Little bit of this, little bit of that

I haven't got out a whole lot in the last few days but I'm hoping to do a fair bit of birding this weekend. I have been picking up birds, slow and steady, as they arrive in Guelph. The other day I went for an afternoon stroll around Guelph Lake. The day was mild and sunny with a brisk wind, but with very little birdlife was around, I was happy to spot a pair of Eastern Bluebirds in the campground. For some reason I rarely encounter this species. According to Ebird I have 29 total sightings of this species since I saw my first bluebirds in June, 2007. Only 5 of those sightings are in Wellington County. On the other hand, I have 38 independent sightings of Lesser Black-backed Gull. Figure that one out. Also, I have seen more Summer Tanagers and just as many Eurasian Wigeons as Upland Sandpipers in Ontario, but I digress.

Eastern Bluebird - Guelph Lake CA

The birds were few and far between but I did get a Great Blue Heron fly over and there were a few Redhead and Lesser Scaup way out on the lake. Both these species are considered rare in the county but I've seen them just about every single time I look for ducks! Mountsburg and Puslinch usually have a few of each species.

New for my "photographed big year" were Cedar Waxwing, White-breasted Nuthatch, etc. Snapped a couple photos of a chickadee, just 'cause.

Black-capped Chickadee - Guelph Lake

Driving around the lake I was happy to see that one of the Osprey were back on a nest! This was year bird 164.

Osprey - Guelph Lake

The other day I got a text from David Bell saying something like "I'm pretty sure a Purple Martin flew by, heading your way....". Dave lives just down the street (about 1/2 a km), so I stood vigil for a few minutes and had 2 Purple Martins fly by! Later on Dave had 6 of them nearby! Nice to see them back in town. That was year bird 165.

March Jaeger?!

Today, Reuven and I headed to Toronto in chase of a reported Eared Grebe. We arrived at the east bay of Colonel Sam Smith Park to several birders looking at the bird, however the lighting was bad and the bird was distant so it was hard to see well. We moved farther west and had much better views of it in better light and it became apparent that the bird was in fact a Horned Grebe in heavy molt with an interestingly placed tuft on its head. Oh well, that's how it goes sometimes!

the culprit - Toronto, ON

While we were here we enjoyed the sights and sounds of hundreds of Red-necked Grebes calling back and forth. This is a major staging ground for them and there are presumably several thousand between Toronto and Oakville on the lakefront. There has got to be a Western Grebe mixed in somewhere!

Red-necked Grebes - Toronto, ON

Garth Riley had found a Pomarine Jaeger earlier in the day way out over the lake, a crazy March record for Ontario. Most likely this was a bird that wintered on the Great Lakes. Several Pomarine and Parasitic Jaegers continued to be seen at Niagara-on-the-Lake until mid December, at least.

Reuven and I set up our scopes with Garth, as well as Andrew Keaveney and Sarah Jane Stranger-Guy who had arrived. After about 20 minutes of scanning I picked up a darkish jaeger barreling in. We all got on it but it was very distant. Several times it harassed some gulls, and it even flew out over land at Humber Bay to the west!

Pomarine Jaeger - Toronto, ON

We squabbled a bit over the ID but the bird appears to be an intermediate morph immature Pomarine Jaeger. This is a code-3 bird for me, and quite an unexpected one! This may save me from a few trips down to Van Wagner's beach in the fall, though I'll probably still go since jaegering can be a lot of fun (with rarity potential).

Pomarine Jaeger - Toronto, ON

Reuven and I slowly started to make our way back to Guelph, stopping at a few lakefront parks without seeing much. A few cormies were here and there.

Double-crested Cormorant - Port Credit, ON

 We stopped at Mountsberg once we got off the highway to check out the situation. No shorebirds yet, but there were a few ducks including a pair of Blue-winged Teal. Since I'm trying to photograph as many species as I can this year, I grabbed some crappy digi-scoped shots (species #105 photographed this year). What better way to finish off a blog entry than with a blurry, cropped photo?

