Category: Uncategorized

Oakes Rd. Grimsby, ON. January 2^nd. 2021. I could write a Bird of the Day today, but what would I write about?” That was me thinking aloud a moment ago. Then in silence I reminded myself that the principle of this site is that, no matter how dreary the day, there’s always something, some bird, that makes me think Wow!- a Bird of the Day.

As always it was true there was that one Bird of the Day, Northern Flickers far away atop a winter-rattled ash tree. Just one at first, puzzlingly large and with an out-of-place posture. Through binoculars I could not draw a conclusion as to its identity, maybe a crow, perhaps a Peregrine Falcon. So, I resorted to a device I’ve learned and found to be helpful at times like this: I photographed them using the maximum zoom on my camera and then enlarged the captured image. This was what I saw.

The white rump on the lower one is a conclusive field mark for Northern Flickers and the general posture and the long stout bill are reassuring. Two for sure. The surprise, the justification for the Wow moment, is that Northern Flickers are unusual here in winter, they generally depart Ontario in October and return in April. But there are plenty of exceptions to the rule with large generalist feeders like flickers so, while mildly surprised as I was, it really is more of a ‘okay-so-what-else-is-new’ sighting.

Perhaps more revealing to myself was my inner sentiments about seeing a Snowy Owl. It was where I was told it would be and where a gathering of other birders and photographers stood chatting and watching. There wasn’t much to see, it was motionless, snoozing perhaps, and unapproachable on an offshore floating dock. A Snowy Owl is a sensational bird by any measure, but for me the real fun, the challenge, is in finding it myself or with friends and using our field skills to get there. Nice bird, my first this winter – but not My Bird of the Day.

Other than the flickers and the owl, I guess my 2021 birding list might include a flock of House Finches, House Sparrows, a Red-tailed Hawk, Mourning Doves, White-winged Scoters and an American Kestrel.

December 31^st. 2020. I was out birding this morning, actually out getting exercise but the two are inevitably indivisible, indistinguishable. As exercise it was a good uphill-downhill walk, but poor fare as birding goes. Best of the morning was a bunch of House Finches who I disturbed while feeding on the fruit of a Multiflora Rose. The light was poor and the footing slippery but I managed to get a few shots, here’s a nice one.

I was musing that this was the year-end, a year that many have taken to calling the worst ever; I suppose it depends how long you’ve been around.  1919 and 1928 were less than banner years in North America, 1940 was a bad ones for Londoners, as were 1665 and 1666; not that I remember any of them.  My wife and I have been very lucky, the worst I can say is that it’s been notably inconvenient.  But to shine a light on 2020, I wondered what bird could have been my Bird of the Year. A moment’s reflection and I singled out February’s Kori Bustard in Kenya. It was a realisation of boyhood daydreams when I had absorbed books and stories about animals (mostly birds) of all kinds. Some I knew first-hand but just as many I believed to be unattainable to me; bustards being one of those. But then,  60+ years on, I was face to face with them. Macqueen’s Bustards at first in the Arabian Desert, but now the huge Kori Bustard, shoulder to shoulder with a Thomson’s Gazelle.  My Bird of the Year? Probably yes.

But it’s all very well picking from the privileges of an exotic time and place, but what about the rest of the year, the at-home stuff? Luckily for me this site serves well as a diary. Here’s a look back.

January. I spent much of January getting ready to leave winter behind. Domestically a couple of Northern Mockingbirds lightened a cold and damp day of counting birds. But I was in Arabia by mid-month and there was much to choose from and I think an Eagle Owl , the world’s largest owl, set my spine tingling more than anything else. It hung around our desert campsite, we could hear it and almost feel its presence, we managed occasional glimpses.

February was the Kori Bustard month, (and much more) but a half day watching hundreds of Greater Flamingos in Dubai was an almost surreal experience.

