Category: Uncategorized

RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. March 7 2020. A lesson I never seem to learn is that you can’t make a season out of a single day; spring out of a mild winter day that is. One swallow does not make a summer. Encouraged by bright sunshine, a blue sky and hopeful reports of spring migrants I tried to, but at the end of an afternoon I felt empty-handed. The trails I walked just looked down-trodden: mud where it shouldn’t be and ice-hardened snow where the sun couldn’t reach.

I visited a known spot where an Eastern Screech Owl will often sunbathe on bright days like this. And it was there, on the doorstep of its tree cavity, and it had attracted a predictable crowd of admirers. A beautiful bird, yes but I felt no particular satisfaction at seeing it this way.

Following a familiar trail, I hoped for something out of the ordinary and I should have felt encouraged by the several, early arrival, male Red-winged Blackbirds scavenging at ground level. They are the advance guard for the flood of territorially-minded kin soon to follow, but they didn’t seem very encouraged by anything and could barely mutter an ‘I’m okay” churr; it’s still winter. There were Northern Cardinals, Dark-eyed Juncos and Black-capped Chickadees just as there should be, but no more signs of spring.

Back at the lake I was irked to see that the city has cordoned off one of the best places to park and watch waterfowl, keeping us out with bright orange fences while they create some sort of offshore, floating, wave barrier. But there was a Bird of the Day to be seen here, a male Red-breasted Merganser; rather splendid in his ready-for-spring dress. I might have enjoyed him more had a trio of wings-spread Trumpeter Swans not moved towards me, probably just hoping for food, but menacing enough that I decided to back away.

Vaughan, Ont. March 2 2020. If a picture is worth a thousand words, there’s not a lot more to be said about this House Sparrow.  Any bird that can find its way to land on the mirror of my truck in this dreary industrial neighbourhood dotted with distribution warehouses is an automatic Bird of the Day.

Al-Hamra, Oman. January 29 2020. From a 3,000-metre-high pass in the Al-Hajar mountains of Oman I was privileged to follow the path of an Egyptian Vulture as it soared overhead, spiraling higher until drifting away on the wind. My driver-guide companion stopped without hesitation to allow me to watch this strikingly marked bird. He was experienced enough to patiently wait out my enthusiasm, not that he shared a scrap of it, but he’d taken birder-tourists around before and was good at responding to urgent demands to stop.

It was quite cold on that short stretch of road, we were at the range’s highest point where a fiercely rugged back-country track abruptly gives way to a smooth slide off the mountain’s spine to Al-Hamra, a sizeable town on the desert plateau below. Its name, I was told, means red as in red-hot, a reference to its searing summer months.

I had no idea what the vulture was at first but large, black and white, eagle-size with bright yellow legs and beak didn’t take long to identify as an Egyptian Vulture. It was easily Bird of the Day and would have been even against stiff competition; although there wasn’t any, unless I count this lone Variable Wheatear.

The Al-Hajar Mountains are a dry and harshly rugged range that stands between the peopled coastal plain of north-east Oman and the endless Arabian Desert. To travel through these mountains is to glimpse valley communities who have probably seen scant change in hundreds of years. They are little villages wedged in the tight folds of austere cliffs and peaks and occupied by farmers and herders who thrive by capturing and rationing the surprisingly abundant sweet water to irrigate Date Palms and small pockets of land.

Ras al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary, Dubai, UAE, February 16 2020. There really aren’t many birds here.  Dubai is legendary as the new and easy-to-reach destination for shopping, beaches and a good time in the sun; it’s all about humankind. It’s easy to see its seduction, it is a futuristic city of fanciful architecture where everything looks new, and roads are wide, smooth, orderly and carrying only new cars to sparkle in the sun. Here is the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, a148 floor-high icon.   But if you need relief from the tedium of brand new, you can explore some of the traditional souqs flanking the dhow-choked Dubai Creek. Dubai is the product of free-flowing oil, outsourced professionals and cheap, unskilled labour. Not a place for birds though.

Not quite true, Dubai has flamingos and I went to see them; although not many people do. It was hard explaining to a taxi driver quite where I wanted to go, Ras al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary drew blank expressions but I knew the general directions so we set off speeding along quiet, multi-lane roads.  For a while we found ourselves skirting a large construction site where I was told a 200 storey (!) building was coming out of the ground.

Ras al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary is noted in my Lonely Planet Guide as an important stopover for migratory waterbirds and that avid bird watchers can spot more than 170 species in this pastiche of salt flats. Maybe, but this was the wrong time of year and I only saw four species: one Eurasian Curlew, an indeterminate Cormorant, a single Great Egret and thousands of Greater Flamingos. The flamingos hang out obligingly close to a nice shady hide with comfy seats and convenient windows. It also happens to be where they get fed at eleven each morning.

They are a chattering spectacle of pink and white on long red legs and, as a group crowded like this, they smell a bit funny too. But, with perhaps the longest legs of any wading bird and down-drooped bill to sieve mud for invertebrates, they are wonders of adaptation. 

Burlington, ON. February 20 2020. I solicited a couple of friends to come out with me for a walk, we needed and welcomed the exercise. It was cold though not too cold, but still the kind of day when you like to get out of the wind. We hiked a valley edge and found just five bird species: first a group of three Red-tailed Hawks circling or maybe being blown over the nearby fields, a sleek, too-fast-for-us, mystery raptor maybe or maybe not a Merlin, a couple of Black-capped Chickadees, two probable Northern Cardinals and, Bird of the Day, a Long-eared Owl!

Our walk took us by plantations of mixed-age Norway Spruces and White Pines and the combination of open fields and the shelter afforded by the dense conifers is just the sort of place where owls like to hang out by day. We threaded our way carefully between sheltering clusters in hope that we might happen upon a Saw-whet Owl. There was some evidence of owls: the piled feathers and legs of a Mourning Dove under one pine and owl poop scattered on the branches of a dense spruce.  It was of course a Long-eared Owl that made the day.

It was well worth celebrating. It was a lifer for Alex and I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen one in the wild; maybe thirty years ago (?) Here it is.