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Hickory Valley, Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton ON. May 19^th.2021. On this morning’s early transect I was a little surprised to find several shorebird species picking for food on some mudflats. Specifically: one Greater and two Lesser Yellowlegs, five Least Sandpipers, a Semi–palmated Plover, two Dunlins and four Killdeer.  Killdeer are common enough, they’re a breeding summer resident so not a surprise,  but the other five species were all worth several minutes study and enjoyment. Digging a little deeper, the Least Sandpipers, Semi-palmated Plover and Dunlin were kind of special; not rare but uncommon, especially now, in spring, when they have a great urge to make haste to their Arctic breeding grounds. Most northbound shorebirds like these follow a flightpath somewhat closer to the Atlantic Ocean, we are a little bit too far west to suit the goal of the vast majority.

Among today’s visitors, the Dunlins with their black bellies are perhaps the most striking, they reminded me of past visits to Cape May in coastal New Jersey where the spring migration of shorebirds is an almost intoxicating spectacle.

You’ll see Dunlins and a variety of other shorebird species in the accompanying photos from those Cape May trips.  The glory of those days makes our helping of spring shorebirds seem meagre but made today’s Dunlins my Birds of the Day.

Our house, Burlington, ON. May 16^th.  2021.  We have a retreat corner in our back yard. It’s a quiet spot in the shade of a small dogwood and is becoming increasingly obscure behind Virginia Bluebells and emerging ferns. It’s not the sort of place for a party, too makeshift in many ways and far too cramped. But it’s exactly the sort of place I might seek out if I was birding.  Some of my best birding experiences have come from sitting quietly in places like this. (As this Winter Wren encounter details.)

So, while sitting there this afternoon, a small sparrow popped into view at the edge of our flagstone patio just a few yards in front of me, from there it ran like stink, right to left, and disappeared into the thick cover of a flanking perennial bed. Surprisingly the same thing happened the next day under the same circumstances except that this time it was a pair of birds who did exactly the same sprint-run-and-dive for cover. It all happened so quickly, barely time enough to comprehend what I was seeing.  But despite the fleetingness of the experiences, they could only have been one of two things, either Lincoln’s Sparrows or, at a pinch, Song Sparrows.

What complicates the choice is that Lincoln’s Sparrows are just about the most unlikely bird to see in an urban back yard. They are an elusive just-passing-through migrant that prefers to skulk in thickish undergrowth.  In appearance they are maddeningly easy to confuse with the ubiquitous Song Sparrow, perhaps for that reason they were a nemesis bird of mine for many decades.

Pete Dunne, in his excellent book Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion, makes this summary point, “…some dark alchemy blends this sparrow’s traits into a bland uniformity that even discerning eyes skip over; as a result, this species is often overlooked. There is no trick that could be offered here for making this identification. Only mindfulness will work.”

I think I managed no more than a total of five seconds looking at the birds, so identification is left to mindfulness. My line of reasoning was something like: They looked like Song Sparrows, but were trimmer and had finely streaked breasts (correct for Lincoln’s Sparrows) ; They ran fast and without pausing, just as a fearful rodents might (a recognized trait of Lincoln’s Sparrows); Song Sparrows don’t run and hide, and in any case, being a common resident species would almost certainly be a vocal and conspicuous part of my daily back yard, avifauna. They must have been Lincoln’s Sparrows.

Well, all of that is rather esoteric but it enlivened a couple of otherwise dreamy spring hours for me. And while I have no photo evidence of these particular birds, I have included some Lincoln’s Sparrows from other encounters, I doubt you will see what the excitement is about. Each to their own, they were Birds of the Day for me.

Paletta Park, Burlington, ON. May 10^th.  2021.  I’ve been watching a pair of young Red-tailed Hawks who, within the last day or two, have made the jump, leaving their ungainly lump-of-sticks nest (which I thought was home to squirrels, but apparently not) and taken flight. They are hanging around the park, building strength and developing flight skills and I have to say they are doing a masterful job of it. I watched one riding the gusty north-west wind, wheeling and banking with apparently little effort.  They vocalise loudly, a scratchy, drawn-out keee-errr, perhaps the avian equivalent of ‘Look at me!’  as they make high, wide circles within a few hundred metres of home. They usually end flights coming to rest not too far from the nest, not unlike human adolescents when you think about it. This will go on for a few days and other than flight training they will remain fairly sedentary though they may chase their parents and beg for food. The parents know what’s going on and will deliver food, commonly dropping it nearby. It will take two or three weeks for them to develop the strength and skills necessary for sustained flight.

