Category: Uncategorized

26 April 2019.  Grimsby, ON.  There are a few bird species that I make a point of seeking out before it’s too late. Too late either because, although they are here to stay, they will become very elusive, or just passing through on their way further north. Every late April I try to find time for the brief appearances of Wilson’s Snipes and Broad-winged Hawks. Birds of this Week.

Wilson’s Snipes could be described as common where found; that is, provided you know where they are, you have a reasonable chance of seeing them. Their preference in this part of the world is for soggy, marginal pastures. The enjoyment of finding and seeing snipe comes firstly from actually seeing them, they are very well camouflaged so often invisible and, secondly watching and hearing them doing their high-overhead winnowing display. A display which is described in Cornel Labs’ Birds of North America, as “…a tremulous hu-hu-hu reminiscent of one vocalization of Eastern Screech-Owl.  It is produced by airflow over outstretched outer tail feathers, modulated by wingbeats. It is primarily an aggressive behavior for territorial defence, but also may act to attract mates. Mostly given by males, but females also winnow.”

I watched a couple of snipe take off for extended, swooping and soaring winnowings over a hopelessly soaked field. I followed their performance until ,when content with their performances, they parachuted down on wings held in a deep V until making a splash-landing.

Broad-winged Hawks, in big migratory flock, arrive in April passing overhead on their way to points north, and reappear on their way south in mid-September. Yesterday I watched as kettles of hundreds circled up on warm-air thermals, spiralling until they’d gained enough height to slide off the top to drift northward in a long stream of ones and twos. We sometimes see those ones and twos passing low above and that’s when their boldly banded tail is so conspicuous. The Broad-wing flight is something of a spectacle to be enjoyed but we have just three weeks of the year.

April 17 2019. Near Walmart, Waterdown, ON.  The Virginia Rail of a few days ago may have been muddled when it came to habitat choice but there was nothing wrong with its timing. Mid-April is when Virginia Rails make their return journey so, with that in mind, I went to check a few likely wetlands with appropriate habitat.

My first stop was a long-abandoned quarry that has been reworked into a city park. Virginia Rails and Sora are known to breed here in a small marshy area and I had almost immediate success, I heard two rails calling, in time they seemed to draw closer and I glimpsed one when is stood to call out from a raft of old cattail stalks . The contact call is a shortish sequence of low two-sylable click sounds like, kidik-kidik-kidik. Their courtship song is distinctive and sounds like a series of piglet grunts. A friend once smilingly called it a Marsh Pig, the name sticks with me.

Content with my brief Virginia Rail sighting, I moved on to another disused and rehabilitated quarry where I was greeted by the fragments of a Brown Thrasher‘s song from somewhere unseen. In one of the ponds a pair of Ring-necked Ducks kept their distance but unwittingly accepted the far-seeing eye of my camera.

A pair of Caspian Terns wheeled overhead and occasionally swept down to pick at small fish. I was mulling over the memory that Caspian Tern in Russian is Tschegrava, a name that captures its sharp barking call. Then, to push that reflective musing aside, I heard a low clucking sound that became an aquatic burble of song coming from somewhere behind me. It was so odd that I wondered if I’d imagined it. I had no idea who or what it could be, although to add a bit of context, I should note that this old quarry-become-park is gratingly close to the back of Walmart and Home Depot stores, so incongruous sounds were not all that uncommon, although most were clipped and metallic, like ‘Jeff to Housewares’ or something like that.

A dim memory of the maniacal spring ‘song’ of Pied-billed Grebe came to mind, could it be? I felt I was grasping at straws but, to cut a long story short, that is what it was. I searched and soon found a pair that had taken to the pond as if it was their choice of a good place to raise a family.

My presence against the skyline spooked them but when I kept a low profile I was able to watch as they patrolled the neighbourhood.  I think they were in an early, relaxed stage of pair bonding rather than the fury of pre-copulatory courtship. They were enjoying each other’s company and sometimes took to attack a solitary Mallard, who was minding his own business.

Put up against its North American grebe cousins the Pied-billed is perhaps the least elegant; more tug boat than Grand Banks schooner. But aside from their strange looks, calls and song, Pied-billed Grebes have some useful defensive techniques: they can compress their body feathers to make themselves sink quietly and completely out of sight, or, if less dire action is needed, descend until only its periscope of a head remains above water to keep an eye on things.

I watched, photographed and enjoyed them for quite a long time, they had shoved aside the rail to become my Birds of the Day.

April 13 2019. Shell Park Oakville, ON.  Most birding days deliver sightings that fall within the spectrum of the reasonably expected. There are surprises, delights and notable sightings often enough and they are the grist to the mill for this My Bird of the Day site.  But today, together with a group of beginner birders, we saw (quite clearly) a Virginia Rail which does not fall within that spectrum, or anywhere close.

I was the co-leader of a group of beginner birders and we were enjoying learning from each other.  It sometimes takes a person pointing out and discussing something curious or intriguing, like today’s Golden-crowned Kinglets, Northern Flickers or Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, to gain a toehold on the road to a consuming interest. We happily shared sightings and discussed the biology of Brown-headed Cowbirds, the differences between a Downy and a Hairy Woodpecker and why sapsuckers and flickers aren’t called woodpeckers when they clearly should be.

