Category: Uncategorized

June 15 2018.  Stonehenge, Wiltshire, UK. I took family members to Stonehenge today, I grew up about thirty miles to the south and have admired it several times over the years, usually just in passing, it was one of those places that happened to be on the way. Familiarity does not breed contempt, I still consider it a thought provoking privilege to see Stonehenge.  It’s a grand place, despite all that goes along with being a checklist-destination.

It is difficult to find a way to describe the sight and feel of those pillars without trotting out one or more of a handful of now exhaustively overworked adjectives: timeless, awesome and iconic would be among them.  Perhaps the nineteenth century, Wessex author Thomas Hardy hit the nail on the head best, describing it concisely as “…older than the centuries.” And so it is, immovable, silent and utterly disinterested in our opinions of it.

Stonehenge stands in a windswept, hedgerow-partitioned landscape of different greens, dotted with equally ancient burial-mound outliers. As we walked up a gently sloping grassy footpath I listened to an ascendent Skylark in full song. The male Skylark defines his territory with an accumulative song building a several-minutes-long succession of liquid notes, whistles and trills, it only ends once he’s touched the undersides of the summer clouds and dropped back to somewhere near his mate’s nest. It’s a stepping-stone song that is as much a part of this open landscape as Stonehenge, Skylarks were most likely here hundreds of years before the stones arrived. However those early people contrived to move and erect those massive stones it is likely that they would have listened to a Skylark’s song just as I did today.

And in a real flight of fancy: Is it possible that in fact the stones were hauled hundreds of miles and so arranged to somehow acoustically provide a central spot where people could gather on a summer day and listen to Skylarks? Bird of the Day any day.

June 8 2018, Churchill Park, Hamilton, ON. I should have taken my camera this morning. I remember as I was leaving home at 4.30, in the last shades of night, I paused as my hand reached for my camera. Should I?  I thought. No, we’ll be too busy and they expect my undivided attention to focus on our task; I should have taken it.

Three of us had six forest-edge stations to visit as part of a breeding bird study. Our task was to listen and look (as leaf conditions allowed) for breeding birds. Each station was a short, if rugged, hike in and for a couple of hours my body and mind were dragging. It wasn’t until the third or fourth station visit that all the bits were in harmony, and then I was only hungry.

The first couple of stops were unremarkable except for our collective not-yet-awake bone weariness and distaste at the prospect of picking up a tick or two as we brushed through the forest grasses. Our bird list included among others Carolina Wrens, Eastern Wood Peewees, Red-eyed Vireos, American Robins and Song Sparrows; pretty much what we’d expected .

At our third forested station, not far from a large playing field where early- risers ran dogs of all sizes, we settled for five minutes quiet time before starting our listening. A Red-eyed Vireo came close enough for us to admire its elegance and we could see it was carrying something in its beak, at first I thought it must be food for nestlings, but then it ducked into a cluster of overlaying hickory leaves and started to apply whatever it was to a half-constructed nest. It all came back to me: Red-eyed Vireos make a pendulous nest slung between the branches of a forked twig. Working out from the narrowest part of the fork the nest is anchored with supports glued to the twigs with spiderweb silk. The nest is carried on the supports like a small basket and is smoothed and decorated. It was our privilege to be watching a stage in its construction. I have a soft spot for vireos at any time and this was special enough to make it Bird of the Day, camera or no camera.

Well some more good stuff was yet to come. As we completed our ten minutes of listening at this station a pair of Great-crested Flycatchers flew in to investigate an old decaying tree looking for a suitable nest cavity. Again we were close witnesses to an important part of the bird’s reproductive cycle.

A little later at the head of a trail leading to our next stop, we heard the soft and repetitive gulping coos of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. One of my colleagues commented that they’d heard one here a few days earlier but had had no luck seeing it. Actually her words were something like, “It could be anywhere. Where do they hang out?” “Right there!” I replied, pointing. It had fluttered out to an exposed branch and moved around in full view for a couple of minutes. Cuckoos have a way of moving, almost snake-like, ducking and relocating without seeming to move. They are an elegant, rather elongated bird, grayish brown above and white below. Not the sort of bird to look away from once you get it in your binocular view, you can never be sure you’ll see one again.

Our mornings work continued with three more stops and included Yellow-throated Vireos, a Tufted Titmouse or two and a possible Orchard Oriole. But by the time of the oriole we’d done enough and were happy to make our way to a local coffee shop. Then, for me it was time to go home and catch up on my sleep deficit, for the other two they had a workday to complete but expected to be heading home in the early afternoon.

