Orchard Oriole

RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. June 5th .2021. My Breeding Bird Atlas work is, of necessity, an opportunity to slow down, to linger, wait, watch and listen. Spending early morning hours just taking it all in is an education in itself. The same ground walked several times in the course of a couple of weeks reveals entwined and overlapping patterns of territory.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Sitting quietly one morning, I noticed quiet but repetitive activity that turned out to be industrious nest building by a pair of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. The two of them worked busily with small fibres, lichen and spider silk to create a tiny platform which, with a day or two’s work, became a tidy little cup the size of half a tennis ball.  With the female nestled in it became almost invisible.

This morning I went to see a reported Orchard Oriole. He was easy to find and well within my assigned atlas square. But is he one of a breeding pair? I’m left with many unanswered questions.  You see, although he’s a singing male he may not be quite grown-up.  Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of the World website notes, “…the Orchard Oriole is the smallest oriole in North America. Adult males (after-second-year) have distinctive black and chestnut plumage, while yearling males (hatch-year and second-year) are yellow-greenish with a black bib. Females of any age, and recent fledglings of both sexes, are similar to hatch-year and second-year males but lack the black bib. Today’s bird was a yearling male, singing boldly and endlessly and prompting questions about his status:  Does he have a mate nearby? or is he still hoping to attract one?

Older adult male Orchard Oriole

I don’t know, not yet anyway, but it got me thinking about the prospects of males, marked as young by their plumage, to succeed at breeding. What are other indicators of age and maturity? What about yearling Red-winged Blackbirds, American Robins or Mallards?  They look grown-up, but maybe they’re just kids.

On-line research took me into some obscure corners of ornithology.  The Cornell site was helpful, it allows that some Orchard Oriole yearlings do indeed breed successfully. So there, the appearance of youth doesn’t necessarily preclude pair-bonding and reproduction; it happens sometimes. And I can’t leave it at that without noting that the same holds for humans too. 

Orchard Oriole – yearling

I will continue to monitor this young Orchard Oriole.  Today he was My Bird of the Day, next week he may get a promotion. Who knows?

Mourning Warbler

Mourning Warbler – from another day

Grey Doe Trail, Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton ON. May 29th..2021. Steady driving rain yesterday came close to snow a couple of times. It was not a day to be outside, it was a day for catching up instead.

This morning was a bit warmer but a cold northerly wind tugged at tree tops and the spring-green world looked bruised. I did a long and pleasant transect, with lots of birds but in two hours didn’t see another soul. Instead the day rewarded me with some heartwarming bird sightings including: A Northern Flicker atop a spruce, a Pileated Woodpecker working over an old birch stump and a Scarlet Tanager high in a leaf-bare ash.

Scarlet Tanager – from another day

In a dense woodland, a small, clear-toned and complex song from low in a dense tangle of brambles caught my attention. It was nearly, but not quite, familiar.  In my mind I sorted through all the likely warbler songs but none that I could think of was a fit. I tried to get the bird’s attention but all it did was move behind me staying out of sight and firing off a couple more snippets of song. Many unproductive minutes later I shrugged and decided to leave; but sensing my near-surrender, the bird warbled briefly to prolong the challenge. It circled me, staying low most of the time until finally I got this glimpse, a Mourning Warbler; I smiled to myself, it had been well worth my persistence.

Today’s Mourning Warbler

Mourning Warblers have a fairly distinctive song but this one’s was a little off, at least that’s my excuse. They are a handsome, if somewhat sombre looking, bird and well deserving of the name, with the male having solid yellow underparts, pinkish legs, and a dusky grey hood turning to a blackish facemask. I suspect this one to be a younger male, perhaps hatched last year, because its belly seems a little duller yellow than expected.  Mourning Warblers are reportedly fairly common but rarely seen because of their reclusive and evasive habits. They prefer exactly the kind of dense, second growth tangles I found it in today and when found are always a bit of a triumph. It was easily My Bird of the Day.

Pileated Woodpecker from another day

Hairy Woodpecker and Killdeer

Burlington ON. May 27th.2021. As the days of transects wind down so the work of the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas (OBBA) starts to pick up. I have summer bird-work to do: exploring new-to-me places, meeting land-owners, moving quietly, slowly, looking and listening. Quiet birding . For a refresher on the OBBA follow this link.

Today I stepped away from a familiar trail into a once-flooded open area dotted with still-standing, but dead, ash trees, a place offering the distinct risk of wet feet. I hadn’t gone many yards when I heard the familiar chattering ‘speek’ of a Hairy Woodpecker. A common enough bird but always worth following up upon hearing one, my reward was this fledgling, who I’m sure, was just out of the nest.

It was clinging to the skeletal remains of an ash tree and calling repeatedly for its parents’ attention,  ‘I’m here-feed me please.’ An adult swept past it to land not far away at the top of another dead tree and peered into a hole. Putting the pieces together, I think the pleading youngster had very recently, perhaps within the hour, left the nest under the watchful eye of its parents. They knew where it was and were expecting, waiting and urging the rest of the brood to follow.

This was a welcome surprise and propelled Hairy Woodpecker into the ‘Confirmed ‘ category of the atlas.; as did this sighting a little later…

just hatched Killdeers

…as I drove up a driveway through a semi-manicured orchard.  I was travelling slowly and saw something scamper in front of me. I braked and stopped. The kind of sudden, tenth-of-a-second, stop that propels everything: binoculars, camera, notebooks, pencils, pens, and all the usual car-clutter onto the floor. My mind caught up, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘That was a baby Killdeer you nearly ran over’. Well, I hadn’t, although it was a close-run thing.

