Category: Uncategorized

December 12 2019.  Hendrie Valley, Burlington, ON. I think it was about this time last year that a sharp snow squall turned a cold day’s hike into a hunched-over dash for shelter. Yesterday was also just such a day, cold and windy with sudden curtains of driving snow. But today was warmer and altogether less hostile so, by late morning, three of us set out to hike some familiar trails, as much for the exercise as the birding.

Despite being wintery December, a time when birds are relatively scarce, it was an eventful day. Whenever we paused, Northern Cardinals, Black–capped Chickadees, White–breasted Nuthatches, Downy Woodpeckers and Dark–eyed Juncos seemed to gather, watching us nonchalantly yet secretly hopeful of hand-outs. Two of us had not seen an American Tree Sparrow yet this winter but it wasn’t long before we found a small group foraging in a Red-Osier Dogwood copse; a pretty little bird, here’s one from another winter day.

There were several others which, another day, might easily be Birds of the Day: a small flock of Eastern Bluebirds, a Hermit Thrush, a Winter Wren and a Northern Shrike, but they were overshadowed by our finding two Gray Catbirds, a near-sensation. Catbirds are unequivocally birds of summer, they arrive in the big waves of early May, settle quickly into brushy woodland edges to breed, sing a lot to hold territory and then leave us by mid-October. There are scattered records of a few winter lingerers but whether they make it through to spring I don’t know, I doubt it. I wonder where our two came from, we were on familiar territory but haven’t encountered a Catbird anywhere on our walks since early mid-October. It’s conceivable that they are late migrants still making their way south, just passing through. Either way, I wonder what their chances of survival are.

Footnote. We had hardly set out this day when an evidently weak and hungry Trumpeter Swan walked off the frozen river and up the bank to approach us. Trumpeter Swans are plentiful on open water around here in winter, but this one seemed to be very hungry and perhaps even dependent on us. It’s a longer story than I can realistically recount here, but the upshot of it is that following a few phone calls the bird was later captured to be rehydrated, fed and, we hope, restored to health and open water.

November 23 2019.  Royal Botanical Gardens Arboretum, Hamilton, ON.  Late November and I think we’re left with just the winter hardies, the resident birds who stay all year or winter visitors for whom this is their Florida. The latter class is showing up in increasing numbers, particularly the clouds of so-called Winter Ducks now settling in on Lake Ontario. Land birds too, Blue Jays, Dark-eyed Juncos and Winter Wrens.  We see Blue Jays twelve months of the year but I’m pretty sure our jays of winter are visitors from somewhere north of Lake Superior while our jays of summer come here to breed but avoid northern winters. The southbound Blue Jay migration in mid-October is a spectacle, furious and at times noisy.

On this day I joined a group of new birders who were participants in an Introduction to Birding class. We walked a familiar trail and the group was happily absorbed discussing the defining features of Black-capped Chickadees, Red–bellied Woodpeckers and Herring Gulls; it was pretty much as expected.

At a pause, we could hear the coarse churrs of what, at first, I thought was a Carolina Wren, but it turned out to be a Winter Wren staying low and investigating a dark tree-root cavity, almost a mini-cave. We watched it for a while and while Winter Wrens are hardly the sort of spectacular bird you’d expect to captivate a novice birder, it held the attention of a straggling half of the group.

A little later another Winter Wren approached the group and without hesitation made its way to the top of a conspicuous sapling to give everyone a lingering view and plenty of time to discuss field marks.

Winter Wrens were easily Birds of the Day for me although a Belted Kingfisher might have been of more interest to others. But to go back to the first wren, the one investigating a mini-cave, it reminded me of the species’ scientific name Troglodytes hiemalis, which from the Greek and Latin, means winter cave-dweller.

November 13 2019.  Hendrie Valley & Cherry Hill Gate, RBG, Burlington, ON. A mid-week string of cold snowy days has persuaded me to catch up on domestic stuff and my birding has been limited to watching a dozen House Sparrows empty the feeder. But today I needed a leg-stretch and opted to walk the valley to see what, if anything, was new.  The valley is known to harbour appropriately named Winter Wrens through the coldest months. I had my thoughts on where I might find some, they like damp, thick, sheltered tangles, often not far from water perhaps where food is more likely to be found. I found two but neither allowed me more than a glimpse, they’re entitled to their privacy. Otherwise it was pretty much as expected: Black-capped Chickadees, a couple of Blue Jays, Downy Woodpeckers and this Red-bellied Woodpecker who followed me around for a while, chuckling a softly abrupt Chuff Chuff as he skipped from tree to tree. Here he is when he came in almost close enough to touch.

