Explorations of an Ecologist

Sunday, 9 September 2012

James Bay part 6 (August 12 to August 15, 2012)

shorebirds - Longridge Point, James Bay

Hudsonian Godwit - Longridge Point, James Bay

August 13, 2012
This was my second last full day on the coast! It was another warm and sunny day and I ended up going out to the tip of Longridge Point with Jean, Barb and Deborah while Ian and Andrew went out to West Bay to try to relocate the Buff-breasted Sandpiper I had found the previous day.

Again, we had a couple of flocks of migrant Snow Geese go over. Being from southwestern Ontario I was not accustomed to seeing pure flocks of Snow Geese - normally we only get single individuals mixed in with Canada Geese.

Snow Geese - Longridge Point, James Bay

The winds were too light and the tide was about a meter lower than it had been a week prior so there wasn't much happening at the seawatch. We hoped for a jaeger or interesting gull, but it was not to be! Our most interesting sighting were 2 juvenile Marbled Godwits that flew in off of the lake, landed for a minute, and then took off towards the West Bay after being harassed by gulls. This was the only sighting for our camp of Marbled Godwit!

Marbled Godwit - Longridge Point, James Bay

I was happy to pick out a second winter Little Gull loafing with the numerous Bonaparte's at the very tip of the point. It provided a great comparison! The rest of the day was uneventful and very little was seen. At one point 4 Red Knots flew over, my first sighting in quite some time. It was a little worrisome that there were so few knots showing up.

August 14, 2012
My last full day on the coast! I had planned to do another round of invertebrate sampling with Andrew today so I left the camera and scope behind for the day. Good thing, since we didn't see anything of too much interest while we were out doing the sampling. The highlight of the day was a few belugas whales that weren't too far offshore. Jean and Deborah were nearby and we radioed them to check em out.

I took a few minutes to photograph a really beautiful Hudson Bay Toad that was sitting on a path right in camp sometime in the morning as well.

Hudson Bay Toad - Longridge Point, James Bay

That evening we were treated to a beautiful sunset with a rainbow. It was spectacular on the coast, if one could find a way to ignore the mosquitoes.

Andrew had found a Gray Wolf walking along the edge of the treeline so everyone came out to look for it! Unfortunately it had disappeared by that point.

Jean Iron - Longridge Point, James Bay

Andrew Keaveney - Longridge Point, James Bay

That evening several migrant Common Nighthawks migrated overhead. Fall was definitely in the air!

August 15, 2012
Today was the day that the helicopter was supposed to come! Since I hadn't done so yet, I spent part of the morning taking some photos around camp.

The guys' cabin

The main cabin

It was someone's idea to come up with a team name for us with "bird" names for everyone...We had some discussion as to what the name should be and eventually settled on Team No-Knots due to the distinct lack of Red Knots at our study site. Your's truly even drew the Red Knot...not bad eh? ;)

There is a saying that you are never supposed to pack up your sleeping bag until you hear the helicopter coming. So many times due to a variety of reasons the chopper could be delayed and you could be stuck at camp for extra days. Unfortunately most of us had packed up all of our gear that morning, so naturally the news came in that the helicopter would be delayed a day in arriving. It would drop off the next crew for this camp, but wouldn't take us back since it would instead go up the coast to pick up the Chickney Channel crew. There just simply wasn't going to be enough daylight to take both crews back to Moosonee.

Eventually, around 7:00 PM, we heard the distinctive sound in the sky and the MNR chopper came in.

Imagine our surprise when they told us we were leaving then! Apparently they had arrived later than expected and there wasn't enough time to get the Chickney Channel crew after all, so they were going to bring us back after all. A hectic pack of all our gear, and we were off!

The next two days were spent driving home. After two weeks on the coast, away from civilization, it was a bit of a shock to return to the highways and the cities. I was going to miss the coast, but knew that I would be back sometime this fall.

I will have one more post about this trip soon - basically just a summary post with some numbers/highlights etc.