Blue-winged Teal - Mountsberg reservoir

The salamanders are moving

Between midterms, papers, and St. Patrick's Day festivities, I have made it out to the ponds a couple of times to see what amphibians were around.

The first night was warm, but dry, and I was a little worried that we wouldn't see good numbers of amphibians. Every vernal pond was completely ice-free and it wasn't long before we saw the first of many newts on the evening.

Red-spotted Newt

Every pond we checked had decent numbers of Spotted and Blue-spotted Salamanders, but there were only a few frogs. Spring Peepers were only sporadically calling, as were Wood Frogs. A few more days of warm weather, especially if we get a good deluge of rain, and there will be huge numbers of several species. Even still, we did get a few Wood Frogs.

Wood Frog

Matt holding on to his woodie...hehe.

We did find a big ole Bullfrog just hanging out on the trail. Bullfrogs aren't very common on the site - in fact I have seen less than 20 of them over the years.

American Bullfrog

Reuven made a great find with a Northern Brownsnake under a log. This was, by over two weeks, the earliest Brownsnake I have had at the site.

Northern Brownsnake

Of course, several first-of-year Green Frogs were swimming along the edges of the vernal ponds, and tadpoles, which take over a year to metamorphisize and spend the winter in the ponds, were also easy to find in the larger vernal ponds.

Green Frog

Matt found a snake as well - this time a Northern Ribbonsnake. While they are easy to find in the day, I have only ever found two before at night during the early spring.

The entire evening we were being serenaded by several owls, including 7+ Eastern Screech-owls and 1 Great Horned Owl. A few packs of coyotes howled in the distance, and lightning danced on the horizon though rain never did arrive. Several of the screech-owls came to check us out.

Eastern Screech-Owl

The following night was more of the same - same weather conditions and same species observed. I managed to photograph several Spring Peepers, including this individual. Unfortunately they were a bit camera-shy and wouldn't call while we were photographing them. As the spring wears on, their boldness will increase!

Spring Peeper

A Blue-spotted Salamander crossing the road to reach its vernal pond. Fortunately car traffic on this road is quite light so only a few individuals get killed annually. In other areas road mortality is a huge problem.

Blue-spotted Salamander

Natasha with a Blue-spotted Salamander

And finally, one of the many dozens of Spotted Salamanders that breed in these vernal ponds. We also saw a single male Four-toed Salamander crossing the trail (not photographed by me), the first of the year.

Spotted Salamander

Coming up - I will be traveling to Point Pelee and area for a few days this week. Hoping for some record early spring migrants!

First snakes of the year

With the blazing hot weather yesterday, I couldn't resist spending the afternoon looking for some early season snakes at one of my favorite spots. I headed down with Pauline and Chris, first stopping at Mountsburg to see what waterfowl were in. Not a whole lot was around compared to yesterday, maybe 10 species of the common things, so we headed west to check out Puslinch. On the way we paused to watch the antics of a few Eastern Meadowlarks.

Eastern Meadowlark

I really like this shot for some reason...its a little bit different. What do you think? Being limited to a 300 mm lens, about equivalent to 6 or 8 x zoom, means I have a lot more of these types of photos and less of the full frame, close-ups of birds. Even the meadowlark shot above was cropped a fair bit.

Eastern Meadowlark

A few roadside ponds had turtles basking - all Midland Painted Turtles of course. 

Midland Painted Turtle

We eventually made it to our spot and started looking for snakes. As I was walking a hillside I heard Chris yell that he had a snake - the first Northern Ribbonsnake of the year. 

Northern Ribbonsnake

It was great to get reacquainted with this beautiful species as I've spent hundreds of hours with it in the past. Without a doubt it is my favorite Ontario snake, though the Massasauga and Queen Snake aren't far behind.

Early in the season ribbonsnakes are quite approachable as they bask quietly in the sun. With any quick movement they take off, but if one exercises a bit of stealth it is possible to get quite close. In the past I have had ribbonsnakes that I was photographing crawl over my hands or my camera. This photo I took yesterday was from a snake I had crept up to. Full-frame.

