Author: Peter T

September 13, 2026. Hendrie Valley Burlington ON.  Two or three times this past week I’ve caught a glimpse of a Swainsons Thrush.  It’s only ever a glimpse, a secret, barely long enough to look for its identifying marks: eye ring, buff facial detail and a modest sprinkling of spots. Long enough for it to hasten from sight.

But that’s not what was on my mind today.  This was an oppressively humid day for mid-September, and the birding pickings were slim. We managed to squeeze out a handful of nice sightings: a couple of Magnolia Warblers, a bickering pair of Blue–gray Gnatcatchers, some young Rose–breasted Grosbeaks and a very secretive Swainson’s Thrush or two.

My Bird of the Day however was this splendid Red-eyed Vireo. A quick-fire photo taken as we made our way upstream following the small river.  It was just there peering down at us.

Maybe splendid is overdoing the adjectives a touch, but faithful followers will have read of my soft spot for vireos.  I have a particular place in my heart for the Red-eyed, Yellow-throated, and Blue-headed (primary-colours) Vireos. Even those three, they’re not particularly showy but lie somewhere in a vague realm between smart and handsome.  They work the middle and upper levels of forests and woody margins, looking for food, moving deliberately from branch to branch while singing a casual two or three phrase song. With a little hooked tip to their bill, they have a sort of tenacious here-I-am-take-it-or-leave-it air, rather like the left-out kid who nevertheless goes on to great fortune.

Goodness knows I’ve taken and deleted enough photos of birds.  Today’s two photos of the same bird catch a creature; simple. Perfectly formed, and informed, to make its way on a spontaneous diet, following internal guidance that may, or may not, take it to Amazonia by time of the winter solstice and may just as perilously bring it back, or just as easily make it food for another.

September 4, 2026. Hendrie Valley Burlington ON.  This rich and lush river valley is dotted with a few tall, skeletal ash trees, dead from an infestation of Emerald Ash Borer that swept southern Ontario about 10 years ago. More often than not we see birds perch atop these as lookout spots, some watching the world go by, others socializing.  Today two Olive-sided Flycatchers had commandeered some high spots as a base from which to fly out and grab dragonflies, serious flycatching. I knew they were flycatchers, a sometimes-confusing family, but they had me puzzled and it took several minutes to identify them. I had some ideas, but nothing was quite right: Eastern Phoebes are close in size, but colour, posture and behaviour didn’t fit, Cedar Waxwing juveniles are similar in colour and posture, and will flycatch sometimes, but these just didn’t look like waxwings anyway. So I turned to my field guide (Sibley Birds app) where I was soon latched onto Olive-sided Flycatchers, and then it all fell into place.

Olive-sided Flycatchers are specialists at flycatching. As Pete Dunne* puts it, “Most commonly perches conspicuously above the canopy or at the forest edge atop a high bare snag.  Feeds almost exclusively by sallying out for flying insects (which it pursues tenaciously), and almost always returns to the same strategic perch.” Exactly.

Olive-sided Flycatchers breed well north of us in the boreal landscape of natural edges and openings of forests, bogs and marshes, and they winter primarily in Panama and the Andes Mountains of Bolivia and Peru. So, they’re uncommon at these latitudes, just passing through, and being rather drab overall are easily overlooked.

Finding these two was something quite different and Olive-sided Flycatchers stood out as my Birds of the Day on what was otherwise a generally ho-hum sort of birding day.

*Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion.

August 28 2026. Hendrie Valley Burlington ON.  My first transect of the fall got off to a quiet start and for a while I thought my day’s count might not be much better than a January day. But the species count gradually crept up to 30 although the numbers of individual birds was low.

This transect route follows a wide and luxuriantly overgrown valley. The birding was okay, not more than that, but I was happy enough with a warm, late summer hike. The route leads out to a bridge over the small river, the half-way spot that we call the turn-around bridge.  It’s a place to linger, catch your breath, watch and listen, sometimes it pays off – as it did today.

About to turn and head back, I heard a few short call notes, ‘Spltt’, intentional, almost metallic. At first, I took them to be the annoyance note of a Northern Cardinal, not quite right but a common bird here and likely.  It’s difficult to describe and distinguish sounds this way but the cardinal’s contact note under these conditions is a juicy ‘pfitt’, with a bit of squeak in it, not much different from metallic ‘spltt’, but different enough that I was alert.

