My Bird of the Day

Royal Botanical Gardens. Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. July 28 2022. This evening, with two hours of daylight in hand, we walked the valley for no better reason than its stroll value.

There was no choice but to go single-file along the first half of the trail, it was thickly overgrown, head-high and smelled heavily of mid-summer. Over my shoulder, I commented that last March I’d wondered whether anything could ever possibly regrow here, the flood-scoured ground, frozen with drifts of pan-ice seemed so impossible. But now, as is inevitably the case, countless millions of plants clambered over and through each other in their crush for light and space to reseed.

We reached our turnaround point on a small boardwalk that cut across a shallow pond, green with Common Duckweed. It is a favourite stopping place and often the place to see our familiar Eastern Screech Owl (but not today). A female Wood Duck was quietly sifting the waters, but other than that there was little bird life to see. With close listening I could pick out a mewing Gray Catbird, a couple of Blue Jays, Black-capped Chickadees and the occasional far off croak of a Great Blue Heron.

A Green Heron flew quickly across a patch of sky uttering its short, metallic shriek to announce its descent into ponds a couple of corners away from us.

Then quietly another Green Heron drifted over, turned and wheeled down towards our pond and settled not five meters from us.  Funny how hard it is sometimes to see a Green Heron, but they’re not big like a Great Blue, they are crow-size, often inconspicuous and they just mind their own business stalking fish along the edges of quiet ponds and waterways. Sometimes they will hold a pose in ambush, motionless for many minutes at a time. I watched this one make its careful way, along a zigzag log, each step taken slowly, almost daintily, allowing its long toes to wrap a secure grip each time.

It made several rapid stabs for small fry and then one particularly satisfying lunge for a small Brown Bullhead (catfish). A quick down-the-hatch swallow for the catfish, followed by dipping its bill like a cleansing ritual, and it turned, retraced its steps and hopped over to another log to start again. I managed to record about four minutes of video and this is taken from the catfish moment.  A quiet evening and the Green Heron was an easy Bird of the Day.

Royal Botanical Gardens. Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. July 19 2022. I walked the length of my favourite valley early this morning and it was nice. I use that word with some hesitance for I remember teacherly admonitions to avoid ‘nice’ the adjective.  I was instructed that nice is bland and limp, and a weak choice, but it was nice in the valley. Now with the reproduction frenzy of May and June behind us, everything in the bird world seemed to be at peace, a place for everything and everything in its place.

It was a time of simple sightings and no drama. A few Eastern Kingbirds flycatching and a Great Blue Heron fishing for breakfast. Tree Swallows gossiping on open branches, a Green Heron passing overhead and Warbling Vireos singing among the high layers of American Sycamores.

As I ambled a path that runs parallel to the creek I heard the thin I’m-watching-you ‘pip’ note of a Northern Cardinal.  I soon found him just above me and saw one of birding’s curiosities, a bare-headed cardinal.  He’s molting.

Molt is the pre-programmed shedding of worn feathers and their replacement with new. At its simplest it’s just that birds change their clothes too, but the variables and complications are many. It is a complex area of study: males of many species have an eye-catching breeding plumage but some molt into glory in the weeks or months just before spring, while others do so a full six to nine months ahead of spring.  Why the difference?  Some large birds don’t do a complete molt every year at all, because growing feathers demands too much energy. Some species go through several intermediate molts before reaching full adulthood, and many ducks, geese and swans molt out their long flight feathers and are unable to fly for a period.

Curiously, some individual Northern Cardinals and Blue Jays have a way of molting into a bald-headed state for a short while. Such baldness is uncommon and usually prompts a flurry of alarms and queries among local birding groups. Naked like that they’re strikingly ugly, I’m sure I see their dinosaur lineage, and who would have imagined that cardinals have grey/black skin under their brilliant red plumage.  I wonder (and I have no idea) whether it’s a coincidence that the heads of both cardinals and jays have prominent feathered crests. He was my un-feathered Dinosaur of the Day.

