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Princess Point, Hamilton. ON. April 10, 2024.  At the right time and place you can watch migration happen, literally on the fly, but most of it goes unseen.  Overnight they move, flying hundreds of miles while you sleep. They’re there to greet you next morning; it happened to me today, the greeting that is not the flying.

I had a transect to do this morning.  It’s one of the best, following trails along a lake edge, crossing some open grasslands and leading up through a hardwood forest.  It can be, usually is, very bird-rich. And being mid-April the world was alive with the press of new life, everything in its finest courtship colours.

Moments out of the car I went to count all the Mute Swans I could see (16) , and at glance could see about twenty Northern Shovelers and twelve Gadwall. I was furiously jotting down sightings: a pair of Mallards, Ruddy Ducks and a scattering of Buffleheads when I heard a familiar cry that I could hardly at first believe, a Caspian Tern. Back already? I wondered. But of course, it’s an easy overnight flight from the east coast for a strong flier like a Caspian Tern.

Caspian Terns are built like 1960s fighter jets: all points, hard angles and sharp wings. They have a raucous call, a loud, grating  ‘CRaaHaa’. Described by Pete Dunne, one of our finest writers on the topic, as “…more nearly approximates the sound of a cat being stepped on aieee YOW.”  Or, less colourfully by the National Geographic Complete Birds of North America as “rraah”. You get the idea.

Caspian Terns demand your attention; they are always dominant, frequently noisy, and indisputably handsome. The Russian name for them is Chekrava, almost onomatopoeic, the word and the bird mirror each other’s purposeful crispness. Caspian Tern occurs on all continents, breeding and/or wintering along coastlines and inland along rivers, lakes, and marshes.

You’ve probably rightly guessed that the Caspian Tern was My Bird of the Day.  I know I will get tired of them by September but today they were a jolt in a full morning of great birding. For the record, among other best memories today were the songs of a Rusty Blackbird (something I don’t think I’ve ever heard before) the ‘Chewink’ note of an Eastern Towhee and the warm trill of a Pine Warbler. And lots more, actually forty-four species in two and a half hours, but Caspian Tern came out tops.

Princess Point, Hamilton. ON. April 4, 2024.  I had forgotten how much fun the first big deluge of spring birds can be. I’ve been away for the best part of a month so had missed most of the March trickle, an exciting but oh-so-gradual reappearance of things like Red-winged Blackbirds and Killdeer. That trickle becomes a weather-regulated flow, flow becomes a stream and then, weather-be-damned,  it’s all about April days like this.

I had inadvertently assigned myself to one of our most challenging transect routes today. It was a wake-up call.  I felt excitement and a heart-lift as I untangled songs I knew but couldn’t put immediately my finger on: American Goldfinches, Dark–eyed Juncos and Carolina Wrens. I was happily distracted by waterfowl, a squadron of male Northern Shovelers splendid in white, green and rust. A little way off, tucked away trying not to be seen, was a scattering Gadwall. All old friends I was glad to see back.

 

Out on open water a long string of Ruddy Ducks mingled and merged with Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead and even a few Common Mergansers. A grand reunion driven by hormones and the need to find territory to raise the young of this year.  The waterfowl in particular have a long way to go yet, there are thousands of lakes, waterways and wetlands for the taking north of us, most of it still locked in winter.

I watched a trio of Song Sparrows apparently squabbling. It was unclear what the male: female mix was but the argument was over who holds which patch of grassland and associated rights.  They reminded me of medieval barons and princelings claiming domains and fiefdoms to be overseen by landmark towers, keeps and castles. Here is one of those would-be czars, a male in full hormonal battle cry. He and the others of the tangle were my Birds of the Day.

Horta, Faial, Azores Is. Portugal. March 29 2024. 

The Azores, a group of volcanic islands in the middle of the Atlantic about half way between mainland Portugal and New York, is not a great birding spot. Geologically the Azores are young, they are a living product of the ever-upwelling North Atlantic Ridge and continue to grow in fiery fits and bursts.

There are few endemic birds here save for some oceanic species like Cory’s Shearwater, Yellow-legged Gull, and, notably, Island Canary. They have several species like Eurasian Blackbird,  Blackcap and European Robin that were probably deliberately imported for their song or cuteness. Others, like House Sparrow and Rock Pigeon probably arrived as hitchhikers on trading vessels. I may take some heat for this sweeping view since an on-line search of Birds of the Azores turns up some 430 species, but I’ll bet 400 of those are occasional strays and blow-ins.