Thursday, 6 September 2012

James Bay part 5 (August 9 to August 12, 2012)

Introductory Post
July 28 to 30, 2012 - Moosonee, Little Piskwamish Point
July 31 to August 2, 2012 - Little Piskwamish Point
August 3 to 5, 2012 - Longridge Point
August 6 to 8, 2012 - Longridge Point
August 9 to 12, 2012 - Longridge Point
August 12 to 15, 2012 - Longridge Point

This is my fifth of six posts covering the day to day highlights from James Bay. At this point, I have covered from July 28th to August 8. I had added four year birds: Nelson's Sparrow, Red Knot, Black Guillemot, and Arctic Tern (my main target!).

August 9, 2012
We awoke to a cool morning with a temperature around 5 degrees Celcius. The bird song, consisting primarily of sparrows the last few days, had abruptly stopped so the air had an autumn feel about it. Today I did some invertebrate sampling with Andrew. It had to be done once a week and consisted of sampling the mudflats along a 1 km transect to hopefully find out what the shorebirds were eating. This took most of the day, so needless to say not much birding was done!

High tide was later in the evening so I spent the afternoon relaxing and having a quick nap. Around 4:30 PM Jean and I headed out to the river-mouth to see what we could find, though the rest of the group hung back. We didn't find another Arctic Tern, however I was more than happy to see this juvenile Red-necked Phalarope!

Red-necked Phalarope - Longridge Point, James Bay

Other than the single bird I found at Little Piskwamish on August 1st, this was the only other Red-necked Phalarope that our group had seen on the coast. Of course, that got the rest of the crew to come out to take a look! The evening light was perfect and the bird was completely unconcerned, so I was able to get some good photos from only a dozen feet away.

Red-necked Phalarope - Longridge Point, James Bay

I managed to photograph some of the other people without them noticing. Ian, scoping those birds like its his job...

Ian - Longridge Point, James Bay

And Andrew, with a rare serious look on his face.

Andrew - Longridge Point, James Bay

Of course, how could I ignore the roosting Hudsonian Godwits on a calm evening with perfect light?

Hudwits and Bonies - Longridge Point, James Bay

I think that Ruddy Turnstones are the most entertaining of all the shorebirds. They make the strangest sounds, have a round body with a stout little head (plus a myriad of interesting colours and patterns), and spend all day walking around and flipping over anything they can....This is a rare moment when they are actually resting.

Ruddy Turnstones - Longridge Point, James Bay

August 10, 2012
On my 5th last full day on the coast I was assigned to walk to the tip of Longridge Point with Deborah. It was a little more relaxing than my previous trips to the tip, without the pressure of having to find an Arctic Tern!

Deborah - Longridge Point, James Bay

I had a couple of moments this day which really were incredible. The first came almost first thing in the morning as Deborah and I were censusing the shorebirds at the rivermouth. Deborah asked, "What's that animal?" I took a glance and explained that it was a Black-bellied Plover. She mentioned that no, she wasn't looking at a shorebird but a canine-looking animal. I looked up and just about shit myself as there was a beautiful Gray Wolf trotting along the high tide mark, less than 100 meters away! We had great looks at it in the scope as it looked at us before eventually leaving and disappearing into the forest.

The second moment was once Deborah and I had returned to camp. I was walking around the main cabin, looking for a big drum for Ian and I to burn our garbage in, when I stopped to look at some Boreal Chickadees in the trees. One came quite close and landed on a branch no more than 18 inches from my face! I just stared at him for the longest time as he peered back at me, making a fantastic variety of little chips and seet notes. I could see every detail of his feathers as he chattered away! I didn't have a camera, but here's a photo of one of the local BOCHs using a tarp as a bath.