Port Perry, ON. July 8 2022. While a car full of adults might ignore hunger pangs for a while, a nursing 8-month old is almost certain to call for immediate satisfaction. It was exactly that set of circumstances that broke our longish journey into several parts today, happily we made each stop somewhere green, shady and mosquito-free.

We stopped for a while at a lakeside park popular with people of all ages and interests: young, old, ice cream and play. I might have been the only one paying attention to bird life, gulls mostly, but especially a steady patrol of terns along the waterfront. From where we sat, I thought they looked like Black Terns, and if so, I wanted a better look. Excusing myself, I returned to our heavily packed car to retrieve my binoculars and camera.

Black Terns as a species are considered to be of ‘Least Concern’ across the Americas, they thrive in the centre of the continent breeding in small colonies on freshwater marshes, At the edges of their range however, Black Terns have declined sharply and are now much less common around the Lower Great Lakes. It’s been a while since I last saw Black Terns and I was keen to get closer.

A small flock, perhaps a dozen, had found good pickings in the matts of vegetation accumulating along the shallow shoreline and quiet backwaters. They formed a constant parade, passing parallel and close to a waterfront path, wheeling suddenly for shallow plunges or picking daintily from the weedy surface. Where open water gave way to a busy marina they veered out and away to circle back to the starting point, and repeat.

I think that in all my years that I have never enjoyed such a privileged opportunity to watch and study Black Terns, they are usually more solitary and too far away. It might be hard to write enthusiastically about a bird that is generally black, sooty black and pale black but their bouncing acrobatic flight and delicate swallow-like lines make up for it. They were difficult to photograph but nevertheless a happy distraction from our journey.

Burlington Bay, ON. June 17 2022. A week or two ago I walked a stretch of overgrown and unloved beach.  It can be interesting birding but the charm is rather diminished by the washed-up litter, plastics and boating paraphernalia. It is tangled and overgrown with non-native vegetation, mostly it seems plants that produce seeds-that-cling, things like Common Burdock and Rough Cocklebur.

As I picked my way along, dodging Stinging Nettles and generally watching my steps, I saw, on the gravel in front of me, what I took to be a dead Northern Flicker. It was splayed out in a crash-landing pose, Tail spread awkwardly, one wing at an odd angle and head askew. ( It’s a bit like the one in the photo except….) I thought perhaps it had fallen from the air, mid-flight, felled by a mysterious, perhaps alien, infection. Or maybe it had been dropped there by some kills-for-the-fun-of-it predator perhaps a Peregrine Falcon or Coopers Hawk.

I stared at it for a while, probably a few seconds only. As I was stooping to take a closer look, it opened its eye, turned its head to look at me and with a quick scramble took flight, apparently well rested and perfectly healthy. Taking a nap I suppose.

Royal Botanical Gardens. Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. June 24 2022. A gorgeous mid-summer morning and I was up and out early to hike the valley; once again looking for evidence of breeding birds. I made a little progress by confirming the presence of fledged young,  in this case Belted Kingfishers.

But first I spent a long, quiet spell comfortably seated beside a pond, first watching this Great-crested Flycatcher making the most of early-hours peace and quiet; and very shortly afterwards, its cousin, an Eastern Kingbird. Two of my most admired birds.

I spotted the kingfishers on conspicuous perches over water and within a few yards of where I had long suspected there to be a nest. They were sitting quietly and quite a long way off but I could tell they were smaller than adults, still a little fluffy and perhaps a bit stubby-tailed, so definitely fledglings. I took many photos but couldn’t remember how to manually focus, very frustrating.  I found another and better viewpoint, overcame my camera lapse and spent many minutes watching these youngsters. A parent appeared briefly and pushed a small silvery fish down one throat but other than that it was just the pleasure of the birds, the time and the place that made them my Birds of the Day.

As I made my way back I was lucky enough to come across an adult female Belted Kingfisher sitting quietly on a branch and just visible through a thick Multiflora Rose bush. Kingfishers are usually very quick to fly off at the first sight of us but she apparently hadn’t seen my approach. The sunlight and deep shadow contrast was a challenge, but here she is, Mother Bird of the Day.