Defender of the Place, added a bit of drama and was my Bird of the Day. (Arguably the Lancaster too, but it’s in a different league of birds.)

Hidden Valley, Burlington ON. July 28^th.2021. Scarlet Tanagers are reasonably common in the right habitat at the right time of year, but they can be hard to find.  During migration they may be easier to spot at lower levels and in leafless trees. A spring male is an unforgettable sight so, if people tell me they’ve never seen one I believe it, there’s no way they could be mistaken. Here’s a male photographed one May morning in 2015, the colour is so intense that my cameras struggled to process the overload.

The problem with seeing Scarlet Tanagers is that, most of the time, they are birds of the loftiest tree tops; it’s only when you hear them that you clue into their whereabouts, and knowing their song, birding by ear, is hard going.

Today I encountered a Scarlet Tanager but it had none of the dramatic, clinching field marks, it was a rather drab olive yellow, so either a female or young of this year, and it was not singing at all.  It was moving slowly around the heights of an oak and muttering the species’ less well-known call, ‘chik-burr’.

Still, I was pleased to find it. For all of my Breeding Bird Atlas efforts last month I had not seen or heard a Scarlet Tanager. I hadn’t really paid much attention to the omission, they are around, it is just one of many species missing, or at least not found this year, but which I’m sure will be uncovered in due course. If today’s tanager was on or near its home turf then I expect I’ll find them next year with a bit of effort. So, call it a lead for future years’ work; a valuable enough lead to be My Bird of the Day.