Monday, we headed to Niagara Falls to try for a Black-legged Kittiwake and make a concentrated effort for a Black Vulture. We have been in the Falls 3-4 times this year to visit friends and family so our time has always been limited to quick stops hoping to catch sight of one. The vulture that is most common in Ontario is the Turkey Vulture and the Black Vulture is a southern species that is very rare in Ontario. It just happens that a very small population reside in Niagara Falls New York and so any birder in Ontario who wants to add Black Vulture to their list heads to Niagara Falls Ontario and hopes to see the US birds in Canadian airspace or some count them for Ontario if they see them in the US but are standing in Ontario. Because this is a Big Year I wanted to make sure the birds themselves were in Canada.
We arrived at 8am and between scoping for the Kittiwake and looking for the Vulture the time passed. By noon I decided we had to stay the whole day and just keep trying different areas and trying back and forth for the two birds. We made 3 attempts for the Kittiwake, scoping about an hour each time and feel confident that we did not miss it. Basically, we were looking through 40 Bonapartes Gulls for one that looked identical but had a black collar on the neck. Not an easy thing to see with waves and wind but by late afternoon it was very calm and we still could not find a Gull with a black collar. We will have other chances for that bird in the fall and winter. While standing at the Queenston Heights overlook for vultures we had our first Osprey fly over but did not get a picture. Bird #168
Everyone knows the key places to see the vultures, at the Overlook and the Locust Picnic Area, but we were not having any luck so we stopped at a picnic area by the Lewiston Bridge and walked along the river as we had seen a few Turkey Vultures in the area. We saw 6 Turkey vultures on the cliffs of the river and then on the way back to the car I saw a smaller black vulture flying downriver with just the silver tips on the wings. We raced back along the path trying to keep up with it and get pictures. The bird was along the river and hard to determine if it was in Canada or the US. We decided to head back to Locust Grove Picnic Area as we know they roost there and see if it might have tucked in again. No vulture but I suggested we sit for a minute and check what other birds were around and it had warmed up. After sitting for a bit, as we got up to go, a man was moving quickly with a camera through the area and as we watched him a Black Vulture appeared in the picnic area – in Canada! Much excitement, the birder had seen it down where we had and was trying to get pics too. Jerry managed some more pics and suddenly a second Black Vulture appeared as well as another local birder who told us they have seen as many as 6-9 Black Vultures at a time. We were very happy to see two.
Black VultureTurkey Vulture
And then Tuesday to Saturday was a combination of bad weather, caregiving, spreading wood chips on our garden areas and some social time with our granddaughters and the family. Few new birds were arriving so I felt comfortable to wait it out knowing these are birds that I will eventually come across. Have you all heard that enough over the last 3-4 weeks? Are you all silently yelling at me, “Get out birding!”?
It cannot always be about birding!
Saturday after brunch with our kids we did a quick drive to Paris Plains Church Road to view the Lapland Longspurs that migrate through each year at this time. We added them to the list a while back but Jerry wanted to get better pics if he could and of the males in breeding colours. There were many birders on the road watching and the birds were not too far away giving nice scope views. Camera pictures were still a challenge as they blend into the corn fields extremely well.
Lapland Longspurs Males in breeding colours
Sunday was a gorgeous day with temps hitting into the high teens and we decided to do a birding blitz before dinner with his mom. We wanted to focus on areas where the birds that have arrived might be. Fields for sparrows, forest for Wrens and Towhees, water for Terns, Egrets and Herons. We started with another trip to Paris Plains Church Road (10 mins from home) for new sparrows and quickly heard a Savannah Sparrow, bird #170, near the spot we had been viewing Lapland Longspurs late Saturday. We searched for a Vesper Sparrow but came up empty again. We know they are there, reports have been coming in, so next time we are by hopefully we see it. We then headed to Dundas Conservation Area on the way to Hamilton and walked the 4km main loop trail that winds up and down the valley giving me 17 floors on my pedometer. It is a gorgeous, strenuous walk. We finally added Winter Wren! It was singing very loudly from some scrub near a stream but we could not see it. Wrens are tiny little birds with big voices and they blend extremely well with the branches they love to sit amongst. Hopefully we will catch up with another one so Jerry can get a picture.
Dundas Valley Conservation Area
After shedding some layers as the day warmed we headed to Windemere Basin, a water area known for Terns, Egrets and Herons but came up empty. Jerry did get some nice pics of the Tree Swallows that have just arrived and were already choosing nesting boxes.
Tree Swallow
Next stop was Princess Point where we walked around the water area and had a Caspian Tern fly past – Jerry got a quick pic and then we noticed some swallows and realized that one of them was not a Tree Swallow but a Barn Swallow with its forked tail and dark underbelly. Another new bird! We walked back into the forest around the Point to an area we often have seen Eastern Towhees but they have not arrived to that spot yet. All in all a pretty good blitz day, adding 4 more birds for a total of 6 for the week. Only two real days of birding, one at the beginning and one at the end – bookends.