Boreal Chick having a bath - Longridge Point, James Bay

August 11, 2012
For some reason every time I go birding with Barb Charlton (aka the Barbarian...lol) we have incredible luck, though I think it is more about our skill than anything! :) We have been successful chasing just about every rarity we have tried for this year as well as finding a few good birds while we were together! Most recently was the Black Guillemot from August 5. Today I headed to the south end of our area, Beluga Point, with Barb to see what we could find. Our streak continued, though it wasn't for a bird sighting!

Barb scanning for birds - Longridge Point, James Bay

We were scanning the lake while families of Common Terns screamed at us. Shorebirds were relatively weak in diversity and not much was moving on the warm, still morning. As I was scanning I was surprised to see a couple of big white shapes rise to the surface for a few seconds - belugas!!! Barb and I ended up watching the 3 belugas for quite some time as they checked out the bay between the aptly named Beluga Point and Longridge Point. I was very impressed by not only their size but also their speed in the water - not quite what I expected!

Common Tern - Longridge Point, James Bay

Beluga whale was a new addition to my Ontario whale list (the list is now up to 1 species). It trumped the rest of our sightings from this morning!

The afternoon was hot and calm so we felt warranted to sit around and have a few beers. I photographed this azure. It would be considered a Spring Azure from the field guides, but it is very late in the year for a Spring Azure and is definitely not a Summer Azure. Some people consider the azures from around here a different species, as of yet undescribed.

azure sp. - Longridge Point, James Bay

August 12, 2012

The morning broke warm and sunny for the third day in a row - a nice change from the cool and rainy weather that had dominated the early part of the trip. On this day I hiked out to the west bay with Ian, but not before hanging out with the family of tame Ruffed Grouse that hung around camp!

Ruffed Grouse - Longridge Point, James Bay

There were four 3/4-sized babies and they seemed to enjoy themselves having a dustbath just off the side of the main path. Pretty cute!

Ruffed Grouse - Longridge Point, James Bay

The day got even better as we was scanning the usual crew of Canada Geese that hung out in West Bay. We heard an unusual goose sound and looked up to see a flock of 34 Snow Geese heading south! We radioded the rest of the crew and fortunately everybody else got on them. This seems really early for south bound Snow Geese, but what do I know.

The day was absolutely fantastic. We were off to a good start with a small flock of Whimbrels flying by. Our species total was up quickly with the addition of Killdeer, Semi Plover, Black-bellied Plover, Semi Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, White-rumped Sandpiper, both yellowlegs, Ruddy Turnstone, Sanderling, Hudsonian Godwit, and Dunlin. Walking in the grassy mudflats added a bunch of Pectoral Sandpipers, and in a nearby pool were some Short-billed Dowitchers. We came across a large group of Black-bellied Plovers on some drier areas and I quickly got on a juvenile Buff-breasted Sandpiper! This was a year-bird, my 5th of the trip and bringing me up to 326 for the year. While unsuccessfully trying to relocate it we came across an adult Baird's Sandpiper and adult American Golden-plover, bringing our shorebird total to 18 for the day!

That evening I headed down to the creek to try to get some shorebird photos. A few Wilson's Snipes flushed and a Spotted Sandpiper called, giving me an even 20 species of shorebirds for the day. Some gulls were flying overhead and the light was just perfect.

Bonaparte's Gull - Longridge Point, James Bay

A nice Little Gull joined the fray.

Little Gull - Longridge Point, James Bay

The wind was calm, the mosquitoes weren't as friendly as usual, and I was able to get close to the shorebirds. This juvenile Greater Yellowlegs was more tolerant than most...

Greater Yellowlegs - Longridge Point, James Bay

Of course, I was focused again with the godwits since this would be one of my last opportunities to photograph this beautiful species. Its not often I see this species from so close!

Hudsonian Godwit - Longridge Point, James Bay

My last post will be up shortly, covering the last few days of the trip.

Tuesday, 4 September 2012

James Bay part 4 (August 6 to August 8, 2012)

Bronze Copper - Longridge Point

This James Bay population was found a few years ago and is quite isolated from the other populations. Along with Marbled Godwits, Nelson's Sparrows, Le Conte's Sparrows, and Wilson's Pharalopes, they are a relict prairie species which has a disjunct population in the James Bay lowlands. Here, the sedge meadows mimic prairies found farther south and west.