I backed up slowly: to my left a mother Killdeer was plaintively piping something like, “What did I tell you kids about traffic?” In front of my car was a tiny, day-old Killdeer chick, the size of a golf ball on long legs, and following it, its nest-mate brother or sister.  They hastened to their mother who, after a bit of ‘there there’ reassurance, pulled them in close beneath her to settle down.

and mum

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Pinetum, Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton ON. May 23rd..2021. With a transect commitment to fulfill, my companion and I met well before 7 a.m. to make the most of the near-dawn freshness and avoid the inevitable press of weekend hikers. You can count on the last half of May for good birding and it was everything we could have hoped for.  

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

With most trees now in full leaf, we had to rely heavily on bird song to tell us who’s who and where; quite a challenge and close to impossible at times. The ringing songs of Baltimore Orioles were all around overlapping the flat and rather measured tones of RoseBreasted Grosbeaks and newly arrived Scarlet Tanagers.  Picking among all of those songs we knew there were many Great Crested Flycatchers, they are a late migrant so I suspect many of them had arrived overnight.

It seemed as though Redeyed Vireos had consolidated control of the tree tops. Always keeping a decent distance between themselves, they sing endlessly: a rhythmic pattern delivered as they make their way up and down the canopy, rather like the Grand Old Duke’s ten-thousand men.  Old familiars: robins, cardinals and jays added to the tangle of song, and through it all we picked up the faint sound of a Yellowbilled Cuckoo.

It always takes me a minute or two to sort out which of our two cuckoo species I am hearing: Yellowbilled or Blackbilled. They look much alike and their songs, while quite different once you get the hang of them, are confusable. After little bit of research, we decided that we’d heard a Yellowbilled Cuckoo and in time we heard two or three more.  They were (and always are) something of a thrill although not a huge surprise because they always show up about now.

The old-world Common Cuckoo (of cuckoo clock association) is well-known as a nest parasite.  Our two, the Yellow-billed, and the Black-billed, are usually conscientious parents, building a nest and raising a brood, but both species are known to sometimes practice brood parasitism, although it is discretionary and science has yet to figure out what triggers the parasitic urge.  Typical breeding is apparently correlated with an abundant local food supply and once started, the breeding cycle is extremely rapid, and requires only 17 days from egg-laying to fledging of young. Incredibly, almost explosive feather sheaths allow nestlings to become fully feathered within two hours.

Common Cuckoo (Eurasian)

We didn’t see any of the today’s cuckoos; I’m quite content with just hearing them. It’s something of a personal toss up whether a heard-only bird counts for the day or whether a sighting is essential. Hearing is good, I have seen many and have enough photos to keep me going through the winter.

And speaking of photos, here are a couple of a Blue Jay we disturbed from his morning bath. It could have My Bird of the Day but not with Yellow-billed Cuckoos as competition.  

Great Horned Owl or Red-headed Woodpecker

Morgan’s Point Conservation Area, ON. May 20th.2021. My calendar was open and invited me to squander a day in spring birding.  I had some ideas where good birding was to be found so made my way to the south shore of Lake Erie. At this time of year, Morgan’s Point can be a very good place to watch for northbound migrants; it’s a landing spot for birds that have dared to fly across the lake rather than take the longer way around. But birding Morgan’s Point can be hit and miss and today might have been a miss had it not been for two good sightings.

The first was totally unexpected. I was staring at a forested hillside, not seeing much at all, and had scanned far and wide including past a large lump high up by the trunk of a tall pine. I didn’t quite see as much as sense something. Could it be that something primeval had tapped me on the shoulder, or was it just experience? Whatever the reason I was looking at an owl looking at me, the Great Horned Owl in the photo above. It set me speculating on whether momentary eye-contact somehow makes a connection, even between species so distant.

I remembered a provocative experience a month or so ago when I was examining with binoculars a sprawly nest quite high overhead. I had reason to think it was a Cooper’s Hawk’s and knew that if it was at home it might very well be low in the bowl and impossible to see. I looked long and hard but could only see the twiggy nest structure. After a long while I’d had enough, stopped looking and let my binoculars drop, and at that very instant of stopping, some mechanism deep in my brain yelled, ‘Being watched!.’  I looked up again and yes, there was an eye looking at me, the Cooper’s Hawk was at home. Uncanny? Maybe.  Take a look at the photo below and find the eye that caught my eye.

Today’s Great Horned Owl watched me warily. It was going nowhere; daylight hours are their quiet time.  I took several long-shot photos and left it alone.

I knew that Red-headed Woodpeckers like the Morgan’s Point area, I’ve seen them here a couple of time before. Red-headed Woodpeckers are always a wonderful sight, dressed in bold bands of crimson, white and black and showing flashy, bright white wing panels in flight. Today a pair was engaged in some kind of courtship around the trunks of towering Cottonwood trees. Courtship that consisted of long periods of ‘don’t come near me’, ‘let me help you pick out that grub’ and two-second, wham-bam, copulations.

The woodpeckers and the owl made the excursion very worthwhile and were my Birds of the Day, rescuing a journey whose only other notables were a handful of Semi-palmated Plovers. But a nice place and I’ll go back.