May 23 2018, Belleplain Forest, NJ. We decided to spend the freshness of morning listening and looking for woodland birds. Belleplain Forest is rich, lush and green with fast flowing creeks and occaisional areas of standing water. I’m sure it has all been logged at one time, maybe several times; as virgin forest it must have been towering cathedral of a place.

We started early and made really good progress hearing very vocal Red-eyed Vireos, Great-crested Flycatchers and Ovenbirds as we drove. And when we did stop my companion Lyn picked up the zzzzziPPP of a Northern Parula. I couldn’t catch on to it however much I tried, there’s a puzzling gap in my hearing because I could hear other species she assumed I’d miss.

At a couple of roadside stops, chosen for no particular reason other than the forest was a bit swampy we also found Prothonotary, Yellow-throated, Pine, Blackpoll, Bay-breasted and Hooded Warblers, Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers, Carolina Wren and Brown Thrasher. 

A large public campground with a lake, sports field and scattered open campsites offered a lot of different habitat. We heard, searched for and triumphantly found a Yellow-billed Cuckoo skulking in the lower tangles of Mountain Laurel; a first-ever for Lyn after many years of trying. We were hoping to find a reported Worm-eating Warbler but got distracted by the distant song of a Scarlet Tanager. Like the cuckoo, we listened; we searched and eventually found it. Stunning is an over-used adjective but I think it arguably applies in the case of the Scarlet Tanager; surely the hot scarlet would render senseless someone of a delicate disposition. It was my Bird of the Morning despite some tough competition, here it is.

We’d set aside the morning for the forest birds because they tend to be more active and vocal before noon; it was the right decision. The afternoon was spent at Brigantine National Wildlife Refuge (Drearily re-named the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge) and it was about as different an event as is possible and the birding was every bit as good. It was a sandwich of experiences because you start at the woodsy, dry-land end, make your way slowly around a twelve kilometer loop trail elevated above an expanse of saltmarsh until the last kilometer brings you back through open fields and forest.

I think Brigantine is as much about the setting as the bird life. In the foreground are the silent salt marsh expanses with Dunlin, Short-billed Dowitchers and Ruddy Turnstones picking over the mudflats. In silent contrast, rising from the heat haze far to the south, stands the post-modern skyline of Atlantic City, a geometric wall of shiny glass and steel.

Perhaps our most surprising bird here was a Blackpoll Warbler, which we disturbed on the edge of the road. It sprang from dense undergrowth and hung to the side of a scrubby willow while we tried to understand what on earth we were looking at: a small upside-down and sideways bird, black and white with orange streaks. It sorted itself out and the penny dropped, Blackpoll Warblers are black and white and have orange legs and feet. We followed it for a while as it foraged in the scrubby margins. I still wonder why a Blackpoll Warbler was there; far from the sort of treed cover I assume it needs, Bird of the Afternoon for me but Lyn had better to come, she was on the right side of the car to see a Saltmarsh Sparrow quite clearly.  For my part it was no more than a fast moving little bird flying low from right to left across the road.

Brigantine filled the afternoon with great birds, a sandwich including Willow Flycatcher, Barn Swallows, Snowy Egrets, Glossy Ibises, Black Skimmers, an American Oystercatcher sitting on eggs at the roadside, a Prairie warbler and a Bald Eagle.

June 2 2018, Flamborough, ON. Much as I like doing our regular transect studies, there are other things in life.  I did the final transect of spring this morning and having made an early start had the rest of the morning open. I went back to a couple of favourite spring birding spots to make sure that all was right with the world.

First stop was a long trail that leads down from a grassy hilltop into a swampy woodland. On the hilltop were Barn Swallows, Yellow Warblers and, heard but not seen, a Bobolink or two. The swampy valley is a good place for Veerys (none today), Northern Waterthrushes (yes a few) and sometimes Canada Warblers (no,).  But there were plenty of mosquitoes, a singing Swamp Sparrow and a distant Pileated Woodpecker. Some nice ferns there too but I found they were where mosquitoes hung thickest so kept my distance.

With the thought of Canada Warblers in mind I made my way to a narrow but far too busy country road that slices through thick Tamarack and maple forest.  When first created I think the road must have been a wood-plank track hacked through the forest then subsequently improved as new technologies (gravel and asphalt in this case) and population growth allowed. I think that because in several places bits of wood stick through the thin asphalt, I can’t think why else they would be there.