Next week is a full on birding week, with local birding of marshes and wetlands, Long Point and maybe even Pelee or Rondeau or both near weeks end or weekend. Things are picking up nicely and we are going to be very busy…
The forecast for Monday was sunny and warm so we headed to Rondeau for the day and finally added 6 birds to our list! Blue-winged Teals were the last common duck species needed on the year list. We also had our first Eastern Phoebe and Field Sparrow along the Marsh Trail at Erieau. We then stopped to see the Black-billed Magpies that appear to be nesting close by. Black-billed Magpies are a beautiful bird not usually found in Southern Ontario. There is a population north of Thunder Bay that is countable on lists and they are a common bird out west but they are a non-migratory bird so any birds seen in Southern Ontario are often presumed to be escaped birds and not countable. This is another record that will be heading to the OBRC for a decision. I am not worried about this sighting as I know that I will see a Magpie up north in June that will count if this record is not accepted. Last April I was shocked to see a Black-billed Magpie on Governors Road in Dundas while driving to Jerry’s mom’s. I posted to Discord and many local birder’s came out to see that bird. We are still waiting to hear if the record is accepted. A few other Magpies were seen in the same week last year and then two nested outside of St. Thomas and had at least 2 successful young fledge from the nest. This pair near Rondeau is building a nest and it may mean this is the start to a population of Magpies in Southern Ontario!
Black-billed Magpie 2024Black-billed Magpie I found in April 2023
A Red-headed Woodpecker over-wintered at Rondeau and we have missed it on each of our other visits so we took some time to again walk around the area where it has been seen. We didn’t see the bird in the morning but stopped again on our way out of the park. Minutes later I saw it fly into a tree at the corner where we got some great shots and video of this stunning bird.
Red-headed Woodpecker
We finished the day adding a Chipping Sparrow for a total of 6 new birds and hoped the trend would continue. The best part of the day was the fact that we were out walking! for 11.8km! It felt so good to be out of the car and enjoying the trails and forest.
The trend sadly did not continue for the rest of the week but we did get out and walk another 10km on Wednesday and 4km on Thursday without adding any new birds. It was a frustrating week as I read my hourly “needs alert” for Ontario each day and could see reports for Osprey, Towhees, Winter Wrens, Purple Martin, and Black-crowned Night Heron but when we went out we found none of those birds. I KNOW I will see all those birds but it is SO tempting to want to get them on my list NOW that you start to consider “chasing” them. And my mantra is not to chase common species! So I had to put up with feeling a bit of “birder envy” LOL. And Jerry has had to put up with some whining this week. I lost my “zen” a bit.
On Saturday, with renewed optimism, we headed down to Long Point hoping to catch a few more early migrants. We added Forster’s Tern at Turkey Point and then Pectoral Sandpiper at Long Point but the other species that were being seen did not show up for us, a few hours later other birders reported them again! That is the fickleness of birding, sometimes they move, fly, are quiet and what one birder sees, the next birder does not, sometimes by minutes.
On the way home we stopped at some local flooded fields where Lesser Yellowlegs were reported yesterday and yes, there were 5 in a pond way back in the field. Whew! At least the day ended on a high note. I only need to see 42 more common species out of 143 and we have started adding to my spring migrant list. While the floodgates have not opened wide there are new birds slowly trickling in. Next week is supposed to remain cool so I imagine it will still be a bit slow but the birds are coming…and I will re-find my Zen.
UPDATE: Western Tanager – the lovely Western Tanager that caused us so much grief at the beginning of the year sadly died this week after striking a window in the area it was wintering in. The bird was first found in November and has been fed by Ottawa birders since January. Sadly, window strikes kill over a million birds in Ontario each year and likely a billion in North America. The group FLAP has a bevy of volunteers whose job it is to collect all the birds at the base of buildings in Toronto during migration. Toronto is considered one of the deadliest cities for bird strikes. Check out their website for more information at flap.org.
Window strikes in Toronto photo by FLAP/Kenneth Hrdy
We use Feather Friendly dots on our windows and since installation we have not had one bird die on those windows. We still have some windows not covered and we have been drawing lines with soap on those windows in spring and fall migration to prevent the birds hitting those windows. Eventually, all will have the dots. Lee Valley sells the tape with the dots and you can also buy them from their website featherfriendly.com. Please consider putting them on your windows if you have birds around.
