My Bird of the Day

July 18 2012. One of the best ways to see lots of birds is to not move.  By that I don’t mean stay at home and watch T.V.  I mean get out of the house, go somewhere with a mix of habitat, get comfortable, sit, stay, and watch.

After a scorchingly hot few days I needed to stretch my legs and went looking for migrant shorebirds.  I ended up at a convenient lookout elevated over a cattail marsh with a vista across a sluggish creek to a small island, a large expanse of mudflats and another large body of water beyond; all of this surrounded by hardwood forests.  I sat for nearly three hours; just watching!  The weather was perfect, a light breeze and hazy cloud and many avian mini-dramas unfolding. I made a lot of field notes here’s what I wrote:

“Herring Gull wrestling with a dead (?) catfish or perhaps a carp.  Struggling, tugging and occasionally recoiling, but it’s a meal.  Its cry reminds me of an Atlantic harbour.

“Hearing a distant Swamp Sparrow stridently chiming at the edge of the marsh, and far off across the creek, a Marsh Wren chattering.

“A flock of 15 Lesser Yellowlegs found marching across the mudflats, every now and then they pick up and move fifty yards, their long legs trailing in brief flights.

“Scattered Least Sandpipers skittering and picking at the mud, lots of them but individuals, not in flocks.

“A Caspian Tern has caught a fish that’s way too big to eat easily, but too good to give up.  It keeps looking up and back fearing losing the fish to a marauding gull or even another Caspian. It has a legs-astride stance as it struggles to control the meal and stay alert.

“A Great Egret swoops in low.  Slow in flight but lands like a ballerina and stalks gracefully, picking up each foot slowly and carefully.  A surprise, haven’t seen one here since last summer, so Bird of the Day!

“Cautious approach of a Great Blue Heron from around the end of the island, then carefully pacing, stalking something, eyes it carefully judging distance then moves on; not edible I guess.

“Five Hooded Mergansers, a tough identification, floating low in the water almost submerged. Working together in a tight group, diving, plunging and fluttering the water.  A difficult i.d; so active and colourless.  Not until one eventually got up onto a rock was I sure.  A learning experience, I’ve never noticed the low-in-the-water, almost submerged behaviour before. And small; maybe youngsters.

“Caspian Terns in a tight pursuit, like two sharp-winged Ws swooping high and wide against a blue sky.  One making a coarse growling sound.”

And the morning also included Red-eyed Vireos calling endlessly in the forest canopy, spaced, it seems, equally about 100M apart, a Rose–breasted Grosbeak still in full colour and a couple of Woodland Turkeys trying not to be seen.  Not many shorebirds as it turns out; but an endorsement of just sitting and letting the birdlife happen.

July 13, 2012. In truth no bird was the undoubted star of today’s field trip. My companion & I went looking for shorebirds at our first stop and forest birds at the second.  Our destinations were both close to a small town that has become a Mecca for heavy-duty motorcyclists every Friday the 13^th; whatever the month. And today being an idyllic mid-summer Friday all area roads were heavy with legions of growly Harley Davidsons .

At the end of our day as we drove home and into a large thunder storm which had forced dozens of motorcyclists to seek shelter beneath every highway bridge along the way, we weighed alternatives for bird of the day.  For her it was a small family of Wood Ducks that we’d startled and who rowed furiously away from us in a panic-stricken scramble.  For me, I was undecided between: a Hooded Warbler, heard but not seen in a shady forest; a spectacular adult Bald Eagle flying lugubriously along the Lake Erie shoreline as we ate lunch; a Caspian Tern that patrolled that same stretch of shoreline in their characteristic brigandish manner or; a smart Horned Lark almost lost among a flock of young Red–winged Blackbirds feeding busily in a weedy field.  I think I go for the Caspian Tern; they’re so in control, almost piratical in the way they patrol the lake ready to strike and never taking hostages.

But the sighting of the day for both of us was a young and not very large Eastern Hognose Snake found in deep leaf litter in the forest and which hissed loudly at my companion lest she commit some indignity upon it. I had never seen one before so was really fascinated to study it and watch it feign mild aggression.  They are not a venomous snake but rely on some interesting defensive tactics: they spread a hood rather like a cobra, hiss softly and try a few fake strikes (albeit with closed mouth).  And if that doesn’t send you packing they’ll sometimes roll over and play dead.

Hognose Snakes are slow moving; they prey mainly on toads so speed is hardly necessary.  Far from being intimidating we found this one rather engaging and had plenty of time to admire it and its beautiful markings. Not everyone likes pictures of snakes but here it is for those that do.

 July 11, 2012.  You could be forgiven for calling a Pied-billed Grebe a funny duck.  But it’s not a duck really, it’s a grebe and grebes admittedly do a lot of duck-like things: they swim around, eat sub-aquatic stuff like weeds and fish, and don’t do very well on land.   But grebes don’t quack, they don’t have truly webbed feet or wide flat bills; they’re different; and in an evolutionary sense, more primitive.