Northern Ribbonsnake 

As we walked through the woodland signs of spring were apparent. Skunk cabbage were well on they way through the wet soil, chickadees attempted to outdo each other with their "fee-beee" song, and four species of woodpeckers were making a racket as they chased each other around and drilled cavities into trees. By turning over a few stones we found our first Ambystoma of the year - a young Blue-spotted Salamander.

Blue-spotted Salamander

Eastern Redback Salamanders were also plentiful under every other stone. This species occurs in 2 general colour morphs, with the occasional intermediate individual. This one is of the more common "redback" form, while some individuals have no red strip and are a coal gray/black colour on their dorsum. Over the years at this location, 74.9%  of the Eastern Redback Salamanders I have classified as "red-backed", 25.1% have been "lead-backed" (n=606). 

"redback" phase Eastern Redback Salamander

We heard several choruses of Spring Peepers as well as one or two lone Western Chorus Frogs. W. Chorus Frogs have been decreasing steadily in Ontario over the past number of decades and they are a candidate to be a Species at Risk. This part of Ontario still has strong populations, but it was a little disconcerting to only hear a couple of them mixed in with the peepers. Normally they readily sing in the daytime early in the season while the peepers have their loudest choruses at night. Hopefully the lack of W. Chorus Frogs was due to the early date and not a decline in their numbers. Here is a photo of one from a previous spring...

Western Chorus Frog

Chris keeping a wary eye out for snakes

Pauline - herper extraordinaire

Anyways, as the afternoon wore on we kept seeing good numbers of both N. Ribbonsnakes (Thamnophis sauritus septentrionalis) as well as the slightly less numerous Eastern Gartersnake (T. sirtalis sirtalis). These are the two earliest snakes I see at this site, with my first snake of the year usually a N. Ribbonsnake. Within a week or two Northern Brownsnakes, followed shortly by Redbelly Snakes should appear. Northern Watersnakes will be out any day, and the remaining snakes at the site (Smooth Greensnake, Eastern Milksnake, N. Ringneck Snake) don't usually appear until mid or late April. Most of the gartersnakes and ribbonsnakes we saw on the day were very close to known hibernacula, and I didn't see any in areas where I suspect there are no hibernacula. To me this means that they had recently emerged and within a few days they will probably disperse over all the hillsides.

Northern Ribbonsnake

I would elaborate more on Northern Ribbonsnakes, their hibernacula, and other things, but I've already made this long-winded enough. They are a fascinating species though, and its good to see several populations in the Cambridge/Guelph area that are doing very strong as they are a Species of Special Concern in Ontario. 

A Wild Smew Chase

This morning while I was contemplating what to, an ONTbirds post immediately made the decision easy for me. A Smew was reported in Whitby harbour, presumably the same bird that was present last December (see here). I immediately booked it down there with Reuven and we showed up around 11:00 AM. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be seen, and all the birders had missed it as well, including some that had shown up right after it was posted to the listserv. Reuven and I still spent several hours around the harbour area searching for it, but no luck. With several other birders we did view an adult Thayer's Gull and an adult Kumlien's Gull next to each other on the breakwall! There were several more Kumlien's around as well as a 2nd/3rd cycle Glaucous Gull.

We decided to check out nearby Lynde shores to see if there were any interesting waterfowl there. No rare geese among the hundreds of Canada Geese, but we did see a nice Red-shouldered Hawk overhead and several migrant ducks (Ringneck Duck, Gadwall, etc) at Lynde Shores.

We saw on the WELLbirds listservs that Fred Urie had found a Snow Goose in Aberfoyle. This would be a life bird for Reuven (his biggest hole on his Ontario list) so we stopped there on the way back. Fortunately it was there when we arrived and we were able to view it from quite close. It appeared to have an injured leg but was still active and wary.

Snow Goose - Aberfoyle, Wellington Co.

The Snow Goose was year bird 141 for me. Since arriving in Canada, I picked up Common Grackle on March 4 and Rusty Blackbird with a mixed flock of blackbirds near Cambridge last night. The Red-shouldered Hawk was #140.

Snow Goose - Aberfoyle, Wellington Co.