Late Sunday night a post came in that 2 Barnacle Geese had been photographed a day or two before in Bowmanville. Birders were prepared to head out at first light to see if they were still in the same marsh. I was hesitant to take the drive knowing that in the past Barnacle Geese are one-day wonders and they are not always accepted as wild because there are farms that keep Barnacle’s. BUT, it would be a super get for us, a Lifer, and a rare European vagrant. I opted to not leave first thing and instead I was awake early and ready to should there be a ding on Discord saying the geese were still there. No ding! Just updates that a number of birders were looking. By 11:30 I resigned myself that they were gone and we made the decision to head to our planned lunch with birding friends in London. And then they were found! We quickly changed direction (our birding friends were understanding thankfully!) and headed down the 401 hoping that traffic would not be crazy (it wasn’t) and at 2:00 I was looking at two Barnacle Geese, a lifer, rarity #14 and bird #157.
Barnacle GeeseBarnacle Goose
Sightings of this Goose have to go to the Ontario Birds Record Committee who will ultimately decide, when they meet in February 2025, if they are accepted as a wild record. Evidence in favour of them being accepted is the date – it is bang on for migration dates from previous records, two, they were in the company of Canada Geese and three, they were not re-found the next day suggesting they had continued on their migrating journey. If they are not accepted as a wild record then I will have no choice but to remove them from my list this year. In the meantime I am going to enjoy a great lifer and addition to the list.
The rest of the week was a mix of bad weather, family commitments and very few new birds arriving. We still checked local ponds and flooded fields when we were out for other things but there was nothing new to add. We put a checklist in every day even if it is just a checklist from the backyard with the same birds as I do want to try and maintain putting in a list every day of this year. We also want to make sure we bird every county in Ontario this year and we currently have only 3 counties left without a checklist, Parry Sound, Grey and Kenora. Those will be summer trips. We are missing pictures for only 13 birds currently and Jerry is working hard to get better pictures of other species as well. Don’t forget to check the 2024 Gallery and click on each picture to view it enlarged. While some are not great, Jerry has managed to get some nice shots of some of the birds we have seen. We are almost a quarter of the way through and I am very happy with how it is going except we still have to get out of the car more! In my mind I assumed that I would be birding most days of this big year and out in the woods but the reality of winter birding is driving past fields and water, driving to chase rarities, driving to a spot and getting out for 10-15 mins. And many days with nothing to go after. I know this will change in the coming weeks as the forest birds start to return and by May we will be walking 15-20Km a day, every day. It cannot come soon enough LOL, we are itching to start adding birds in big numbers. I am sticking to my plan of not chasing common birds I know I will see in abundance later just because they keep showing up on my Needs Alert every hour mocking me! LOL. I’m talking about you, Winter Wren and Gray Catbird!!! I am also resisting the need to be number 1 on the top 100 birders in Ontario list, Jerry and I are currently #2. The only number that matters is on December 31 and it was never an intention to be the top birder. If it happens, great but my personal goal is what is important to me. I’ve been saying at the end of each post for 3 weeks now that next week it will start to get birdier and then it doesn’t, but maybe, just maybe, the tide will turn next week as the temperatures move up and we get some sun and south winds. Shorebirds come on!
Week 12 1 new species #14 rarities seen 157 species J&E
We finally saw a Northern Hawk Owl! and it was bird 150! Half-way to 300! We heard some intel that a Northern Hawk Owl was being seen near Ottawa and had been there for about a week and a half. Early Monday morning, 4:30am, we headed for Ottawa for our 11th attempt and 7th location to add this Owl. When we arrived there were 8-10 people gathered just off the shoulder of the road and the owl was in a tree about 20 meters away. The Northern Hawk Owl is a boreal species that can move a bit south in the winter where there are good supplies of rodents. It will hunt through the day and often stashes what it catches in crevices to snack on when,I guess, it just doesn’t feel like hunting much like us ordering take-out when we don’t feel like cooking. This Owl had been seen using its stashes so there did not seem to be an urgency on its part to hunt that day. It sat in the tree, watching us, staring off intently, bobbing its head as something caught its eye and preening. This species seems to tolerate humans but, still, everyone on site that day kept their distance while we were there. It was hard to resist taking a crazy amount of pictures with a subject close and obliging.
Giving the Owl spaceNorthern Hawk Owl
As always, we limited our time there and after chatting with some locals who were monitoring the situation, we headed off to look for our next bird – a Snow Goose. Every year the Snow Geese migrate through Quebec and Eastern Ontario in numbers that astound – fields with 60,000 can be the norm but mid-March is a bit early with peak migration in the first two weeks of April. We quickly found a field about 10 minutes from the Owl with about 2-4,000 geese feeding. They were quite a distance away and it was very windy but the video gives you an idea of just how many geese there were. Now imagine 10-20 times that number!
Snow Geese
There are two colour morphs of Snow Geese, white and blue. There is a blue morph in the picture above, the dark, almost black bird with a white head and neck. Despite looking quite different the two morphs are counted as one species.
