Category: Uncategorized

Paletta Park, Burlington, ON. April 29^th. 2021.  The dreary-day context of this story is as important as its stars. I left home around 8.30 under a blanket of light fog knowing that rain was on its way. It was cool, not cold, but the kind of damp-cool that eventually finds its way into your bones and triggers shivers. 

“Why go out?” you may ask. Well, fog in migration seasons can sometimes make very good birding days, it grounds birds that might otherwise fly over us. So I went to one of our spring-birding hot-spots and was rewarded with many first-of-the-year sightings and sounds.  Many Yellow-rumped Warblers worked the tops of one or two trees and the male in the photo above eventually made his way down to my level. There should be many more Yellow-rumps to come in the next two weeks, probably enough for us to become blasé about them, today they were a delight as befits a pretty and handsome little bird.

I could hear the single note call of a Baltimore Oriole but couldn’t find it although I was sure it was very close, a little frustrating, but they too will be plentiful very soon.  Another heard-but-not-seen was a Northern Waterthrush, singing its sharp and choppy song from deep in a tangle of old and flattened vines, again I searched and stared, but nothing.

We were turning to leave when I spotted a solitary inconspicuously dark grey bird sitting quietly minding its own buisness. A moment or two’s discussion with a fellow birder and we figured it was a Northern Rough–winged Swallow, probably the least visually attractive of all of our summer swallows.  To illustrate the point, here’s one that I photographed last year, a very plain-looking bird.

Still, this is a migrant who has flown not less than 3,000 Km. from coastal Mexico or anywhere else in Central America to get here. A long journey by any measure, and it has arrived to a cool and damp day relying on there being enough flying insects around to keep it fuelled. 

Moments later it took a short flight to a bare tree at the waterside where it sidled up to a handful of other swallows. Binoculars again, and I could see the group was a mix of Barn Swallows and Rough-wings. The Barn Swallows could have journeyed even further, at least 4,000 Km.  anywhere from Central America to Patagonia.

And yet as I watched, more swallows appeared from the foggy lake. They must have flown across at least 6Km. to make this landfall, in zero visibility. They all gathered on that same tree, preening, wing-stretching and whispering welcome to each new arrival.

Think of almost anywhere between Lake Ontario and Costa Rica, and these birds have flown over and past it in the last two or three months.  Almost any aspect of that journey and the fact that they have made it (with maybe a few hundred kilometres to go) is more than enough to make swallows My Birds of the Day.

Hickory Valley, Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton ON. April 28^th.2021. Last night was supposed to be wet and unsettled with thunderstorms, but it didn’t happen. There was nothing likely to spoil a morning birding. I followed one of our transect routes and was pleased to find many Ruby-crowned Kinglets hanging on slender twigs gleaning for an insectivore’s meal, White–throated Sparrows scratching in leaf litter and Blue Jays rushing back and forth with the sole purpose of making counting them impossible. It was clear that here had been a strong overnight migratory push and birder-news trickling in from around the area confirmed it.

I was happy enough with our walk though, spiced as it was by brief sightings of a Pileated Woodpecker and a couple of Pine Warblers. But I think the best of the day was this Great Blue Heron with a meal-size Brown Bullhead (a species of catfish).

You know the way a domestic cat will capture and play with a mouse, giving it hope of release but is never quite serious about it? I think the heron was doing much the same thing. It wanted to play some more although there was no sport to be had, the fish had given up by now.  Maybe periodic dunkings just kept the meal fresh.

RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. April 20^th.2021. Half of birding is having the advance knowledge to anticipate what might be present; the other half is the luck of an out-of-place surprise or unexpected attention-getter. I had one of those attention-getters this  afternoon, this Hairy Woodpecker, it popped up right in front of me. Not that it was out of place, it was just minding its own business creating for me an encounter worth taking time to enjoy.

It came about when I was making an afternoon circuit of one of our transect routes. The day was turning chilly with snow expected overnight, the product of a two-day cold front on its way. It’s a reminder that April is a creature born with one foot in the remnants of winter.  The circuit was little bit discouraging although a trio of Ospreys were interesting.

The Ospreys had discovered a young Bald Eagle who was trying to stay out of sight and they were letting it know that it was unwelcome. It’s the continuance of an inter-species grudge that I suspect goes back a long way.  Some years ago, I watched three Bald Eagles, an adult leading two juveniles, in a purposeful chase of an Osprey that had just caught a large fish. The eagles soon caught up to the twisting and turning Osprey which, perhaps as a result of hard lessons learned, chose to let go of its fish. I expected the eagles to make a mid-air catch, but instead the fish fell several hundred feet to the river below and, as far as I could see, that was the end of it. Perhaps if the fish survived its initial capture and the fall, there was a happy ending; but there seemed to be nothing in it for either Osprey or eagles.  Just a grudge match. 

