Month: April 2013

19^th April 2013.  Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON.  A flock of Bonaparte’s Gulls enjoying (I suppose) a brief respite from their marathon migration was a refreshing midday surprise.  Their spring migration is a long haul, taking them from the Atlantic Coast to the taiga belt of Canada’s sub-Arctic where, uniquely for gulls, they usually nest in trees. They had settled in a flooded field with evidently plenty to eat.  Here’s a shot of part of the flock, the group includes some whose heads have taken on their all black breeding plumage, some part way through and others, probably last year’s young, showing no change at all as yet.

I had just spent the morning, a windy, storm-tossed morning, at the bird observatory.  Relatively few birds had been caught in mist nets and banded because the nets billow in high winds, rendering them ineffective. I walked the census route, splattered occasionally by gusty squalls, a time when birds if they could, would be well advised to go indoors.  They don’t of course, but they do tend to get out of the weather somehow; who wouldn’t.

Notwithstanding the weather, the walk around included some good sights and sounds including a Pine Warbler or two singing in some large old spruce trees, a young wind-blown Bald Eagle that was chased off by a territorial Red-tailed Hawk and a Turkey that bustled anxiously from its hiding place, ran a dozen paces then flew off; it really needn’t have bothered because when I investigated I found its hiding place to be a masterpiece of cover and deception, it could have stayed there quite unseen forever.

Nesting is high on the agenda and I watched a pair of White-breasted Nuthatches at work making a tree cavity into the perfect nursery. Eastern Phoebes are building a nest too; I saw at least one carrying nest material.  They are a remarkably cautious bird in the presence of people; I’d like, but have yet to, get a decent photo of a Phoebe.  It’s somewhat complicated by their drab grey/brown plumage, I need to catch one close enough to me, posed perfectly, perched long enough in good light and against an uncluttered backdrop; it doesn’t happen that way too often.

The census round produced 35 species including the first of the year for me Barn Swallow, Northern Rough-winged Swallow and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.  I was all for dubbing Barn Swallow as Bird of the Day until I saw the Bonaparte’s Gulls.  They are very similar to Europe’s Black-headed Gull which, since I’m making comparisons is slightly larger and has brighter red feet and a crimson bill.  Both species are light, airy fliers and really elegant birds.  Growing up in the South of England I paid NO attention to Black-headed Gulls (to my discredit) they were just the basic, default, garbage-scavenging seagull.  I know better now. And to illustrate my updated thoughts on Black-headed Gulls, here’s a photo of one taken last September in Iceland, look at how brilliantly crimson the legs and bill are.

15 April 2013.  LaSalle Marina, Burlington ON. The basic premise of this blog is that for me, there’s always a bird of the day, it doesn’t matter how dreary the day, how many or how few the birds, there’s always at least one that makes me say Wow!

With that in mind, today’s Bird of the Day was a Horned Grebe found this afternoon at the frequently visited marina where strange birds often show up.  I stopped there on my way home from picking up a few grocery items, just in case.  The variety that makes this marina so full of potential through winter months, has thinned out.  There were plenty of Mallards, Mute Swans, and American Coots around, but just when I thought I’d seen all there was to be seen, I spotted the Horned Grebe.  It was working its way up and down a length of rocky shoreline, diving and then surfacing ten yards further along.  I soon worked out a way of lying in wait for it and managed to get a couple of decent shots.

I’d spent the morning at the bird observatory and enjoyed it.  The list of birds seen was heart-warming though hardly ‘write home’ material.  The first Field Sparrows of the year arrived overnight, they’re closely related to American Tree Sparrows many of which have been with us through the winter and are just leaving to breed in the far north above the tree line; kind of a changing of the guard.  Yesterday’s wave of Golden Crowned Kinglets has abated and Ruby-crowned Kinglets have started to follow behind, I counted three on the census and there will be many more to come. A Belted Kingfisher coursed around, following the river up and down and then circled over the banding lab. Noting the rather deperate-looking, stop-and-go flight of kingfishers I wondered aloud why it is that some bird species seem built to fly strongly and effortlessly, swallows, falcons and ducks for example, while others like Belted Kingfishers seem to be on the verge of falling out of the sky. Thinking back to my schooldays I’m sympathetic, I bet they’re always last to be picked for the flying team.

April 14 2013. Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON. There are no obvious explanations for the huge wave of Golden-crowned Kinglets at the bird observatory these past couple of days. On this morning’s census I recorded 62, but actual numbers are certainly way higher; add a zero and it might be just as accurate.  On some stretches of the census route my eye would be caught by a flit of movement, invariably a kinglet, then I’d realize there were more, many more.  And they kept moving, jumping and fluttering, so by the time I had an approximate count at that particular spot, it had all changed.  Perhaps a new group had moved in or maybe I was counting the same birds twice, I could never be sure.