March introduced a new word to our lexicon, lockdown. I think we were bemused by it for a while and we thought it might all be over by the end of summer. March is more about birding promise than delivery and I had dipped into many years’ notebooks for posting inspiration. A surprise flight of Sandhill Cranes stands out as special but this very homely House Sparrow added a delightful twist to an otherwise mundane Monday.

April.  The birding picks up as the lockdown tightens down. Without meaning to be deliberately morbid, it’s self-evident that there isn’t an awful lot going on in a cemetery, except maybe the comings and goings of birds and squirrels. It’s a good place to avoid close contact with vectors of a contagion, besides there’s usually a scattering of trees and shrubs that all those birds and squirrels species. On an exploration of one such cemetery I found a pair of Merlins getting a start on nest building. Looking back, I reread my post about a Common Grackle, it was a pretty average bird but its colour was an eye-opener.

May. May should always be a blockbuster of a birding month. But two things got in the way: I suffered a middle ear infection that clipped my wings and upset my sense of balance (which continues at times) and we, the birding community, did a lot of staying home. Speaking of which, a Red-headed Woodpecker visited a near neighbour’s back yard, and I was there in a trice to get some photographs – marvellous! But a close and very odd, almost intimate, encounter with a Ruffed Grouse was one of the strangest bird experiences of my life.

June. This month I posted nothing and when I look at my field notebook there is only one day of observations, June 1^st. The best bird of the day seems to have been a couple of Great-crested Flycatchers or maybe a Pileated Woodpecker. Lockdown did this?!

July and August. At the end of July, I spent time at a large wetland where Virginia Rails had successfully nested. Virginia Rails are secretive birds and occasional glimpses are usually the best you can expect. But this was different and a species which for many years I have considered a rare treat, became an easy catch.

Through summer we moved from tight lockdown to codes of acceptable behaviours and varying prohibitions. But we knew that with winter on its way things might become difficult. Governments around the world imposed different directions on differing scales at different times and we were all a bit confused.  But birding is an outdoor pursuit by definition, and I felt safe and responsible.

At almost the same place as the rails, I watched and photographed a Common Gallinule. Its unabashed behaviour was almost as unexpected, parading around out in the open.

September. I revelled in watching Blue Jays in migration this month. I had always denied having a favourite bird species but, if pressed, I’d mutter about vireos in general and perhaps Red-eyed Vireos in particular. Now I found myself thinking that maybe I like Blue Jays better than any other. I think if I could have a native bird as a pet I’d go for a Blue Jay. My birding friend Bob hates them – very much his loss!

October. A Tennessee Warbler that entertained me by my back door was the month’s most memorable bird. I got more Tennessee Warbler for my money in that half an hour than I had in my whole life so far. It is an often-invisible species that scores higher as a checklist tick than the eye candy scale (where it barely registers).

November.  I think this rather sad American Bittern was bird of the month. Sad because it was still around as winter drew closer and it should have been long gone. Even now, as I write this, I wonder if is still there, at that same pond but now a ragged corpse – food for scavengers, foxes, minks and crows.

December. We are locked down again, there is more than enough written about it elsewhere. December memories are all rather fresh so it’s hard to pick on one bird as more memorable than others. Perhaps when I look back I will remember one icy winter day when, from the warmth of my car, I watched Common Redpolls scratching a living out of the weeds along a snow-touched country road.

Twelve months, seventeen best birds.

RBG Arboretum, Hamilton. ON. December 25^th. 2020. While most folks were still hanging around in their Christmas-morning pyjamas, I decided to take the opportunity to photograph a number of familiar sites in new-fallen snow. The effort was magically worthwhile, my footprints were the first along quiet woodland trails. We’d received about 3 inches overnight, it had fallen lightly in still airs and stayed where it touched down.

This place is close to a large and noisy city that had all but stopped for Christmas morning. Perhaps it was the soundlessness of the place that had made sight more important, to look with purpose rather than just seeing. Or maybe it was just the size of an immature Bald Eagle on a treetop, that made it all but impossible to miss.  But there it was, a little way ahead of me, dark, impassive and watching over a white world waiting for opportunities.