Bronze Copper - Longridge Point

Ian, Andrew and I walked to the end of Longridge Point later in the morning. I was still trying hard to get Arctic Terns and the tip of Longridge was one of the locations I was told was "guaranteed" for them. I figured the more time I spend out there doing a sea-watch, the better!

A highlight from the few hours of seawatching we did was a pair of juvenile Little Gulls which hung out at the very tip. Eventually they flew off as the tide came in. A neat plumage that I don't see enough!

Little Gulls - Longridge Point

The other star attraction at the tip of Longridge was a ratty looking Snowy Owl that was found by the previous group 2 weeks prior. This was my second trip to the tip of Longridge and the first time that I came across the owl.

Snowy Owl - Longridge Point

Snowy Owls breed in the arctic and should be much farther north then the James Bay lowlands in early August. This appeared to be a young bird, probably one that wouldn't breed this year anyways. It appeared wary and healthy the whole time we were there (we ended up seeing it regularly for the entire 12 days), and was probably dining on shorebirds, gulls, or even ducks.

Snowy Owl - Longridge Point

After a few hours of lakewatching our tern count was about 4 Caspian, 16 Common, and 0 Arctic. I was starting to become more worried as another day had passed without Arctic Terns.

We did see some other interesting birds for the day. In my notes, I mention several species which were new for me for the James Bay lowlands (Greater Scaup, Green-winged Teal, Bank Swallow, American Redstart, and Yellow-rumped Warbler). We also had a few more Red Crossbills plus the usual medley of Gray Jays, Boreal Chickadees and White-winged Crossbills. A single Whimbrel was nice to see and we had a flock of 40+ Red Knots which didn't hang around. This bear was sniffing around and eating berries on the walk back to camp!

Black Bear - Longridge Point

Over the last couple of days we had seen warm south winds and we found some interesting "vagrant" insects from the south. On the 6th we had both Wandering and Spot-winged Gliders, and on the 5th I found this pretty worn Great Spangled Fritillary near camp. We ended up seeing another one later in the trip.

Great Spangled Fritillary - Longridge Point

August 7, 2012
The story of the day today - Arctic Tern!!! Unfortunately though, I wasn't lucky enough to see it.

The day started unexpectedly early. Barb and Deborah had decided to wake up extra early to try to be at the farthest southern point we census, Beluga Point, by high tide. They were up at 5:30 AM and by 6:00 AM I heard the news - Arctic Tern at the river mouth!

I was out the door in 30 seconds and raced down to the river mouth. They had seen it sitting on a rock near some Bonaparte's Gulls, though it was last seen flying out to the bay. I searched for several hours but came up empty, so I headed back to camp to get ready for the day. Another miss, but at least I now knew that Arctic Tern(s) were around! I did see my first Clay-colored Sparrow for the James Bay lowlands while I was searching for the tern.

This cute little Hudson Bay Toad was hanging around camp so I had to take a photo. Its incredible how variable they are.

Hudson Bay Toad - Longridge Point

I decided to volunteer to census Longridge Point with Andrew today, with hopes that the Arctic Tern might make a flyby at some point. The rain picked up but eventually it died down and we were able to walk to the tip. I walked along the low tide line the whole way as there were some terns and gulls concentrated there. Several Caspians, a group of Commons hunting the shore, but of course, no Arctic!

We did have some good birds at the tip, highlighted by our first Baird's Sandpiper of the trip (a year bird for Andrew). We identified it by call and eventually found it up on the ridge.

The other highlight was an adult Red-necked Grebe which hung out on the south side of the tip for a bit of time. Crappy shot, but identifiable! Red-necked Grebes are rare in southern James Bay.

Red-necked Grebe - Longridge Point

This underwing moth was flying around amongst the pebbles and driftwood of the long spit out to the point. I have tentatively identified it as Semirelict Underwing.