A Fox Sparrow flew from me and remained frustratingly difficult to see, but as my first and probably last this autumn, it was a satisfying sighting.

It had been surprisingly good exercise trudging around the slippery trails but not much noteworthy from a birder’s point of view. But to my surprise, at the parking lot, in a puddle of meltwater, was where I found my Birds of the Day, a group of American Robins splashing and bathing socially together with an even larger group of Cedar Waxwings.  There’s nothing unusual about birds bathing, I imagine their mothers insist on it, but you don’t witness it very often.  Here’s a few of them photographed in the late afternoon gloom.

November 8 2019.  Downtown Burlington, ON. No doubt experiences with frost vary widely. Where we live we get touches of hoar-frost in mid-October, just a light touch and most tender plants scrape by. As the month wears on, the overnight cold visits us more often, but usually only as a touch of frost. Last night the touch turned to a smack, enough that I’m glad I drained garden hoses, enough that several trees within sight are dropping leaves in a steady, tumbling rain.

Warm indoors, I was looking at our outdoor thermometer, the falling leaves and reflecting on seasonal changes when a subtly different looking bird flew to our nearly naked Alternate-leaved Dogwood, I could see it was a White–crowned Sparrow, not an everyday sort of sparrow, but one I always enjoy when I find it. It eyed the seedy debris below our bird feeder and flew down to feed.

I’ve taken to filling the feeder every few days even though it’s usually empty within 24 hours. I fill from a heavy bag of sunflower, safflower and millet mix that I bought knowing nothing would go to waste. I suppose it depends what you mean by waste, because House Sparrows promptly move in to pick out the best bits and flick the rest to the ground below. But that spillage provides several days of clean-up for Dark-eyed Juncos, Mourning Doves and Black Squirrels.  The White-crowned Sparrow was nervous but fed briefly, hugging the more sheltered margins as it could and, within a few minutes, left.  It is probably a migrant on its way from northern Ontario or Quebec to a warmer wintering spot a bit south of us, anywhere from Ohio or Pennsylvania to central Mexico.

White-crowned Sparrows are handsome little creatures, close cousins to the far more common White-throated Sparrow. Always worth trying to get a photo of and so far, today, My Bird of the Day. Here it is above – and others below.

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November 3 2019.  Hendrie Valley, Burlington, ON. The chill of the morning is still in my bones as I sit down to write this. It’s a November day full of what November does best: cold blustery winds, ragged grey skies threatening rain or snow, and wind-tossed leaves. It’s the sort of day that promises little in the way of birds but which can deliver surprises, you just have to get out and look.

The first Sunday of November is the day our local naturalists’ club undertakes its annual Fall Bird Count. I joined an enthusiastic group charged with scouring local parklands and reporting all birds seen. We traipsed around an old quarry seeing little: the odd Song Sparrow, a group of Red–winged Blackbirds a couple of Blue Jays and not much else until, emerging from a treed path, we crossed an open grassy area and looked up at a large, very dark, bird turning low overhead.

My rapidly firing thought-process went something like this, “Golden Eagle!?, Possible, – good time of year. But no, maybe a Turkey Vulture.  Think about it. No, not a TV, too big and wrong flight pattern. Then what? Bald Eagle? Maybe a juvenile? – No, could be, but not all black. And certainly not an adult Bald. What else could it be? Must be Golden Eagle – check long tail? Yes. Terminal band on tail? Too dark, can’t make one out. Flight pattern? Steady beats. Must be a Golden Eagle. Yep, I think so – for sure – probably.

We watched it riding the winds for a long time until it finally dropped out of sight below the treed skyline. Gathered in a group, we went through the ‘what-it-could-be’ and ‘what-it’s-not’ and all we were left with was Golden Eagle. I was about as certain as I could be.

Well, therein a cautionary tale. Much retrospection and scrutiny of photos later and we had to backtrack. It was young Bald Eagle.

A couple of our group were able to photograph it and I thank Ted Buck for these four wonderful shots of our bird. Ted and others took photos against a bright white sky and until any of us could apply computer scrutiny it looked like a Golden Eagle, and who wouldn’t want it to be just that?

It reminds me of a scrap of introspective wisdom from a senior and much-respected Michigan birder who, after a long, mosquito-plagued, but eventually successful struggle to glimpse a known-to-be-there Prothonotary Warbler, commented wryly, “Piece of cake this game.”