The Reluctant Twitcher

The title of Richard Pope’s Ontario big year book, and also a description about my mentality on twitching...

Yes, a big year requires a lot of chasing, so obviously this year I’ll have to twitch some birds. But in the past I’ve been fairly reluctant about chasing. Fair, I didn’t have a licence before last year, but my parents have always been supportive of my birding and probably would have taken me to see some birds if I were more insistent. Sure, I chased rarities in Bruce County of course, I’m an avid county lister and seldom miss a chaseable bird in Bruce. I’m talking about Ontario chasing ~ driving from Bruce, to say Pelee to see a rarity. I have always preferred self finding birds, so I think part of my twitching-aversion is due the the fact that I have to drive by some prime birding locations along the way... And if I DO chase a bird I like spending some time with it, not just seeing it, “ticking it” and leaving... anyway I digress. 

I think the point I’m trying to get to (if there is one) is that there are some big holes in my Ontario list. Birds I could easily have, but never bothered chasing. Below is a list of birds I have gone over 2 hours specifically for;

- Barnacle Goose

- Tufted Duck

- Swallow-tailed Kite

- Calliope Hummingbird

- Great Kiskadee

Pretty short eh? The “mentality” I’ve been using is to chase the birds I might have a hard time with later on, the rarest of the rare. I figured I would self-find or be close enough to easily get the common stuff later on. Now for comparison check out my top 20 “Ontario Needs” from my eBird targets with Codes beside them. Remember code 2 species are basically guaranteed and I *should* see most code 3s.

- Long-eared Owl (!) (Code 2)

- Black-billed Magpie (Code 2)

- LeConte’s Sparrow (Code 2)

- Prairie Warbler (Code 2)

- Nelson’s Sparrow (Code 2)

- Marbled Godwit (Code 2)

- Fish Crow (Code 2)

- Great Grey Owl (Code 3)

- Acadian Flycatcher (Code 2)

- Willet (Code 2)

- Louisiana Waterthrush (Code 2)

- American Avocet (Code 3)

- Buff-breasted Sandpiper (Code 2)

- Kentucky Warbler (Code 3)

- Eurasian Wigeon (Code 3)

- Purple Sandpiper (Code 3)

- Yellow Rail (Code 3)

- Gray Partridge (Code 3)

- Western Meadowlark (Code 2)

Not terrible, but some pretty easy birds on there! As you may have noticed, there are 2 common categories: Northern and Carolinian birds.

I’ve never been birding in northwestern Ontario, so I’m missing the breeders up there like Black-billed Magpie, Great Grey Owl, LeConte’s Sparrow and Nelson’s Sparrow. Yes, the latter two can be found in southern Ontario during migration, but neither are common. Similarly I’m missing the Carolinian breeders, things like Acadian Flycatcher and Louisiana Waterthrush as I’ve never birded the right places at the right times. Same with Prairie Warbler, could have gone to some of the known breeding sites, but haven’t...

Buff-breasted Sandpiper, American Avocet, Eurasian Wigeon, Willet, Purple Sandpiper, Marbled Godwit and Western Meadowlark are all birds that I could easily chased (in the sense that I‘ve been within 2 hours of them and could have gone), but they aren’t "that rare" and I figured I would wait to self find them. 

Long-eared Owl is pretty embarrassing, I‘ll admit it.. and I really have no excuse not to have it. Honestly I thought one would show up in my yard one day and chasing birds like owls isn’t something I enjoy!

Another reason I decided to do a big year was to boost my Ontario list and see all of the birds mentioned above. If I see everything on the list there’s 20, but I think I can add at least 40 Ontario birds this year. If I had to guess at the next 20, here’s my list in rough order (again with codes beside them).

- American Three-toed Woodpecker (Code 3)

- Townsend’s Solitaire (Code 3)

- Yellow-throated Warbler (Code 3)

- King Rail (Code 3)

- Western Grebe (Code 4)

- Western Sandpiper (Code) 

- Chuck-wills-widow (Code 4)

- Kirtland’s Warbler (Code 3)

- Laughing Gull (Code 3)

- Henslow’s Sparrow (Code 3)

- Blue Grosbeak (Code 4)

- Varied Thrush (Code 3)

- Worm-eating Warbler (Code 3)

- Eurasian Collared-Dove (Code 3)

- Slaty-backed Gull (Code 4)

- California Gull (Code 4)

- Neotropic Cormorant (Code 4)

- Swainson’s Hawk (Code 4)

- Ruff (Code 4)

-Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Code 4)

Again, I *should* see most code 3s, but I‘ll likely miss a few. As for code 4s I will see some of them, but not all. There are usually 40+ records of code 4s a year, but it really varies what species are involved.

And that’s it for my rambling for today!