No Smew, but that's how it goes sometimes! It was cold and windy for much of the day and very few blackbirds were around compared to yesterday. The forecast is improving, fortunately!

Are you sick of the Barred Owl yet?

If so, well too bad! My dad was interested in taking some photos of it, so we headed up to Guelph Lake today. Fortunately it wasn't too hard to find (just look for photographers pointing their lenses up a tree) and we were both happy to get some decent photos.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Current birding plans....
With no pressing rarities in the province, I have taken it easy a bit the last couple of days and done schoolwork. I have a pretty busy couple of weeks before I go to Scotland but I do have some plans in the works.

Tomorrow morning I am going all the way to Brampton to hopefully see the Ross's Goose that is present every morning and evening. Thursday I don't have class, so if I can catch up on all my schoolwork by then, I am hoping to go to Niagara for the day. Recent sightings of birds I still need include Black-legged Kittiwake, California Gull, possible Mew Gull, etc. Finally, I am hoping to go to Sault Ste. Marie on the weekend (if the Varied Thrush is still around). Should be fun.

Northern trip stuff and another owl for the list

I had a number of target species to get on the northern trip. The following is that list and how successful I was at seeing them.

Varied Thrush

Spotted Towhee

Harris’s Sparrow

Gray-crowned Rosy-finch

These were the four rarities that we hoped to see and the Gray-crowned Rosy-finch (code 5) and Spotted Towhee (code 4) were the main reason for this trip! Fortunately we saw both of them, immediately making the trip worthwhile. The Harris's Sparrow (code 3) was nice to get early on. I will probably see Harris's Sparrows when I go north in the fall (they migrate through in small numbers), but even still I don't want to have to worry about this bird later in the year! We missed the Varied Thrush (code 3) in Ottawa which was really depressing since it was my second unsuccessful try for that individual. Two days after passing through Sault Ste. Marie we heard about a Varied Thrush near the Soo that had been present for several weeks....that's how it goes I guess. 

Ruffed Grouse

Spruce Grouse

Sharp-tailed Grouse

The grouse weren't major targets on the trip, simply because I will pick them all up at various points throughout the year. We were hoping that we would stumble upon them at some point on the trip but didn't have really high expectations. We did see Ruffed Grouse (code 1) in a number of locations, but missed the other two species.

Great Gray Owl

Boreal Owl

Northern Hawk-Owl

Barred Owl

There were extremely few small mammals up north and that would explain the paucity of owls. We missed all three of the northern species! I already had seen Great Gray Owl (code 3) in Kingsville and was really hoping to get the other species. We tried several times for calling Boreal Owls (code 3) in suitable habitat, but it was perhaps too early in their breeding season and we were unsuccessful. Northern Hawk-owl (code 3) was one that I thought we would stumble across as we drove backroads in the north, but that was not to be. We had a probable Barred Owl fly over the road in the north but didn't get a great look. Fortunately, I picked up Barred Owl yesterday in Guelph (scroll down the post).

N. Three-toed Woodpecker

Black-backed Woodpecker

We did get Black-backed Woodpecker in Sault Ste. Marie, but struck out on Three-toeds in several locations. Weather definitely played a factor. 

Gray Jay

Bohemian Waxwing

Boreal Chickadee

We got Gray Jays in several locations and a big flock of Bohemian Waxwings in Sault Ste. Marie. Surprisingly we didn't get any Boreal Chickadees in the boreal forest, but I did see a single bird in Algonquin on the way back. 

Pine Grosbeak

Hoary Redpoll

Evening Grosbeak

These were the remaining 3 regular finches I needed to see and we saw many individuals of all three species (all were code 2 birds). Getting the northern subspecies of Hoary Redpoll (Hornemann's Hoary Redpoll) was a great bird, even if it doesn't count as a year bird.

So when it all comes down to it, I got 3 of my 4 main targets, and 8 of my 15 secondary targets. Not great, but at least I saw the birds that mattered the most for my big year! I should get multiple opportunities to see all the secondary targets I missed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday I spend a couple hours in the morning doing some local birding around Guelph. The Barred Owl which had been hanging out at Guelph Lake all winter wasn't too hard to find and Matt Strimas-Mackey and I spent some time watching it hunt in the early morning sun. Very cool bird! 