But the Pied-billed Grebe is nevertheless something of an oddity among grebes.  It’s a bit chicken-like in appearance (and size) with a short chicken bill and rather unremarkable, drab, tawny-brown plumage.  But what it lacks in film star quality it makes up for with its lunatic courtship call.  Pete Dunne explains it well, as follows:”..Calls with a loud wild-sounding keening that incorporates bleating coos and mournful wails.”  The eerie yelping calls heard across a marsh, gradually taper off with a series of slowing gulps until it finally seems to run out of breath.  It’ll stop you in your tracks.

I found a Pied-billed Grebe today, it was paddling around in a large marina, sorting through floating weeds and rearranging them as if contemplating building a nest. It showed little interest in its surroundings; this parking lot crammed with glossy, millionaires’ plastic boats.  I liked it so much that it beat out pairs of Red-necked Grebes, Common Terns and Cliff Swallows all feeding young, as my Bird of the Day.

July 9 2012.  I may have set myself a trap by asserting that there’s always a Bird of the Day; what am I to do if there’s not?  What if, like today, they’re all special?

Birds were not on my agenda today.  I returned to my favourite Lake Erie forest sanctuary to continue my study of the many ferns to be found in the cool, dark forest. But just as it’s impossible to leave the supermarket with only one item, so it is for the natural world and me; there’s too much to choose from, too many seductive diversions and too many limited-time offers.

But with my baffling Field Guide to Ferns, Liverworts and Club Mosses and dressed to thwart the biting flies, I followed a plan.  First a long circuit through a lofty dark grove of Eastern Hemlocks to a swift-running, sand-bottomed creek. Follow the creek upstream then back to the main trail, a quick and early lunch, then down another, wetter, trail to the creek again – and back. But I made good progress, I have more than a dozen fern species figured out such that I’ll know them next time and plenty of photos to sort through to help with the puzzlers.

The seductive diversions were, of course, the birds and their songs.  I noted 20 species in the forest:  Caught a glimpse of a Pileated Woodpecker whacking at an old rotting tree trunk, almost stepped on a Ruffed Grouse sending it careening out into a sunlit clearing, and, watched a young Blue Jay among the high branches of some birches. A distant Winter Wren was singing its high, complex song like a thread pulled through the forest, and several Black–throated Green Warblers called back and forth in the tops of the hemlocks; a theme that was taken up by Red–eyed Vireos whose steady rhythmic notes punctuated the maple, oak and beech canopy. A Ruby-throated Hummingbird buzzed me as I sat watching over a quiet clearing and a Scarlet Tanager or two sang tiredly far out of sight. Finally, as I was making my way back to my sun-baked car an Ovenbird took loud exception to my presence, so we exchanged ‘chik’ notes for a while, and I thought for a moment that it was my bird of the day, but really no; they were all special.

July 6, 2012.  With the promise of a scorching hot day I decided to get out early and check a few promising birding hotspots. My first stop was a storm-water pond; a man-made lake that collects, holds and ultimately slowly releases the sudden run-off from rainstorms and snowmelt.  Some of these ponds have become quite interesting gathering spots for waterfowl and shorebirds and a secure nesting site for ducks.

At this first stop a female Mallard was shepherding a flotilla of 8 tiny and newly hatched ducklings across the open water. She was one of twenty or so Mallards but appeared to be the only one working.  Two nervously bobbing Lesser Yellowlegs stood watching the Mallards, several anxious sounding Spotted Sandpipers and a handful of Black-crowned Night Herons stalking the weedy edges.

Later I stopped at a cliff-lined stretch of Lake Ontario where some near-shore protection work has created a tranquil embayment.  In May a pair of Red-necked Grebes settled here and took advantage of a thoughtfully placed and anchored tire to build their nest, and I’ve watched them on and off through courtship and incubation.

Today I was pleased to see them with two young; this family group was without question Bird of the Day. The grayish downy-bodied chicks float wide and flat like a barge and have intriguingly marked heads with broad longitudinal zebra stripes.  I think it was the female who I watched actively diving, coming up with small fish and feeding them gently to her enthusiastic young. The male meanwhile floated rather passively, probably saving his energy for some imagined chore later in the day; cutting the lawn or something like that.

These Red-necked Grebes are part of a very localized Lake Ontario breeding population, a group that is strikingly disjunct from the more widespread distribution that extends from the westerly limit of Lake Superior across the prairies to the Pacific coast.

The sheltered bay was also buzzing with hundreds of chittering Bank Swallows, some still attending nests dug into the sandy cliff face, but most just seemed to be milling around, feeding, socializing and using this summer day as fatten-up time.  Groups gathered on large rocks chirping and twittering, and then as if someone yelled Fire!, they all took off in a frenzy, swept around the bay only to regroup again and noisily share the excitement of the moment.