Chronicles of an Ontario Birder: Recent Birding

Recent Birding

Another quick update on some recent birds n' stuff......

- Jan 18

Spent the morning searching for the Gyrfalcon around the peninsula with Ezra. It was a quieter day for birds overall, despite being a rather nice day... not too cold with the occasional bout of sunshine. On the same route that I had driven we saw 11 species, versus 20 the previous day. For some reason there were just less raptors period, birds are weird like that! In the end we failed to turn up any falcons beside an American Kestrel, not quite the hoped for species :) The plan was to drive down to Toronto to search for the elusive Burrowing Owl at sunset, even though there had been no reports in a week we figured it was still worth a try. The Gyrfalcon hunt was called short around noon, and after that we spent a bit of time searching for Golden Eagles in South Bruce... Not a bird we have to worry about missing, but since we were pratically driving by the area anyways it seemed like it was worth a shot. Raptors were not to be our friends that day though, as the goldens remained hidden. Some Rough-legged Hawks and Snow Buntings were among the only signs of life in the barren snow covered landscape.

- Ruffed Grouse

- a Red Fox that was out in a farm field

We misjudged our timing a bit, and arrived in Toronto just twenty minutes before sunset. The city was in the midst of cleaning up from one of the largest snowfalls in recent history (over 50 centimeters fell the previous night!) and many of the roads were partly or completely hidden under a layer of white. The ensuing walk out to Tommy Thompson Park was quite exhausting to say the least! The park trails aren't maintained in the winter, so the only trails were rough paths beaten down by foot. Many park goers were sensibly wearing snowshoes or skis, either of which I would have gladly taken. A few times I sped up to a jog, as the light was fading and I wanted to get out to the location before it was even darker. I will not lie it felt like a doomed quest… I would have happily run through the snow if there was a rare bird waiting for me at the end, but this was only a small chance of seeing a bird that might still be there. We were joined by local birder Owen Strickland, who had already put in over 80 hours looking for this owl, during which time he had seen it once. That doesn't exactly fill you with hope! We scanned the area until the darkness made it too hard to see well... I say well and not at all because this is Toronto after all, a place that never experiences true darkness unless there is a power outage. This was one of the first days of the year that I didn't add any new species, but that is bound to happen!

- Sunset at Tommy Thompson Park

- Jan 19

A Slaty-backed Gull had been spotted on the New York side of Niagara Falls a few days earlier, and since there wasn't much else in Ontario to chase, Ezra and I decided to spend the day seeing if we could find it on the Ontario side. We were joined by Nathan Hood, who always has a hard time turning down a day of gulling (check out his blog here). I wasn't really in the photography mood, so you'll have to excuse the lack of photos. Recently my camera has been having issues, which makes taking photos less appealing, especially when there are other birders present with cameras... who would document anything rare should we encounter it. I am getting a new camera this week though, so expect more photos in future posts! First we visited the canal area around Thorold, often a good spot to look for concentrations of gulls in the winter. The first few spots we checked were empty, but on Dock Road we found a large group of gulls sitting on the ice. The light was absolutely perfect and the birds were quite close, so we enjoyed 45 minutes of scanning through them. Among a few thousand Herring Gulls we spotted a nice assortment of other species including: Iceland, Glaucous, Lesser Black-backed and Greater Black-backed Gulls. Two of the icelands were of the "Thayer's" subspecies, which I rarely get to see in Bruce. One of them was a nice juvenile bird, which although appears very similar to young Herring Gulls, has a delicate, less menacing look to its face, brown primaries with light edges to them and a more uniform and defined look to the plumage overall. Really a "birders bird", part of the enjoyment taken from them is working through a large gull flock and picking out something slightly different. The rest of the day was spent along the upper falls area, where we walked along the edge of the river, pausing frequently to scan through the swirling mass of thousands of gulls that circled over the water and sat on the rocks. Despite our best efforts the slaty-backed would remain hidden, but we did see all the regular gulls.

- Gulling the falls

The waning hours of daylight were spent on Niagara-On-The-Lake, where we watched the daily gull flyby. There were not nearly as many Bonaparte's Gulls as there were on my last few visits here (800 vs 10,000), but it was still an enjoyable way to end the day. A few Little Gulls were mixed in with the flock, but no kittiwakes this time.

- Jan 20

I left Ezra's house in the wee hours of the morning for the long drive towards eastern Ontario. The targets for the trip were Great Grey, Northern Hawk and Barred Owl, as well as a few other common birds that we were missing. It was a lovely day for a drive, clear and starry as I drove east on the 401, while Campenelli sawed logs in the passenger seat. The Great Grey was our first target and also one of the most common Ontario breeding species that I've never seen. It was a very cold morning, with the temperature on the car reading -25, though it felt considerably colder. It was completely still and sunny, the saving grace that made it slighly more bearable to be outside. I'm not going to say specifics for where we were looking for any of these owls, as they are very popular species and attract large crowds when word gets out, which often isn't a great thing for the the owls themselves. After an hour of searching and no birds to show for it besides a few ravens, it was becoming clear that the grey ghost of the northern forests would not be showing itself. We continued on in search of our next owl target, a Northern Hawk Owl. This bird would prove to be a lot easier to find than the great grey, after 5 minutes I spotted it perched on the top of a coniferous tree, surveying the surrounding area with a confident, icy gaze. Breaking the norm for this post. I actually DO have photos of this bird... by far my best photos of the species too.

- Northern Hawk Owl

The remainder of the day was spent looking for Bohemian Waxwings, which would be a new bird for Ezra (I saw some back in Bruce). It wasn't meant to be though, although we did find an abundance of berry trees, American Robins and European Starling, with the latter doing their best to look like waxwings. We did find a small flock of Cedar Waxwings though, a yearbird for me. In the evening we searched for great greys and were again out of luck... Well partly, as we did find a pair of Barred Owls right beside the road on the drive, a new species for the list and one of my favourite birds.

- Jan 21

A fairly quiet day spent driving back towards Hamilton, looking for waxwings and whatever other birds we could find on the way. The waxwings again gave us the slip, as did practically every bird because we didn't see a whole heck of a lot! It ended up being another day with 0 additions, however the scenery and sunny skies made it a nice day regardless.

- A gorgeous day & a filthy windshield

- Jan 22

A bit of casual birding around the Hamilton lakeshore in the morning netted me several new birds, all common species that are scarce in the winter away from a few spots. The new birds were: Green-winged Teal. Northern Shoveler. I returned to Bruce after that, for a weekend of R&R.

Here are some photos of common birds from the past week too...