I came across a group of Collared Doves today and since there is little avian competition they were quickly My Birds of the Day.  They were feeding on spilled grain around the hoofs of a group of cattle in a compound on the edge of the ocean-side town of Horta.

The Collared Dove is one of the great colonisers of the bird world, having spread west from Asia, it first bred in England in the 1950s where it is quite common, it has even reached North America. I can still bring to mind my first sighting of one, very exciting and I think I was about 16.

So super-coloniser Collared Dove is My Bird of the Day.  Whether it was a recent stray or a blow-in, I have no idea, but it’s here.

Beamer Conservation Area, Grimsby, ON. March 7. 2024.  I decided on a whim, to see what the show was like at one of the area’s best hawk-watching spots, Beamer Conservation Area.  Beamer provides a fairly wide-open park enclosed by forest and is perched on a promontory that is a natural bottleneck for the hawk migration of spring. We use the term ‘hawk’ collectively to pretty well include all birds of prey from eagles to Merlins.  Hawk migration has its mini-seasons and March is the time for a short-lived pulse of Red-shouldered Hawks that accompanies the usual straggle of Red–tailed Hawks and Turkey Vultures. 

I didn’t stay very long, I was not adequately dressed for the cold winds that sweep across Lake Ontario, I was there on a whim remember.  But that short stop was quite rewarding, and my first sighting was of a couple of Northern Harriers, some way off but distinctive in their buoyant and languid flight.  I got my desired spring sighting of Red-shouldered Hawks as half a dozen drifted over in ones and twos. Two Turkey Vultures, a Cooper’s Hawk and half a dozen Red–tailed Hawks was it before I decided to leave.  I’ve been hawk watching at Beamer almost every spring for 45 years, I used to be one of the hardies who’d spend hours watching spectacular flights of hawks or, just as often, nothing but puffy white clouds. I’ve seen many changes over those years.

After leaving Beamer, I visited two spots reliable for early arriving spring ducks.  The first one a flooded quarry holding a handful of Ring-necked Ducks, two Common Mergansers and a fleet of Canada Geese. They were as expected and appreciated.  The second stop was a sheltered field flooded with ponds of meltwater and holding Mallards, Green–winged Teal and Northern Pintails, all a long way off but I was happy to see them.

My Birds of the Day were the Red-shouldered Hawks just because, like the Tundra Swans of last week, they are not to be missed. And they’re lovely.

Dundas, ON. February 26. 2024.  Despite some New Year grumbling, this has been a mild winter, so far anyway.  Optimism is in the air now buoyed by gentle weather and birders’ reports of early spring arrivals.

Hearing that a few returning Tundra Swans had been reported, I wanted to be absolutely sure I didn’t miss them by some quirky sea-change in late-winter/semi-spring conditions.  So today under blue skies I followed a familiar lake-side trail half hoping a flight of swans would settle into this water or, failing that, pass within sight overhead.

By way of explanation: Tundra Swans nest in Canada’s far north and overwinter on the east coast of North America.  Sometime in late February, when the nature nudges them, they start their long flight back, following the retreating ice to arrive back in James Bay in June.  The first leg of that journey is an overnight flight, some 800 kilometres, from Chesapeake Bay, or thereabouts, to Lake Erie.  That passage, landmarked by the north shore of Lake Ontario, takes them high over our heads and leads them on to the shallows around Long Point. Seeing those early Tundra Swans is something of a rite of passage for many of us. Apart from the spectacle of a V-formation twinkling white in the sun, they are a sure step on the way out of winter.

This was a beautiful spring-like day alive with the tentative songs of American Robins, Black–capped Chickadees, a pair of Tufted Titmice and White–breasted Nuthatches, but I was listening hard for the sound of overhead swans calling amongst themselves, a rhythmic, breathy “whoo whoo whoo”. It took a while, but as I made my way along a forested path, I could just pick out those calls, faint but coming closer. I spun around searching above, through the trees, until I spotted the flock, about fifty Tundra Swans in a long, wide V-formation staying high and heading for Lake Erie.

If you look closely you just might make them out in this photo.  My Birds of the Day of course and I hope the first of several groups yet to come.