A small bird zipped along the river, under the bridge and disappeared for a moment behind flood debris at the water’s edge. Could that be what I’d heard? It quickly showed itself as a Northern Waterthrush, a dainty member of the warbler family, searching for food in the debris.  A quick check of available technology confirmed that it was what I’d heard.  It was happily searching and bobbing like a small toy, its yellowish streaky breast and distinct eyebrow line were clear and plain to see in the bright morning light.  Seeing one like this was a pleasure because they can be hard to find in the dense woodlands they favour.  I knew right away that this would be my Bird of the Day and it held up despite some nice encounters later with two Solitary Sandpipers and a very early fall migrant Yellow-rumped Warbler.

The Solitary Sandpipers were apparently defying their species’ name; we almost never see more than one at a time. They were quiet, enjoying a peaceful stopover on their southbound migration. These two behaved as if a bonded pair or maybe siblings. I struggled to get a reasonable photo of them but here they are above, and below a better shot from many years ago.

May 9  2026.  Princess Point, Hamilton ON. The birding world, like life in general, has its highs and lows. There are regional trophy birds, a sensational bird in Ontario may be bog common in Tennessee.  Where would we be without goals.

May is a month of trophy birds. A flood of jewels, most just passing through on their way from Central America to Ontario’s northern forests.  The Prothonotary Warbler is one of those: admired everywhere, it is a common enough bird of wet woodland swamps in the southeastern United States.  The adult male’s brilliant orange-yellow head, breast and belly emphasizing a beady black eye can stop you in your tracks.  And in Ontario, the Prothonotary is very rare and (almost) only ever encountered in the extreme south-west corner of the province; even there only in those wet woodland swamps. People make pilgrimages to see them.  Today we found one in our own back yard, and it left me speechless.

My companions and I had made our way around one of our favourite routes and the birding while May-good was not out of the ordinary.  I was helped by two younger birders and my notes from the day tell that we found tons of Yellow Warblers, that we were happy to study two one-year old male Orchard Orioles, had noted a Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher’s nest high in an oak, and had admired beautiful Cape May and Nashville Warblers.

Approaching a deep woodland gully, having had our fill of Yellow Warblers, I was inclined to ignore yet another just ahead of us. But I took time to look hard because it was such a vivid yellow, it almost glowed. My stream of thoughts went something like this, “Odd for a Yellow Warbler to be deep in forest (they prefer brushy margins).  It has the beady eye of a Yellow, but none of the Yellow’s reddish streaks.  This is weird, could it be a Prothonotary?”  Beside me my companion was saying ” Could this be a Prothonotary Warbler? Shall I get some photos?” Yes. Yes it is!  And, Yes photos please. Here it is, a trophy bird, a Prothonotary Warbler a very long way off course.

 

April 22 2026.  Princess Point, Hamilton ON.   Every now and then I get a reminder that some events in nature’s avian rhythms happen with tight, almost set-your-watch-by-it, regularity.  One of them is happening right now, the spring passage of Broad-winged Hawks (4^th week of April).  Another, coming soon, is the arrival here of Baltimore Orioles (May 3^rd.). The broadwings sail silently over and you can easily miss them, orioles on the other hand arrive, en masse, to their own of fanfare of noisy whistles.

So, this is the broadwing week and I might have missed it, missed them, but for my birder’s eye for movement.  I was walking a forest trail, a still leafless Red Oak woodland, when a moving shadow made me look up. And there, a small group of four or five Broad-winged Hawks circling low overhead.  I tried for a photo, but they were moving too fast and I had no hope of a cleanly focused image through branches.  So, I watched them slide by enjoying their clean, dark-outlined wings and boldly barred tails showing crisply against a perfect spring blue sky.  I savoured the moment remembering that this is the time, the fourth week of April. They drifted out of sight and I walked on.

As I finished my circuit I keep checking the open sky.  The broadwing’s direction of flight made sense, they were coming from an escarpment ridge and heading northwest, a line that will take them to the boreal forest. By the time I returned to my car I spotted two more small groups of broadwings, all following the same flight line.

Broad-winged Hawks are one of many birds of the season and today my Bird of the Day.