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Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. January 29, 2024.  I think a hint of spring is the best and most precious commodity possible in January; it doesn’t have to be much. This mid-winter has been gloomy and wet, unseasonable; not steely bright-white and cold as Ontario Januarys have always been, or should be. Today delivered sunshine and a puff of warmer air, and as I left the house I could hear bird song – of a sort.

I had a chunk of time in hand before a meeting, so decided to walk a circuit around the valley.  Bird-wise there was nothing unusual, nor should there be. It was a classic list of species-that-stay, including Carolina Wren, Black-capped Chickadees, White-breasted Nuthatches, Dark-eyed Juncos, Mallards and Blue Jays.

More Blue Jays than I would have expected, and they set me wondering:  were they all just winter locals of the wider area who happened to be in the valley today; perhaps just a band of wanderers; could they be early spring returnees; or are they a sign of climate changes and didn’t feel the need to go further south?

Notwithstanding the un-remarkableness of today’s birds, I think My Bird of the Day was an American Tree Sparrow, just one, and just a glimpse. Ten years ago, they were common winter visitors from much further north. It’s a pretty little sparrow, to look at they’re much like summer’s Chipping Sparrow and the coming and going, switching places by the two species seems almost coordinated, like a shift change.

Goodness knows we are aware of changes in the presence and absence of species over time. Carolina Wren and Turkey Vulture are both common now, though uncommon 40 years ago.  Red-shouldered Hawk was once a frequent spring migrant passing-through, but no longer.  And we’ve watched the virtual disappearance of Red-headed Woodpecker while Red-bellied Woodpeckers moved in in droves, almost as if to replace them. I’m sure populations and distributions have always ebbed and flowed, and this is not intended as a treatise on bird population changes wrought by climate change; a topic far too big.

Here’s a photo of my best bird, an  American Tree Sparrow from 2016.

Dundas, ON. January 25. 2024.  There was nothing winter-inspirational about today’s weather forecast. A lot of ‘Near zero visibility in fog’ and ‘Dense fog patches’.  Better than some of the stuff January can throw around I suppose.

As I drove to a class this afternoon, I made a mental note to see just what birds are about – or even visible.  I wasn’t expecting much of course.  An American Crow probing busily for something in the roadside detritus, a trio of sleepy Canada Geese and scores of Rock Pigeons strung along utility lines just about summed it up.  An individual Rock Pigeon, regarded closely with an eye for appreciation, can be a rather gorgeous creature, but by the hundredweight they’re really just pigeons.

When I reached my destination and having paid for parking with a phone-app, (What an advance that is! If ever there is/was a barrier between provider and customer, it is the wretched pay-for-parking machine.) and as I made my way to class, I watched a Turkey Vulture slide out of the fog and settle on a nearby parapet wall.  This iPhone photo is the best I could manage.

A January Turkey Vulture in southern Ontario is notable, at least it was but, as part of the inexorable expansion of the Turkey Vulture range and the marked shift in our winter weather from much bone-numbing cold to ‘Dense fog patches’, these birds have managed to establish a winter toe-hold.  My Bird of the Day, a bit of a surprise but not entirely unexpected.

(p.s. Frustrating setbacks by technology mandarins and a few personal priority shifts had put My Bird of the Day on ice for a while. I think I’m refreshed.)

Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. September 1 2023.   Today marked the start of another two months of counting birds.  Our small team has been doing this for nine years: our task is to accumulate consistently gathered data suitable, we hope, for analysis or research on bird populations. We cover four defined transect routes, all on the properties of Canada’s Royal Botanical Gardens, all on untended natural lands, and each transect is distinct in its own mix of habitats.  On a transect, our small team of competent birders will record all birds seen and heard. Today’s transect took me along a narrow, flat-bottomed valley with forested sides. The valley holds four shallow ponds, a modest creek and a few hiking trails. I call it simply ‘the valley’ in these posts.  To see where it is, on Google Maps type: 74WG+GG Burlington, Ontario

It was a Blue Jay morning in the valley today.  The air was full of them and their calls, shrieks and mutterings, and they were flying across and around the valley, catching-up, socializing and congregating, I suspect in readiness for moving south. Whether they’ll move on tomorrow, next week or next month I don’t know.  I suspect they’ll wander around for a while being under no urgent pressure to move.  Food is plentiful and they’ll eat anything, animal or vegetable, something that made them unwelcome around nests with young, or anything smaller than themselves a bit earlier this year.

Still, Blue Jays are beautiful birds and I was pleased the share the morning with them.