It wasn’t all Golden-crowned Kinglets.  Perhaps best, and certainly Bird of the Day, was a Yellow-rumped Warbler that muscled in on a group of kinglets.  And then no sooner than I’d finished mentally applauding the warbler, I caught sight of an Osprey circling high overhead and consorting with a territorially minded Red-tailed Hawk.  There were plenty of other good sightings too: two Eastern Phoebes, a Brown Creeper and a trio of labouring Great Blue Herons among them.  Heard but not seen were an Eastern Bluebird, a House Finch and an Eastern Tufted Titmouse.

I caught sight of my first Northern Ficker of the year, I ‘ve heard them a few times in the past four or five days, but seeing that conspicuous and diagnostic flash of bright white on the rump completed the mental record.

The river that flows through the lands of the bird observatory is one of the largest in Ontario and the heavy rains of three days ago have caused it to overflow its banks.  Whenever that happens the shoreline gets reshaped, low-lying fringes drown and all sorts of debris break loose, creating log-jams and floods.  The census route was impassable in places and deep in sticky silt in others.  Wellington boots were a necessity and I find wearing them very tiring, my still aching calves still remind me of their part in a successful early spring day.

April 12 2013,  LaSalle Marina, Burlington ON. We’ve just been swept by a very late winter storm.  It came at us slowly from the west, we had plenty of warning: expect freezing rain, or ice pellets, or snow; expect chaos on the highways and expect flooding. And just as predicted it swept over us taking a day and a half to do all of those things, if you stayed indoors and maybe read a book or had a nap, it was all right.  Some people went birding I expect, but not me.

This afternoon, in the calm after the storm, I went to see what birds were around, to see if any oddities had blown in, or maybe friends blown away.  At a nearby marina a small group of very cold men were trying to recapture and reconnect a bunch of floating docks that had broken loose and washed up on a distant shore.  For a while it was all rather discouraging, even the birding was hardly noteworthy.  I was mildly interested in six pairs of Gadwall, maybe they’ll nest around here I thought.  A couple of male Mute Swans were pummeling each other in an effort to impress a female who seemed to be paying them little attention. Several pairs of Red-breasted Mergansers were prowling along the shore and sort of grunted at me as they swam off. There seemed to be American Coots everywhere and for a while I rolled the alliterative pairing ‘Coot Country’ around my brain, but eventually that too faded.

Trudging back to the car I spotted a Caspian Tern just a few yards away, low and flying parallel to the shore.  My first of the year; and it made me think wow! and thereby qualified as Bird of the Day.  Invigorated, I pulled out my notebook and started to jot down my sightings, I remembered that I’d heard a Carolina Wren and a Northern Flicker; I’d seen a Pied Billed Grebe, a Brown Creeper and three or four Golden-crowned Kinglets up close.

A little later I stopped to check a raft of ducks I’d spotted just offshore and found that they were mostly Ruddy Ducks with a handful of scaup (not sure which kind) mixed in. A couple of Turkey Vultures sailed low overhead and a Common Grackle was squeaking and creaking for his mate’s benefit.  This winter storm will be forgotten in no time, and then we can get on with spring.

April 8 2013. Caledonia ON.  After a fulfilling morning at the bird observatory, a morning that produced lots of welcome sightings: Osprey, Eastern Phoebe and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker among them, I drove home wondering what would be next.  Spring migrants are streaming in, we heard our first Northern Flicker, a flight of three ponderous Great-blue Herons laboured their way nortward high above the river and the first Tree Swallows were swirling around checking out nest boxes. And I surprised myself with a couple of on-the-go shots of a group of Common Mergansers flying upstream.

There’s rain and a chance of thunder in the forecast; such turbulence does funny things sometimes setting off a cascade of new birds.  And if we do get a decent April rain it will prompt a frenzy of amphibian activity: Wood Frogs, Chorus Frogs and salamanders will all be racing (as only an amphibian can race) to the nearest pond to get the egg laying underway.

As I joined a fast moving four-lane stream of traffic I noticed something along the edge of a dun-coloured field.  The traffic was reasonably sane so I pulled over, set my four-way flashers going and grabbed my binoculars.  As I’d suspected, a male Woodland Turkey was strutting along a hedgerow, fanning his tail to proclaim his dominion.  Somewhere in that vicinity he has a harem of lady friends, or at least he’s making plans to.  I managed to get my camera out and zoom in on him for this lucky, but hardly award-winning, shot. His impromptu appearance made him my Bird of the Day.

And if you’re wondering what species a Woodland Turkey is, well, I’m on a one man mission to get the so-called Wild Turkey renamed.  Here’s a link to my rant on this topic.