I was pleased to spot a Purple Finch overseeing his domain from on high, pleased although not completely surprised because I’ve seen them here before. Purple Finches remain in southern Ontario year round although they’re somewhat unusual around here, we don’t have much of the moist coniferous forests they prefer during breeding season.

I caught sight of a Canada Warbler but only briefly, so it scarcely counts, admired a quiet Cedar Waxwing, could hear a White-throated Sparrow singing and a hint of a Veery’s soft veeer whisper-song. All seems to be in order, the birds of summer are back. Among them I think an anxious Northern Waterthrush was Bird of the Day, certainly it was the one that made me think wow! Here it is.

May 22 2018, Belleplain Forest, NJ. This bird-packed day, in which we visited three of Cape May’s birding hot-spots, was vividly illuminated by yellow-birds, notably: Common Yellowthroat, Prothonotary Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat and Yellow-throated Warbler. While I’m at it, and to be all-inclusive, I should also toss in Lesser Yellowlegs, although circumstances were different and frankly yellow is little more than an afterthought in that case.

Our Common Yellowthroat was seen at the first stop, Higbee Beach, but we’re pretty familiar with them and since there was precious little else of interest (except the Indigo Bunting below), we left to explore stop number two, Cape May Point State Park.

The State Park is a popular tourist stop, mostly for its lighthouse I think, although headlands, capes and lands’ ends will draw a crowd, lighthouse or not. Lighthouses have their well-earned virtues: grand views from the top, interesting stories about shipwrecks that drowned other people long ago, and they’re exceedingly helpful if you happen to be under sail twenty miles offshore at night and a little uncertain of your whereabouts. But we were securely ashore and not very much interested in the long views so we chose instead to follow a rambling and well-marked nature trail through Wax Myrtle thickets, pine forests and around a couple of interesting ponds. Part way along this trail we were held up for a while by a welcome entanglement with an evasive but vocal White-eyed Vireo, and then as it departed we turned to continue when a female Prothonotary Warbler popped into view, briefly but just long enough for this photo.

Prothonotary Warblers are trophy birds for north-eastern birders, the male’s head, neck and body are about as orangey-yellow as it’s possible to be without melting, and the female is only slightly less heated. Pete Dunne in his excellent “Essential Field Guide Companion” (worth a read, follow the link) describes the male as “An animate mote of golden sunlight moving through dark swamps.” That’s a male pictured below.

Happy with the female Prothonotary Warbler we alternately led and followed another pair of birders and only stopped dead in our tracks at the sight of a male Turkey* displaying to a largely uninterested group of females. Absurd though it may be, I thought he looked rather like an armchair, certainly he was roughly the same size. And I wondered at the devices of nature that have taken a species down this particular road of extravagant courtship display  while the Prothonotary Warblers, to take a convenient example, simply makes do with a heavy dollop of colour.

 

More colour was just around the next corner when we both heard the demonstrative chattering, chuckling and whistling of a Yellow-breasted Chat; another trophy bird. Apart from being a captivating bird to watch and listen to, the chat is curious in many ways. Until very recently it was tentatively considered to be a warbler despite being twice the size and mass of any other warbler and exhibiting quite un-warbler-like behaviour. Indeed, on second dna-tested thought, it is free to go and have its own family of one, the Icteriidae. Status notwithstanding it was a brilliant bird to meet.

Three yellows in the bag.

Our final yellow bird of the day, a Yellow-throated Warbler, came this evening. This species was unfamiliar to both of us and because they prefer the uppermost tips of White Pines, it took a lot of patience to find one. They were there, we could see what looked to be them flitting from tree to tree and they were singing the right song. Eventually we managed to follow one down to a lower tier and there I managed to get some crummy photographs. But camera aside, we found ourselves breathless at the drama of a small bird with an intensly yellow breast offset by bold black facial markings. THIS was my Bird of the Day, despite all the other yellows and the White-eyed Vireo, Whip-poor-will, Least and Forster’s Terns, Chimney Swifts and too many others, it topped off the day.

* I risk of being tiresome on this point. But since I’ve taken up the Quixotic cause of the name of the Turkey, I should continue to note that while 99.999999% of the world calls this bird a Wild Turkey; I don’t for good reason (I think). i.e Of course it’s wild! If it wasn’t it would probably be wrapped in plastic. There must surely be a better adjective, I petition for ‘Woodland Turkey'(?)