Semirelict Underwing - Longridge Point

Other birds seen for the day include building numbers of Whimbrels and the Snowy Owl again. At this point I decided to change my stategy for the remaining week on the coast. Instead of trying to get my Arctic Tern by lakewatching at the tip of Longridge (a strategy which clearly hadn't worked so far), I was going to focus on the inner bay and the rivermouth. Barb and Deborah had theirs there, so maybe this was a preferred spot for Arctic Terns.

August 8, 2012
The first three words scribbled in my journal for this date are: "ARCTIC F****** TERN!!!!" I finally got it, the number one target for the trip!

The day started out like most of the others...up by 7:00 or so, a breakfast of oatmeal with raisins, almonds, and apples, and hot coffee. I spent some time in the morning looking for butterflies with Andrew before looking for birds along the coast. It was a hot and sunny day and butterflies were everywhere! Of course, I didn't turn down very many oppurtunities to photograph the numerous Bronze Coppers.

Bronze Copper - Longridge Point

The drier areas with low bushes seemed ideal for both Clay-colored Sparrows and Le Conte's Sparrows. I was more interested in the latter and spent a bit of time trying to get good looks at them. They are a very secretive sparrow, but they don't flush easily, allowing one to get great, close-up looks at them if one has a bit of patience. A highlight for me was having scope views of a fresh juvenile from only 15 feet away! Here is an adult, below.

Le Conte's Sparrow - Longridge Point

As I was walking along the edge of a creek I flushed a large white butterfly with black blotches and knew immediately what it was. Western White! This was a new butterfly for both Andy and I so we took a lot of photos!

Western White - Longridge Point

Eventually I made my way to the coast, south of the camp but not far enough to be at Beluga Point. I did a count as all the shorebirds and gulls flew by to roost at the river mouth as the tide was coming in. Hopefully, an Arctic Tern would be with them!

Little and Bonaparte's Gulls - Longridge Point

Lots of terns, about 1400 Bonaparte's Gulls, some Little Gulls, but no Arctic Terns yet again. Little Gulls were relatively common - I think we saw them just about every day! Several nice flocks of Hudsonian Godwits went by, but I didn't see a single knot.

That evening I decided to stay in and cook dinner while the rest of the crew went to check the river mouth at high tide. Just as I was boiling the water, I heard a crackling on the radio - Barb was saying "Arctic Tern at the river mouth"!

In the sudden rush of adrenaline I couldn't remember where I had put my binoculars or scope, so I just grabbed my camera (fortunately it was nearby) and sprinted! I think I covered the 1.5 kms in about 5 minutes, just in time to see a small white tern fly over as I made it to where the group was standing!

Arctic Tern - Longridge Point

It called several times, eventually flying back to the river and settling in on a rock. Success!!!! Deborah and Barb graciously let me use their optics and I could study the long tail, small head and short legs and bill of the Arctic Tern - features that separate it from the Common Tern. What a relief it was! Andy and I were both ecstatic to add this to our year-list!

Parts five and six to come.

Saturday, 1 September 2012

Jaegers and Sabine's Gulls at the beach

A great day to head down to the beach today...

I didn't make it to Van Wagner's Beach today until shortly after 3 this afternoon because I was meeting up with a friend, but I think I timed it perfectly!

Within minutes of arriving, Gavin Platt picked out a jaeger not too far out with turned out to be a sub-adult Long-tailed Jaeger. It was a new Ontario bird for him, so congrats! Not 5 minutes later I was scanning when I came across a group of 3 Parasitic Jaegers harassing a gull very close. This was the last jaeger I needed for the year, year bird #330. In ten minutes we had seen more jaegers than the entire morning and afternoon until then.

The fun would not end there! We kept having jaegers flying by and harassing gulls - mostly Parasitics, but at least one juvenile-ish Long-tailed Jaeger chasing an adult Parasitic at a close range. Pretty incredible to see these guys up close!

