On Monday it was very cool out and we just birded locally with no agenda of birds needing to be seen. It was nice to enjoy watching nesting/breeding activity and Jerry managed to get a few nice pics of birds.

Many of the birds were only heard as the leaves are fully out and it is next to impossible to see the bird that was singing. When we first started seriously birding in 2013 we did not know bird songs or calls and we would see ebird reports for a birding spot and go to that spot and only see a tiny number of the birds that good birders saw. We kept thinking, “how do they see all these birds?” We finally realized that many of the reports were “heard only” reports and that good birders knew bird songs and didn’t need to see the bird to know it was there. We tried to learn, Jerry was more successful than I was. The sound all jumbled together for me and I could not tell one bird song from the next in the early years. We had some discs that came with our book and tried with that again with limited success. I slowly learned the common bird songs and managed to remember a few of the common warbler species.

The Merlin Sound ID App launched in 2021 changed everything. It is not 100% accurate, it can make mistakes BUT it can hear bird song and pretty reliably suggest to you what bird is making that sound. You have to use Merlin properly. When it alerts us to a bird song we stop and listen until we hear the song from the bird, then we keep listening, in the beginning we then took the time to find the bird to confirm that it was indeed the bird Merlin had suggested or we would confirm the song using another App Ibird Pro. Only then would the bird be added to our ebird list. Now if we recognize the song and know that it is the song we will add the bird to our list without sight confirmation, but only if we are absolutely confident that we know the bird making the song or call. If Merlin suggests a bird is singing and we do not hear the song or see the bird then it does not go on our list. Over the last few years we have birded with Merlin and stopped to check songs and calls over and over and then I started testing myself by saying what the song was I was hearing before looking at what Merlin reported and slowly I have been adding more and more songs and calls to my knowledge bank. I am impressed with how fast and far I have come with it particularly this year with warbler songs. If used properly, Merlin can help new birders learn the songs and calls a lot faster than discs or tapes ever could. The end result will be better birders IF birders use it as a learning tool. The problem is if birders just run Merlin and add everything that Merlin suggests without trying to learn the songs or see the birds, the ebird data base can be compromised and reports go out for rare birds that are clearly wrong. Some education is necessary so that Merlin is used as a helpful tool and not a “birding buddy”.

Tuesday we did caregiving again and then on Wednesday we headed down to Erieau and Rondeau. There was a Laughing Gull that hung out for three days last week I was hoping might return but that was not the case as we checked all the local fields and marina for gulls. We walked through some of the trails at Rondeau and had wonderful views of a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher allowing Jerry to get our first photos of this bird.

On the way home we stopped at Komoka PP to see if Jerry could get better pictures of the Blue Grosbeak but it was only singing and not co-operating for photos.

My needs alert emails and Discord continued to be quiet all week with no rarities showing up that I needed or any other birds needed on the list except for a Brant still hanging in Ottawa. I found myself with a bit of “withdrawal” from the constant thoughts of birding. No adrenaline rushes from the chase to find a bird. I had time to have friends over for dinner, to plant some pots with flowers and to set up our little garden ponds complete with goldfish. There has to be more to life than birding LOL. I also managed to get back to the planning for the Canada Big Year and put together a framework of where we will be going and when. The coming heatwave will allow me to complete that planning I hope.

The strategy now is to still bird but bird areas/places that might perhaps yield a rarity or a bird that did not migrate that we need. We will also be concentrating on better pictures of birds we have already seen or trying to “see” birds that we have listed as “heard only”. There are a couple of birds we can try to get on their breeding grounds. Day trips every few days will be the norm for the next few weeks.

On Friday we made a quick stop at the Glen Morris Pond on our way home from Hamilton and there were chicks swimming about! Seven Pied-billed Grebe chicks with an adult and then ten Common Gallinule chicks with two adults…perhaps two family groups? Soooo cute!

We had Killdeers nest beside our driveway in past years but the last 2 they have chosen other spots. This year they were back and picked the gravel at the side of our driveway. She laid 4 eggs and started sitting on them May 24. The adults have been out there through the storms, winds and sun since then with no protection, calmly switching with each other every few hours. The incubation is between 22-28 days so we started paying close attention on June 14. We have been lucky enough to witness the hatching in previous years so hope to catch it again this year. No hatching yet…hopefully next week I’ll have Killdeer baby pics!

On Sunday we took a short walk at a local birding spot hoping to see a Black-billed Cuckoo. We have it as a heard only bird at the moment but we always see one, if not in our backyard, at least somewhere in Brant County. We joked that as we were over there looking for one another was probably sitting in our backyard. I did hear one in the evening out further in the forest behind us so hopefully we see one in the next few days.

This is the first week of the year that we have not added a new bird! There will likely be a few more weeks like this ahead. I will endeavour to keep you entertained with all things birding…

Week 24 No new birds added Still #1 ebirders in Ontario 309 species seen J&E