Solitary Sandpiper

Blue Lakes, Brant County, July 24, 2020.  Despite my many assertions that birding in July is time ill-spent, I do get restless and always undertake a few longer-range trips in pursuit of almost-certain sightings, pilgrimages you might call them. Today I went looking for Sandhill Cranes in a wide boggy valley where I felt sure they’d be; and they were.

My journey there took me past rolling, just-harvested wheat fields, where the passage of big-swath farm equipment was preserved like wide stripes on a tea towel. I always view those first harvests of high summer with a twinge of regret, as if they mark the end of summer for fields having done all that was asked of them.

I stopped at small roadside pond just in case. The water level was low and the pond scummed over with weed and algae, the sort of surface you hope you never have to come face to face with. A female Hooded Merganser paid me little attention, making me think that perhaps either she had not produced a brood this year or, her nest and young had been lost to predators. In the normal course of things, she should have been the nervous mother-ship to a fleet of hyper-active young.  A few yards from her I noticed a quiet Solitary Sandpiper, it was just standing on that mat of algae bobbing its head, as they characteristically do. Rather a pretty shorebird and well named, solitary, for we rarely see more than one and they prefer just the sort of small mushy pond as this. This is the bird, fitting in perfectly. 

I was pleased to see it because I hadn’t as much as glimpsed one during the spring migration making this my first of the year, and My Bird of the Day. This is not unusually early for a Solitary Sandpiper to be on its way south (as it assuredly was); perhaps a failed breeder or perhaps a one-year old who hasn’t quite got the hang of things.

My morning continued with entertainment from a group of ten Turkey Vultures spread-winged and sunning themselves, (a behaviour thought to be effective using the sun’s UV to kill feather mite) and of course my target birds, three Sandhill Cranes. They were feeding knee deep in boggy pools and looking as elegant as cranes always do. The adults and young sandhills below, are from the same time of year but another time and place.

Sandhill Crane family

Green Heron

Mountsberg, ON. July 17, 2020. Good birding ends on July 7th. I tell everyone that because it’s true, it all goes deadly quiet and for the next four to six weeks, time spent birding is scarcely rewarded. But I went today, I needed to and wanted to get out and visit many of the places I’d missed this spring.

First stop was a forest trail that was under the control of mosquitoes. I could hear one or two Chestnut-sided Warblers singing half-heartedly, but I think everything else had been sucked dry. In an open clear-cut area, the mosquitoes handed over to squadrons of larger flies with more efficient mouth parts, Deer Flies I think. I would (perhaps should) have lingered longer because I found, picked and ate many delicious handfuls of Wild Raspberries, sweeter and tastier by far than anything now found in the supermarkets. My invaluable Shrubs of Ontario reference book describes the raspberry fruit as “… usually red, rarely yellow to amber coloured, about 1 cm in diameter, edible, falling intact from the dry receptacle” All of which is true but I don’t think it would have gone amiss to insert  ‘succulent and aromatically delicious’ somewhere in the text. Turkey Vultures circled high above and a Gray Catbird skipped through low bushes anxious to remain unseen.  But the Deer Flies made things difficult so I left, but happy when a Yellow-billed Cuckoo called faintly and then flew across the opening; it exceeded my expectations.

I wound my way back home stopping at a couple of roadside openings where I could look across a shallow lake. The Cattail marshes were the right sort of places for Marsh Wrens, Soras, and Virginia Rails. I hoped for them but had to make do with a two irritated Swamp Sparrows and a fleeting visit from a Common Yellowthroat. Bird of the Day was a very young Green Heron who, at my appearance, fluttered weakly away from the edge of the marsh to a more secure hiding spot. Like the cuckoo he exceeded my expectations.

Nestling Green Herons

I was home by lunch time as the day grew hotter. It’s mid-July, time for heat and no time for birding.

Grasshopper Sparrow

Grasshopper Sparrow

Flamborough, ON. July 14, 2020. I went birding today, my first such purposeful foray in several weeks. Watching an Eastern Kingbird, I soon realised that every and any bird would be special today, all could be Bird of the Day just for being there.

Barn Swallow

My first stop was in hope of finding Virginia Rails but there was nothing, the cattail reeds and some dense algae had grown in thickly and only a couple of Northern Watersnakes were quite happy to be exposed and basking. So, I tried a couple of other favourite spots and found myself among true birds of summer: Eastern Towhees (still singing), Eastern Meadowlarks and Barn Swallows.  I had hopes of finding a Blue-winged Warbler, (or maybe a Prairie Warbler!) but came up empty-handed. Although, in my efforts I apparently stirred a Grasshopper Sparrow into some kind of possessive-defensive action. It appeared from nowhere and circled me anxiously and getting a little closer with each circuit.

Grasshopper Sparrow approaching!

It’s a curious looking sparrow.  I have increasing difficulty hearing its almost inaudible buzzing wisp of a song and certainly would have missed it if it hadn’t taken such strong objection to my presence. I left it alone quite happy with it as My Bird of the Day.

Eastern Meadowlark

Prairie Warbler

Prairie Warbler among Sassafras flowers

Flamborough, ON. July 12, 2011. Reaching back into archives to find a Bird of the Day is usually reserved for dreary mid-winter, but these are different times. My birding activities remain constrained and this morning, out of idle curiosity, I opened my endless diary to today’s date and note that on July 12 2011, I wrote “…..(after cryptic notes as to the location)…..Prairie Warbler singing. Lots of observers and camera equipment.”

I remember it well. It was an interesting bird because Prairie Warblers are very uncommon hereabouts. Intrigued, I searched back through posts and diary entries to find that, that particular sighting pre-dated the start of My Bird of the Day by some six months. But then, nearly a year later (on May 29 2012), a Prairie Warbler returned to the same location, only this time MBotD existed and it made these pages http://www.mybirdoftheday.ca/2012/05/29/prairie-warbler/

The warbler’s chosen location was in scattered Hawthorn scrub under the lines of a hydro-electric transmission corridor. The big electricity utilities are required to keep the ground below the steel-towers clear, so every few years teams cut and clear all the underbrush. That put an end to it, 2012 was the last year for Prairie Warblers here. I hoped they’d return to choose somewhere close and have since looked for them in suitable locations nearby without success.

American Robin

Juvenile American Robin

Home, Burlington, ON. June 24 2020.  June has been a funny month for any number of reasons. Personally, it’s held many ups and downs, all distracting in their way.  I have scarcely been birding at all, instead I’ve enjoyed closer study of the handful of urban birds of my neighbourhood: American Robin, House Sparrow, House Wren, Carolina Wren, Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Song Sparrow being the most regular.

There are two ornamental Serviceberry bushes (Amelanchier species) flanking our back yard and both are loaded with ripe fruit. In the centre of Canada, the shrub is common and known as Saskatoon berry for the high, sweet quality of its fruit, which taste like apples to me. But few around here bother gathering them, probably believing that anything not in the grocery store is inedible. Anyway, the birds and I like them. In the past day or two, at least one brood (and I suspect two separate broods) of American Robins have left the nest and are gorging on these serviceberries.

An unstable landing

It has been intriguing to watch the all-day comings and goings of robins. The adults, as master fliers, know exactly where they’re going and how to get there; the young are learning fast but sometimes over-reach or wobble-land where they shouldn’t.  And there is some possessiveness going on, I could never tell whether squabbles were between birds of different families or parents forcibly telling their own kids to grow up. On this otherwise quiet day American Robins made my day – Birds of the Day.

Inter-generational squabble or ??