Barred Owl - Guelph Lake

Barred Owl - Guelph Lake

I tried unsuccesfully for a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in Guelph (not a bird I'll miss this year, but a cool bird to get in the winter), and successfully saw my first Northern Pintail of the year, a drake. Brings the list up to 127.

Northern Pintail - Guelph

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You may recall at the beginning of the year that I made a goal of seeing all 10 regular finches and 10 regular owls early in the year. I have now seen all the finches (plus the bonus rosy-finch) and 8 of the 10 owls. I'll probably head north in April to get Boreal Owls calling on territory as well as trying for Three-toed Woodpeckers again.

There are several other birds that I hope to see before I leave for Scotland on February 16. They are:

Northern Hawk-owl

Black-legged Kittiwake (Fort Erie bird still being seen)

California Gull (one was seen on the weekend at the Niagara River - could very well be around)

Varied Thrush (might have to drive to the Soo for this one)

Tufted Titmouse (not really rare, but I should get them in Niagara)

Harlequin Duck (female bird occasionally being seen in Niagara)

Snow Goose (several birds are in the province, hopefully I can see the one in Hamilton)

Sharp-tailed Grouse (would be a life bird for me. Will try for them when I am back in the Soo)

I have to keep forcing myself to stay focused and only look for winter specialties and rarities. I could easily go to Long Point and get 5 or more year birds, but they would be all common birds that I will pick up later. If I spend time doing that I may miss a great rarity because of that.

This post is getting fairly long-winded so I think I'll end it here.

Mountain Bluebird, King Eider, and more

Lots of photos today, so I'll try to keep the text brief.

This morning I woke up and headed straight to where the Mountain Bluebird has been reported. It only took a few minutes after arriving to see it as well as a male Eastern Bluebird. My first rarity of the year (and my 7th bird for the year).

Mountain Bluebird - Puslinch

Mountain and Eastern Bluebirds - Puslinch

After that success I booked it down to Hamilton, hoping that I could work some magic and turn up the Black-throated Gray Warbler that hadn't been reported in several days. No luck there (actually, no warblers of any kind!) but I did see a few things.

I'm trying to photograph most of the species I see this year so I grabbed some shots of even the common stuff.

even Mallard's are fair game!

Bufflehead - Bayfront Park

Greater Scaup - Bayfront Park

Northern Mockingbird - Bayfront Park

Herring Gull  - Bayfront Park

When doing a Big Year, a House Sparrow counts just as much as a Laysan Albatross! They are each worth "1".

HOSP - Bayfront Park

Red-breasted Merganser - Bayfront Park

I really cleaned up on invasive species at Bayfront, getting a grand slam! Mute Swan, House Sparrow, European Starling, and Rock Pigeon.

immature Mute Swan - Bayfront Park

Belted Kingfisher - Bayfront Park

cormie - Bayfront Park

These guys were a nice surprise. I'd never seen one before in the winter.

Black-crowned Night-herons - Bayfront Park

An adult Bald Eagle flew over, possibly patrolling the waterfront for ducks.

Bald Eagle - Bayfront Park

After all of that shutterbuggery, I headed on over to Port Weller in search of a reported male King Eider. I've never seen an adult male before, plus it's a good bird to get "out of the way" when doing a big year in Ontario. After setting up the scope, literally the first bird I looked at was the one I was looking for!

male King Eider - Port Weller

The Snowy Owl was also present, sitting waaaay out at the end of the west pier. A boat spooked it so I grabbed a crappy flight shot. Very cool birds!

Snowy Owl - Port Weller

On my way home, I stopped in Stoney Creek to try to turn up a Short-eared Owl at dusk. No luck, but I did see the long-staying Bobolink, a Northern Shrike, and a bunch of Harriers. A Great Horned Owl hooted in the distance, and I drove home with 59 species in the bag.

Tomorrow - Kingsville for the Great Gray Owl and who knows what else!