As I left to come home in the reddish light of evening they were moving closer to the nest, perhaps there’s some security to be had there. I took a few photos and thought how, despite a spring day with a few new migrants, these two Red-tailed Hawks were more exciting to watch and cheer on, making them My Birds of a May Day.

Paletta Park, Burlington, ON. May 7^th.  2021.  I spent a good part of this afternoon sitting around waiting and watching for birds to drop out of the sky.  A bit of an exaggeration but it’s one way to describe how, sometimes, migrant warblers can be all but absent and then suddenly appear. 

Today’s setting needs explanation. I was sitting on an old wave-washed log about 20 feet inland from the lapping shore of Lake Ontario. This was in a rough and ready corner of the park, a place too subject to storm damage and flooding to keep tended. Around me and arcing overhead were large Cottonwood trees, in front a hopeless tangle of grapes, honeysuckle and storm-tossed flotsam, and completing the picture was a cold on-shore breeze.

But that breeze was working for me, I’m sure it was aiding migrant warblers make a corner-cutting jump across the lake. If you were to look out over the lake you might see gulls, cormorants and mergansers on the water but you’d never spot a tiny, airborne warbler heading towards you, but I’m sure they were there. And I think their landfall was those trees and shrubs and vines all around me. So, one minute nothing and the next a Palm Warbler would be picking its way through the cast-ashore debris, then another or maybe three. In time they’d move on, moving inland and might be replaced by more Palm Warblers, a Yellow–rumped or a Black & White Warbler; and so it went on for an hour or two, or for as long as I had the patience to stay there.

There were other birds in the park, each in its own niche: Nashville, Yellow, and Chestnut–sided Warblers, Warbling Vireos, Northern Parulas and Baltimore Orioles. My Birds of the Day though were the PalmWarblers, not the showiest warbler, but colourful nevertheless, and one of the first of the family to arrive each spring.  They are almost entertaining in the way they bob their tail as they walk, picking for little insects to fuel the next leap northward. Their journey is about two-thirds done.  They have come from the Gulf Coast regions of the U.S and are heading to the bogs and fens in the boreal forests, a few hundred kilometers to go. I took many photos and, as always deleted most of them but I’ve added a few of the best.

Paletta Park, Burlington, ON. May 3^rd 2021.  I skipped breakfast to visit this park before promised rain moved in. It wasn’t really the approaching rain that drove me so much as the knowledge that if I didn’t go and look, I’d be wondering all day what I’d missed. (FOMO – Fear of missing out.). And if I am there and it turns out to be a big bird day, well then, I’m there. 

I walked around the park a couple of times and could hear a few Baltimore Orioles singing loudly as always, a brief phrase of a dozen or so clear notes, but I could not see them. It was maddening and discouraging, maddening because surely they were right in front of me, but discouraging because some recent middle-ear problems mean that I am not sure I trust my hearing to pinpoint a sound source.

This, May 3^rd is THE day for Baltimore Orioles’ return, few species are as dependable about their check-in date. One or two always show up in the last week of April, it happens and I disregard them as aberrations. They should know May 3^rd is their day and we expect them to be as reliable as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.  So, I was happy to have heard them on their appointed day, but hearing is only half of it, seeing one soon became my morning’s mission. I dashed home for a quick breakfast turned around and came back.

My return trip (rain still approaching) was more rewarding. I managed good looks at a few more migrants: Yellow–rumped Warblers, Ruby–crowned Kinglets and shy Swainson’s and  Hermit Thrushes in particular.  The high-overhead, rambling songs of Warbling Vireos made me feel warm right through, it is a song I associate with high summer, just hearing it made it My Bird of the Day.  A few minutes later I had the added bonus of a watching a couple of Blue Headed Vireos.  Regular readers will know I have a thing about vireos so I was really pleased to remake both acquaintances.

But I was still in pursuit of the oriole and to cut a long story short I did eventually meet with success and got a for-the-record photo. Here it is.