I haven’t posted on here for some time now, with the big year being over things are just less frantic these days and my urge to write has dwindled slightly.
It’s been interesting birding “normally” again and experiencing a quiet winter around my local patch on the Bruce Peninsula. A part of me misses the chaos of it all, the feeling that I always have to ready to go, driven by the all encompassing pursuit of a record. Overall though I enjoy the feeling of peace, and being able to pause and opportunity nature at a slower pace.
This winter has been rather uneventful for birds in the area, aside from a few county rarities like Little Gull and Harlequin Duck (neither seen by me). Due to an apparent crash in rodent populations in the open habitats around the peninsula, there area virtually no raptors wintering here. A day long drive around Ferndale in January only produced a single Rough-legged Hawk, and I’ve only seen two Snowy Owls since the new year. The irruptive northern finches are also lacking, aside from Pine Grosbeaks which are around in low numbers. I’ve seen a single redpoll this year, and no crossbills or Evening Grosbeaks. The other main irruptive species we get here is Red-breasted Nuthatch, and similar to the finches, they’re around in very low numbers too (I’ve had 1 in my 5MR, a far cry from 2021, when I had 150 on a single road!!).
 |
| - Snowy Owl |
This may sound rather bleak, especially considering the majority of year the sky has been an unrelenting shade of winter grey. In some ways it has been too, but there are always exciting moments if you look close enough. An adult Northern Goshawk has been wintering around my area and it has appeared briefly in a flash of power and speed a few times, the classic way to encounter this mysterious forester hunter. Last week it gave me and Alessandra a rare, prolonged view as it circled over the yard.
 |
| - Northern Goshawk |
There have also been a fair number of Golden Eagles around this year, I’ve chanced into 4 so far while driving backroads of the county. This may be an annual winter bird here, but spotting a large, long tailed eagle flying in horizon with its wings held in a dihedral position never fails to get the heart racing.
 |
| - Golden Eagle |
Birding with Alessandra around the Bruce has been quite rewarding as well. Since she’s not very familiar with the county I’m able to introduce her to all of my favourite haunts, in a way it’s like rediscovering all the places that sparked my interest in birding years ago.
Come February I am always at high risk for getting pre-migration anticipation, and I begin to search desperately for signs of movement in the sky. This year the weather has been rather fluid, fluctuating back and forth between winter and spring conditions and never landing on one for very long before flipping to the other again. Last week we were treated to some unseasonably warm weather, with temperatures above freezing for over a week and even closing in on 12 degrees some days. On February 12th, a push of warm air and a sunny day (a rarity it seems) lured my out into the yard to try an impromptu skywatch. While not exciting by the standards of most southern Ontario birders, I was pleased with my day spent staring up into the blue. The 15 species I saw were highlighted by a flyover Horned Lark (my earliest by two weeks in the yard), 8 Bald Eagles and over 30 American Crows. Normally I get large flights of eagles here in mid March, but I’ve never had this many in a single day in February. Crows may not seem like a sign of spring for many, but they’ve always been one of my first spring birds here. Low numbers winter on the peninsula, though in my neighbourhood I hardly see any in December or January. Come mid February I begin seeing one or two flying over, heading north well above the trees and remaining uncharacteristically silent. As the weeks pass the crows increase in numbers, peaking with a few hundred in a single day over my property. They generally pass by in loosely formed groups, and they seem to be heading north with a purpose, silent as to not evoke the ire of the local crows (at least that’s my best guess at this).
 |
| - Horned Lark |
A few days ago I went on a Bruce Birding Club field trip around the southern part of the county, where we came across some more early migrants in the form of American Wigeon, Canvasback, Ring-billed Gulls and Horned Lark. The ducks will push northward with the first warm fronts in February, then retreat only as far as they have to when the weather sours. It seems like an interesting strategy, as most winters they are forced to bounce back and forth several times before conditions improve for good. Ducks are strong fliers though, so travelling a few hundred kilometers probably doesn’t faze them much.
As I’m writing this we appear to be approaching the end of the warm weather for a bit, the forecast saying we’ll be experiencing more seasonal temperatures for the next several weeks. I’m hoping for another early spring, and I can’t wait to get back into the excitement of spring migration. Late March has always been one of my favourite times of the year, right when the American Woodcock, Killdeer and Eastern Meadowlarks are appearing, the fields and forests melting and the mild evenings dominated by the song of American Robin and Red-winged Blackbird, after months of silence. Only another few weeks of waiting…
 |
| - Not spring quite yet... |
No comments:
Post a Comment