Better though, and more driven migrants was a small group of Magnolia Warblers. Life for them was about more than socializing, it was about feeding, urgently refuelling for the long journey ahead to Central America.  I watched them foraging through the thick branches of trailside trees. They don’t sit still for many moments so I was lucky to get the photo above of one which, by the almost non-existent spotting on the flanks, I believe to be a first fall female.

This, in contrast, is a spring male.

The Magnolia Warblers were in the company of a couple of Red–eyed Vireos and Great–crested Flycatchers, all doing the same thing, fattening up and moving along.

This first-of-the-season two-hour transect ended up with 29 species. Not bad, but there will be some much busier days ahead.  I’m happy though with Blue Jays and Magnolia Warblers as My Birds of the Day.

Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. August 27 2023.   When I immigrated to Canada several decades ago I was thrilled to see an Osprey – a lifer. I have no recollection of exactly when or where, but it was a near-impossible, undreamt-of sighting for me.  Throughout my British growing-up, Ospreys were absent and wrapped in vague mythology that had much to do with Britain’s centuries old land-ownership system.

Osprey is the only raptor that plunge-dives to catch live fish as its main food source. In the U.K in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, its highly successful catching technique put Ospreys squarely in conflict with British land-owners unable to tolerate the idea that ‘their’ salmon was being fished by someone else. So, they shot them and destroyed their nests, or at least instructed their gamekeepers to do so. And then Ospreys were extirpated, all gone.

That is yesterday’s Osprey persecution story, and I wonder whether the battle really was fought over salmon, surely the rivers and estuaries held other less exclusive species. Perhaps the Osprey was never particularly abundant in the British Isles. In any event they were gone.

Then, sometime in the mid-1950s, a pair of Ospreys showed up to nest in Scotland. It caused quite a welcoming fuss, attitudes towards wildlife had changed and the Ospreys were back. Even so, these returning Ospreys were inaccessible to ordinary folks: the nest was on private land and somewhat remote, also it was closely guarded, protected from many still-active egg-collectors. Nevertheless, it was a very good news story and there are now some 250 Osprey pairs breeding in the U.K.

Today’s Osprey persecution story touches on wireless technology; wouldn’t you know it.  Ospreys build a large platform nest on high vantage points, places like commanding tree-tops and telecommunication towers. Service personnel dislike their workspaces being cluttered with fishy remains and other ejecta that accompanies with child-rearing, so owners of those towers recently started installing ingenious Osprey exclusion devices. The devices work well and Ospreys have been persuaded to leave the once productive and fishy hunting ground around here.  I miss them, and that takes me to today’s Bird of the Day.

Walking the valley this morning with everything wet and recovering from a heavy overnight thunderstorm it seemed there were few birds anywhere.  It was the sort of silence characteristic of the late summer pause when it’s time for fuelling up while food is abundant. Dodging slippery puddles, I glanced up and was very pleased to spot this Osprey. Maybe a pair has found somewhere to raise their young despite the best efforts of the guardians of technology.  My Bird of the Day.

Mount Julian. ON. July 19, 2023. That quiet found in the hour as the sun rises is nowhere better experienced than on the shore of one of thousands of lakes scattered throughout the once-ancient forests of Ontario.

On this perfect summer day, the only sounds of dawn were those of birds. Not the clamour of spring now but many quieter contact notes shared between parents and young.  First the wake-up wail of a Common Loon far out on the still lake, then distinctively, the call of Herring Gulls on distant rocky islets where they nest, and the gurgle of a pack of Common Ravens passing overhead. A Red-eyed Vireo got started on his day’s task of repeating the same short phrases, once every few seconds until dusk, more than twenty-thousand repetitions by day’s end. A Song Sparrow and an Eastern Phoebe were quietly foraging for food but the best of the morning was a surprise, the clear song of a Pine Warbler from overhead. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, White Pines made up at least 50% of the shoreline trees and the birds are appropriately named.

Pine Warblers sing a melodic trill that is an early marker of the arrival of spring: around home we hear the first sometime around mid-April; two or three weeks before the big wave of neo-tropicals.  Those first songs are easily heard, but the bird prefers the upper levels of pines so is not as easily seen. Some might disagree with melodic as appropriate but when compared to the similar and confusable but drier song of a Chipping Sparrow, the Pine has melody on its side. (If you’re really interested, try this corner of the Xeno-canto site and browse the many recording. The fifth on the list at 58 seconds provides a good example.) Among warblers the Pine is not a visual show-stopper being generally washed in yellow-greens and that, plus its propensity for staying high and out of sight, sometimes leaves it in the ranks of afterthoughts.

But today’s Pine Warbler was different. Aware perhaps of the conventional wisdom as described above, it chose several upgrades: It sang musically, it ventured down quite low, low enough for me to get several good photos and was decidedly colourful. No afterthought, without question it was My Bird of the Day.