As the afternoon started to turn into the evening things got a lot better. I was checking out some distant jaegers when I noticed some gulls rising off the water that appeared to be Sabine's Gulls. The whole group got on them and they all appeared to be Sabine's! We had a count of 52 of them as they swirled around above the water after being harassed by the jaegers. Even more astonishing was the fact that at least 6 adult birds were mixed in. Only occasionally are adult Sabine's Gulls seen in Ontario, so to see 6 was unprecedented. Needless to say the 52 Sabine's Gulls was a high count for Hamilton, and probably southern Ontario. Throughout the rest of the time I was there groups of Sabine's would occasionally be seen, so there could have been more than 52.

It was a fantastic way to spend a couple of hours, though I was a little tired of explaining to all the passerbys what we were "photographing" with our spotting scopes! Tomorrow I am leaving for Canadas' right coast (Nova Soctia) for a few days. See you all on the 11th! I'll post updates about all the cool birds I'll see out there :)

Shorebirding!

It was a hot day with a strong west wind, not ideal for most types of birding. There weren't any year-birds to chase, looking for migrant Passerines is useless in strong winds, and the winds were the wrong direction to head down to Van Wagner's Beach to look for jaegers. Instead I decided that I would try my luck shorebirding in some of the counties west of me.

The Milverton lagoons in northern Perth County were my first stop. The front pond was full of water but the middle pond had lowered levels, revealing extensive mudflats. Obtaining shelter from the pumphouse, I spent quite some time studying the mix of shorebirds carefully. Out of the ~170 shorebirds the highlight was a group of 4 Baird's Sandpipers. The back lagoon also was just starting to show some mudflats and some shorebirds were back there, though nothing unusual. This site should certainly be checked more often as I think it is a great spot for a Ruff to show up! Lots of Pectoral Sandpipers and Yellowlegs present.

Next up were the Mitchell lagoons (aka West Perth Wetlands). The back pond that is gated still had extensive mudflats and a great variety of shorebirds. There were about 30 American Golden-Plovers, a single Black-bellied Plover, a juvenile Short-billed Dowitcher, 11 juvenile Stilt Sandpipers, and the highlight - 2 Hudsonian Godwits. Again there were great numbers of all the common shorebirds and I left Mitchell with 15 species for the afternoon.

I crossed the county line into Oxford and immediately went to the east end of Wildwood Lake, a location I had never been before. While scanning from the road, the juvenile Marbled Godwit which had been reported was present but I was also surprised to see a Buff-breasted Sandpiper! I think it is a pretty good Oxford bird (couldn't find any records on Ebird). I could see many more shorebirds in the distance so I walked around the edge of the mudflats to check it out.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper - Wildwood Lake

Needless to say this was some of the best shorebirding I had done in southern Ontario since the spring. Birds were everywhere! In this photo is a juvenile Baird's Sandpiper (left), juvenile Buff-breasted Sandpiper (centre) and adult Killdeer (right).

shorebirds - Wildwood Lake

There were several raptors in the area that would occasionally put up all the shorebirds, including a Cooper's Hawk and a Peregrine Falcon. Eventually they all would land again and continue feeding frantically.

A distant photo of the Marbled Godwit...

Marbled Godwit and Ring-billed Gull - Wildwood Lake

Buff-breasted Sandpiper - Wildwood Lake

The Buff-breasted Sandpiper seemed quite unconcerned with my presence and ended up walking up to me as it fed, letting me get some close shots in the nice evening light.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper - Wildwood Lake

Other shorebirds present here included 1 White-rumped Sandpiper (ad), 6 Stilt Sandpipers (juv), and 1 Black-bellied Plover (ad) amongst more common species. I finished the day with 18 species of shorebirds. If I had started earlier in the day and gone to Lake Erie I probably could have added Red Knot, Sanderling, Ruddy Turnstone, Western Sandpiper, Red-necked Phalarope, and Wilson's Phalarope.