The next 3 days we were busy with grandkids and caregiving as small numbers of early migrants started showing up on my “needs alerts” with record temperatures in the high teens. The first Tree Swallows, Wilson’s Snipes, Towhees, and Yellowlegs were all reported. It was too tempting not to bird a bit so we took Jerry’s Mom for an outing and just happened to go by Sioux Lookout Park in Burlington where Fish Crows hang out and they were indeed hanging out so we added a bird while technically “on duty” LOL. His Mom enjoyed the outing so we just may start bringing her along more often now that the weather is a bit better. We always try to fit birding in around our family commitments so we took the grandkids for a hike at F.R.W Dickson CA the next day to feed the chickadees and hike through the forest but alas, no new birds added.
We got back out to bird on our own on Friday at Long Point but a heavy rainstorm and colder conditions resulted in less birds. Still we managed to add 3 common, migrating species, Greater Yellowlegs, Tree Swallow and Rusty Blackbird. I was hoping to see the first Blue-winged Teals but despite careful scoping all along the causeway we could not find any. When we got home I got an alert that there were indeed two seen a few hours after we were there. That “timing” factor yet again. GRRRRR! Saturday we only had a few hours in the morning to bird before caregiving duty so we headed to a local favourite where Wilson’s Snipes had been reported the day before. Snipe’s look similar to the American Woodcock with long bills and stocky bodies. They are found in wetlands and when they fly make this winnowing sound from the air rushing through their tail feathers similar to the Woodcock’s diving display. There were 10 in this wetland area that I re-found with a scope otherwise you would not think anything was there. The picture below shows 7 of the 10 and you will have to believe me when I say they really are there. Hopefully Jerry will get a much better picture of one later in the season. In the meantime, I’ve added one from 2018 so you can see the white bars on their backs that I look for in the field when I am scoping.
7 Wilson’s Snipes – I promise!Wilson’s Snipe 2018
I expect that we will try to pick up more of the common species that are arriving early through next week just to get them “off the list” but cooler temperatures will probably mean just trickles of new birds arriving. Spring cannot come soon enough! We are itching to get going with migration and make significant gains in numbers.
Week 11 – still at 13 rarities, Half-way mark reached, 7 birds added 156 species for J&E
While the weather has been warm and springlike the number of birds arriving has been still quite low. Its a frustrating time for birders because most have all the winter birds on their lists and the weather makes us think more birds should be around and so we hike and check local places but inevitably there is nothing new. We birded locally for the first 2 days of this week because my “needs alerts” were the same 3-4 common birds that I am not chasing.
On Wednesday we made our 10th attempt and 6th location for a Northern Hawk Owl and NOTHING! The info I had was a month old so the bird had likely moved on. We were pretty disappointed and upset to spend the time and driving such a long distance for nothing but that is unfortunately part of this Big Year Birding. I consoled myself with some hot french fries for the drive home. There will be birds that drop into your hand so to speak and others require persistence and multiple tries. I’m thinking it might be time to give up for this season and wait until December and hope to get it for 2024 and 2025 at the same time. We will see…
The Niagara Hawk Watch at Beamer started on March 1 so I have been getting the daily reports and Wednesday was a foggy rainy day with no hawks reported but the note at the bottom said “promising conditions” for tomorrow. I also had a note beside Golden Eagle on my list “March 8,9 Beamer”. When there are NE winds the migrating hawks coming along Lake Erie turn at Lake Ontario and get pushed over to the escarpment and decent numbers can be seen over the Beamer Hawk Tower. We were up early and off to Beamer on Thursday morning where we joined other birders and counters up on the tower anticipating a good hawk day. Red-tails and Red-shouldered Hawks appeared soon after we got there, not in huge numbers but nice to get close-up views as some flew overhead. A couple of Bald Eagles and smaller Cooper’s Hawks kept us entertained as well.
Bald EagleRed-shouldered Hawk
Around noon a very large, very dark bird appeared, as the sun hit it the golden head appeared in my bins and all around me the birders were confirming it – yep Golden Eagle! Woohoo! It’s a tough bird to get in spring and we were so excited watching it that Jerry did not even lift his camera so no picture! We will visit another Hawk watch in the fall when Golden’s are more likely and hopefully get a picture then. I’ve attached a pic we have of a Juvenile Golden from 2017. Bird #149 and one away from the half-way mark.
We birded locally on Friday and the weekend was filled with caregiving, hockey and dinner with friends. There are more reports of some early spring migrants arriving, shorebirds should be starting in the next week or so and things should start to pick up soon. We plan to head to Ottawa tomorrow for Snow Geese and one more chance at a Hawk Owl. Fingers crossed!
