Month: April 2022

Grindstone Creek, Burlington ON. April 24 ^.2022. A beautiful April day, the sort we long for as late winter grinds on. April always reserves the right to allow a bit of winter back in but today it dished up a handful of birding treats.

I started the day with a transect through my favourite valley and was very happy with thirty-seven species including a Ruby Crowned Kinglet, a pair of Blue–winged Teal, an ever-shy Hermit Thrush and a Caspian Tern; none of them sensational, just nice to see them back. I heard a Swamp Sparrow singing and wondered what my chances were of seeing it, they can be a bit secretive; but this one was close so I crossed my fingers. I climbed onto a tree stump to better my view of the swamp whereupon it came over and started to sing in front of me. Somehow everything fell into place, here it is.  One of the pleasures of a good look at a Swamp Sparrow is noting its rich, foxy red wings, visible on my photo.

I stopped to check on a known site for Eastern Bluebirds and watched a pair working hard to keep Tree Swallows from taking over their nest box. Actually, there were two nest boxes almost side by side and I think that at the end of the day each pair will get what they want, but for now they’re having trouble seeing past the mere presence of rivals.

This afternoon we walked a trail along a wooded valley edge. The perfect walk on a perfect spring day with Bloodroot flowers now open, the earliest native flowers of spring. A sunning DeKay’s Brown Snake lay stretched along our path and a pair of Ospreys has taken control of their habitual nest site on a tall communication tower.

Clear musical bird song filtered through to us and at first I thought it might be a Northern Mockingbird, but I was wrong (although close, same family). I was hearing the very welcome and characteristic song of a Brown Thrasher. Apart from being variably inventive the song is distinctive for usually having each phrase uttered twice, rather famously described as: “plant-a-seed, plant-a-seed, bury-it, bury-it, cover-it-up, cover-it-up, let-it-grow, let-it-grow, pull-it-up, pull-it-up, eat-it, eat-it, yum-yum” (Thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for that. I couldn’t have hoped to come close.)

Brown Thrashers are birds with presence. Apart from their compelling song, they can be very conspicuous scratching and picking noisily in leaf litter. Get a glimpse and you’ll see a long tailed, yellow-eyed brown bird like a large thrush. Conspicuous too in that they’ll usually sing from a commanding-view perch, but sometimes quick to take flight. It was that declarative ‘I’m back’ song that was enough to make the Brown Thrasher My Bird of the Day today.

 

Royal Botanical Gardens. Hendrie Valley, Burlington. ON. April 17 2022.  A cold start to the day, windy and barely above freezing, not the sort of conditions that suit insectivores and yet they continue to appear. Easter Sunday is the kind of day that brings out family groups, sometimes noisy, sometimes dog-entangled, the sort of company I’d rather avoid on a transect, so I started early. Warmly dressed but still my knuckles stiffened. It took a while to spot anything out of the ordinary although a now familiar Eastern Screech Owl sitting at its tree-hole door was an easy pleasure.

The surprise of the day was a Yellow–rumped Warbler a precursor to May’s mad warbler rush to come. Yellow-rumps are pretty hardy, they are just about the latest warbler to leave us (in mid October,) and one of the earliest to return. A mid-April, Yellow-rumped Warbler, although early, is not out of line. It is nevertheless welcome especially for its contrast to the still leafless winter-weary world. It wasn’t My Bird of the Day though because swallows got me first.

The swallows were three each of Tree Swallows and Northern Rough–winged Swallows. They were flying in swooping sweeps and loops, presumably chasing whatever airborne insects there were on this cold morning. Occasionally they’d settle together, catch their breath and swap notes before skipping up, out and away again. I rate them as My Birds of the Day partly for being here and partly for obliging me by perching right in front of me on one of their rest breaks.