As I took a moment to scan the lake for other bird life, registering a handful of Mute Swans and a Great Black-backed Gull. An adult Bald Eagle came from the north passing in front of us and drawing the juvenile off its perch to follow.  Here they are my Christmas Day Birds.  

RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. December 21^st. 2020. This morning at 05:08, we Northern Hemispherers started on our road back to summer. Overly optimistic you might think, but true nevertheless; although, it seems, anything could happen these days.

Faithful followers of this site will recall that I am part of a team engaged in a spring and fall project to study bird populations in Canada’s Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) – follow this link for a refresher .  The trouble is that once October is finished so too is our project and we have little to do but wait for spring. As some kind of therapy, we have taken to doing Winter Solstice transects, informal and something to look forward to.

All three of our defined routes got attention today. Two companions and I made our way around this valley route knowing we would meet many old faithfuls but hoping for a surprise; we noted 19 species. I avoid recounting lists of any length on these pages but 19, on a special day, why not? And really, for the shortest day of the year, here is the shortest list. In no particular order here except as I wrote them in my field notebook.

Northern Cardinals 3, American Crow 1, Red-breasted Nuthatch 1, House Sparrow 26, Black-capped Chickadee 15, White-breasted Nuthatch 10, White-throated Sparrow 5, American Goldfinch 13, Blue Jay 6, Dark-eyed Junco 9, Carolina Wren 3, Song Sparrow 1, Downy Woodpecker 7, Red-bellied Woodpecker 7, Hairy Woodpecker 2, Mallard 42, Belted Kingfisher 1, Canada Goose 22, Mourning Dove 2.

To us they are the regulars although some readers of this will doubtlessly view them as exotics, the sort of sightings to go out of your way for. For one reason or another there’s a story worth telling about each one, three or four are visually downright spectacular and, under the circumstances, all of them are my Birds of this Solstice Day.

Subject to any limits on size, they’re all here:

Wrigley Corner Brant County, Ontario. December 14 2020.  See if you can picture this: A broad sweep of squared-off farm fields, crops long since taken, it’s cold and the sky is low and ragged throwing down thin snow squalls.  I’m driving a quiet gravel road, a scattering of lost-soul shrubs trace the line of the road-edge. It was Common Redpoll country today, and the sort of driving-snow weather that redpolls call home.

My passing scattered a group of about thirty who were picking for seed along a faint and weedy roadside ditch. Spooked by my car they stayed just a half a length ahead of me flying low, touching briefly then taking flight again. There was little opportunity to get a decent look at them but a quick pause and scan and I could see they were redpolls.

A nice sighting. This is a redpoll invasion year, they seem to move in flocks but I’d only seen a single so far, ten days ago, it would be a shame not to see more. But I was driving, with places to go and when the redpolls tumbled away, blown on a gust of wind, I knew they could end up anywhere and I let it go.

But on my return journey, and in just about the same place, I spotted them again, this time on the other side of the road and working low along the edge of a cattle compound. I parked strategically and watched, hoping they might get used to my presence and move in closer. It took a long time, but I had the comfort of a warm car and the road was very quiet; I don’t think more than one other vehicle passed us in half an hour. My patience paid off, through binoculars I could pick them out, sorting for seeds in the matted grasses and weeds. Gradually they moved closer but never still enough or close enough as a photographer might wish.

During summer, Common Redpolls are one of the commonest birds of the treeline zones of the Arctic. Every now and then a thin crop of cones sends them south for food security, this is one of those years. They are a more familiar urban bird in Scandinavia and Russia where urbanisation reaches further north. We North Americans rely on these infrequent irruption years for our sightings, good enough reason to tag these Common Redpolls as My Birds of the Day.

If it looks as though they are leaning into a stiff wind, it was just that.