But back to the woodpecker.

As I progressed along a quiet but well-worn woodland path I noticed this Hairy Woodpecker absorbed in the business of bashing a decaying log to pieces. It must have been well worth his while because my approach meant nothing to him. In the end I was able to sit a few metres away and watch. I know from the recorded time on my photos that I watched for sixteen minutes at least– a long time in the fleeting-moments world of birding.

Hairy Woodpeckers are common enough and rarely hold our attention for long, but this one, a male by the red patch on his nape, is in his prime and I took 180 photos  (although deleted 158 when I got home), here are a few of the keepers. He is a handsome creature, well fed, probably matched with a mate and in charge of his corner of the woodpecker world, and My Bird of the Day today.

Hidden Valley Rd, Burlington, ON. April 19^th. 2021.  I get much of my exercise hiking and exploring a steep-sided, flat-bottomed river valley not far from home. It has special appeal this week with emerging spring flowers and the way that you can watch the forest’s upper levels freshening to a haze of watery green.

Today, working my way up a faint bank-side track about twenty metres above the tumbling river, movement up ahead caught my attention: upstream, eye-level to me, was a Bald Eagle heading my way in purposeful flight. It was the sort of looking-straight-at-you image that belongs in a National Geographic centre spread: all-white head, yellow bill, black wings and white tail, it swept past me and left, turning and adjusting to follow the river’s course.  I assumed it was scouting for an easy meal, an inattentive Musk Rat or Beaver perhaps, or a fish which they will just pluck from the water, not diving as an Osprey would. Whatever its purpose, for me it was a quick fly-past and gone, or so I thought – until I met up with it again. 

This time it was a different kind of surprise. I was now on the flat lands of the valley floor and trying to focus on some mystery bird sounds, a Pileated Woodpecker maybe. I found a comfortable log for a seat and settled in to wait, something might come my way.

I wasn’t sure about the woodpecker but could hear a Red-tailed Hawk’s coarse scream, high overhead, it was indignant about something. And then came an answer, a responding thin, piping stutter that I knew meant Bald Eagle.  A call that is perhaps the worst-matched bird sound ever: that the mighty arrow and olive-branch carrying symbol of the United States should speak in such a pipsqueak voice is pure irony. Perhaps the Red-tailed Hawk was goading the eagle to compare voices, to see who really rules the roost.

Perched high in the tops of a couple of budding Red Oaks were three Bald Eagles, one adult and two youngsters just a few branches away. I watched them for a long time and they did what Bald Eagles do more than anything, sit around and watch the world go by.

The presence of these three raises many questions, mostly around who belongs where and with whom. They may all be siblings with one old enough to have reached adult plumage. Or was this an adult with offspring from previous years? If so, where did they come from?  Bald Eagles are starting to gain a toehold around this end of Lake Ontario and these are part of that dynamic expansion.

Grey Doe Trail, Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton ON. April 11^th.2021. Steady rain kept me staring out the window for much of this morning but when I checked the radar map at 10.45 it seemed that the narrow band of heavy rain was about to leave us behind. Thirty minutes later I was at the start of a delayed transect hike. ( For an explanation of what I mean by transect hike, follow this link. There will be many more of them in the weeks ahead.)

The washed landscape still made little trickling noises as thin sheets of runoff found their way to ground and the air felt soft and almost silky. I enjoyed walking familiar trails with not another soul around. 

Making my way through a forested area, notable for a large grove of towering White Pines, there seemed to be bird sounds all around. Many familiars like: American Robin, White-breasted Nuthatch, Hairy Woodpecker, Brown Creeper and some quite mystifying, little call notes and fragments that made no sense to me. And strangely, I thought, the short dryish trill of a Pine Warbler. But if credible, it came from rather a long way off so was easy to discount this early in April. Pine Warbler is one of the first warblers to arrive in spring; but not yet, more likely in another ten days or so. 

But it wouldn’t go away, that trill, it grew louder and more certain and in time I could see a fluttering speck of yellow, busy against the sombre green of a pine. It really was a Pine Warbler and the longer I watched the closer it came and, bless it, was content to linger long enough to allow some photos.

A pretty little bird, not one of the gaudiest among the warblers to come, but a bright spark that certainly lifted my day

On the return leg of my transect circuit I passed under another grove of White Pines and again heard Pine Warblers, so I guess they’re back – I can’t argue. My Bird of the Day.