By the time we stumbled upon our Bird of the Day we had a list of about twenty-five birds for the morning. It included Blue Jays, Common Grackles, Turkey Vultures, a couple of Sharp-shinned Hawks and a newly arrived Chipping Sparrow.  A Common Raven was on the list too, although only I heard it and no-one saw it, so it hardly counted for most of the group.

We saw our Virginia Rail in the most improbable of places. They belong in freshwater marshes where they stalk around secretively among Cattail stalks and other aquatic vegetation. But ours flew low over a manicured strip of grass covering a large pipeline easement, moving from one narrow strip of trees to land in the dense under-scrub of a cedar hedge behind a couple of suburban back yards. There were no wetlands of any kind anywhere nearby.

We watched it disappear and hurry out of sight. My companion leader and I shared first impressions, my semi-serious thought was Norway Rat, while she said it’s a crake, (I thought she’d taken leave of her senses). But it was a bird: dark, small yet chunky, and a weak flier; and Lyn was right, it was a crake, not strictly but close enough phylogenetically.  With a bit of effort, we were able to see it quite well and identify it as a Virginia Rail. I have only two photos of a Virginia Rail, both chicks, one of which was killed by a car so, neither adds anything to this account.

It was one of those moments where the absurdity and excitement merged to leave me almost speechless. The beginner group was certainly drawn to the bird and its evident notability and I hope most will be compelled to do some follow-up research. I could only shake my head and step back to give the bird room. The homeowners who were drawn outdoors by the sight of twenty pairs of binoculars staring at them seemed to catch on to our excitement but were probably left quite baffled.

For a bit of clarification and context, nearly a year ago I posted here about the Clapper Rails we met on Cape May, New Jersey. The Virginia Rail looks and behaves much like a Clapper, but is one-third of the size and favours freshwater not tidal saltmarshes. So, although this one below is a Clapper Rail, it is something like what we saw. Absurd.

April 12 2019. Shell Park Oakville, ON.  Last night I checked the continental radar images for evidence of birds in migration;  I’m glad I did, it was busy.  The skies seemed to be loaded with birds and I wondered what it would mean for us in the morning. Well, early today I did an advance check of a park where I will be leading a Beginner Birding Hike and found Northern Flickers and Golden-crowned Kinglets had descended on us, they were everywhere. There was much more to it than flickers and kinglets but in terms of sheer numbers they dominated. Among many others, I got fleeting glimpses of a Hermit Thrush, a Winter Wren and a pair of Eastern Phoebes.  It’s just possible the Hermit Thrush had overwintered here but I suspect all the others are returning migrants and it’s anyone’s guess how far they’ve come or how much further they have to go. So, the spring migration is well underway and I’m pleased to be in the thick of it.

I thought I had found My Birds of the Day when I came upon a small group of Golden-crowned Kinglets who had found a stream of sap running from fresh holes made by a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker; I’d never seen or heard of this behavior before. Kinglets rarely stay still but these had probably found a valuable source of sugar and paid little attention to me.

 

A later, surprise sighting and without question Bird of the Day, was a Brown Thrasher. My arrival to where it was scratching in the leaf litter for food startled it and it moved away quickly, disappearing into a patch of thick brambles.  I was quite shocked to see it as it struck me as a very early date for a thrasher. With some research I found that it is only a bit early but not a record-breaker by any means. They usually start arriving in mid-late April and are in full flood by the end of the month.

Footnote.  At first blush, it seems improbable that birds would show up on radar but they do, and in spring, when the quantity of migrating birds aloft is staggering, the masses show up clearly. Because radar stations are mostly associated with airports and therefore relatively few and far between, the bird-images show as circular blue patches within radar’s range. It all takes place at night when the surge of migration occurs. See for yourself by following this link some spring night, most nights before the mid-late May will be busy although nasty weather will slow or stop things.

April 9 2019. Niagara Peninsula Hawk Watch, Beamer Conservation Area, Grimsby, ON. Nothing quite like a lively wind to mix things up a bit. Today the wind surged out of the west at 20 Kmh at what a mariner might call Force 4, a Moderate Breeze. The sort of breeze that raises dust or loose paper and sends migrating hawks swooping and surfing. I know that because I found various raptor species scattered far and wide today; they were not over our hawk watch where we wait for and expect them. The hawk watch is a point of high land overlooking the narrowest part of the of Lake Ontario shoreline, a natural focal point on a flyway.

Driving a dusty country road, I noticed this Red-tailed Hawk hanging like a kite, riding a ridge-wave that rose from the steep face of a limestone quarry.

Later, as I sat trying to re-find an Eastern Meadowlark, a female Northern Harrier skimmed overhead, barely clearing the tops of scrubby hawthorns. I could hardly follow her scudding course and in no time, she was gone. But in that fleeting glimpse she became my Bird of the Day. This was a very lucky shot and shows well the distinctive white rump.

The sky was dotted with Turkey Vultures being tossed around and rocking from side to side as they blew by. Forty years ago, we counted less than 300 Turkey Vultures at the hawk watch, this year we have already counted more than 5,000. Why?

At the hawk watch, Sharp-shinned Hawks and Cooper’s Hawks skipped, while Red-tailed Hawks laboured, over the tree-tops, driving hard into the headwind. Some way-high and unidentified falcons, maybe Merlins maybe American Kestrels, had us scratching our heads. While others were still debating the falcons, a first of the year Osprey swept past to share My Bird of the Day honours with the earlier Northern Harrier.