A Sulidae of birding

*Get it? Sulidae? Solid day? Sulidae being the Family that Brown Booby belongs in? Maybe a bit of a stretch...


For the first time ever perhaps, I woke up before my alarm and was on the road by 4:15 AM. After a brief rendezvous with Ross Wood, Brett Fried, and Barb Charlton in Hamilton, we were on our way to Fort Erie. When we arrived at Mather Park, it was still dark as sunrise was not for another hour. We set up our scopes, trained them on the metal platform where the Brown Booby had appeared to roost the previous evening, and as the morning sky lightened, we searched for the brown and white seabird with the big yellow bill. About a hundred Demon Pterodactyls (a.k.a. Double-crested Cormorants) were on the structure, but no Brown Booby.

More and more birders arrived, and eventually there were 40 to 50 people present, most with their eyes trained through their spotting scopes. We were facing east so the morning sun decreased visibility substantially, especially in the direction of Erie Basin Marina across the river in Buffalo where hundreds of cormorants were milling about.

Later in the morning, we received word that the birders on the New York side of the river had watched the Brown Booby fly in around 8:30 AM at the Erie Basin Marina, then continue to fly around and give crippling looks for 15 minutes before leaving! Somehow everyone on the Ontario side had missed seeing it (I'm blaming the glare from the sun). This was frustrating, but good news at least. The bird was still in the area.

As the day wore on, birders came and left and the attention level of many started to dwindle. There were not many interesting birds to look at, and one can only look at cormorants for so long before getting annoyed with them. Two Wild Indigo Duskywings were seen - a relatively late date.

It was around 1:30 in the afternoon when the bird was found. Few birders were actually scanning the river at this point - perhaps only 3 or 4 of us. As I scanned to the north, Ron Ridout suddenly called out that he had the bird in flight to the south! Immediately, about 40 pairs of eyes were frantically trying to get on the bird. Almost as quickly as it was seen, it disappeared into the mass of cormorants loafing on Donnelly's Pier. Two more times the bird flew before landing again on the pier. After a tense few minutes (I only had brief looks as the bird landed, and nothing definitive), Alan Wormington called out that the bird was flying again, and this time nearly everyone got on it. It lazily headed downriver at a surprising pace given the apparent "laziness" of its flight style. I cranked the scope up to 60x magnification and had pretty decent looks at it as it headed towards the Peace Bridge. Before reaching the bridge, it turned around and flew directly back to Donnelly's Pier, giving all of us good looks at it in flight!

The bird landed on the pier (in sight), prompting numerous phone calls to get all the remaining birders in the area to come to Mather Park to see the bird. The bird remained somewhat elusive on the pier, with pesky cormorants often standing in the way of the Brown Booby. Nonetheless, any tension felt by all the birders was gone. People were laughing and joking, ecstatic to have seen such a rarity for Ontario.

We ended up staying nearly til dark watching the bird on the pier and waiting for it to fly again. It never did, but we were able to study the bird as it preened, walked around, had a brief tussle with a cormorant, and slept. The distance between where we were standing and the end of Donnelly's Pier is approximately 2 km, so while views through the scope were sufficient, photography was more or less useless. Here is an uncropped photo of the pier, taken with a 420 mm lens.

And a cropped iPhone photo through the scope. My scope was already zoomed to 60x magnification for this photo. The brown pixel beside the white pixel is the bird. Or maybe not. Whatever it is, I'm sending in this photo to the OBRC as evidence of the Brown Booby!

Brown Booby - across from Fort Erie, ON

It has been a fantastic few days of Sulidae watching in Ontario. First the adult Northern Gannet on October 5, and then the adult Brown Booby on October 8. Is it too much to ask for a Blue-footed Booby somewhere this weekend?

Brown Booby in Niagara!? Are you f****** kidding me???

This post came through to Ontbirds by Marcie Jacklin earlier today.

Hi folks

I have a voice message from Willie D'Anna. At about 1:30 this afternoon a group of watchers spotted a Brown Booby working the Buffalo, US and Fort Erie, Ontario side of the Niagara river around the Peace Bridge. Last seen headed towards Jaeger Rocks.

Directions: Follow the QEW towards Buffalo,USA. Take the Central Ave
Exit (last exit before the USA. Turn right on Central Ave, then right
onto Lakeshore Rd. Drive past the Old Fort Erie historic site on the right.
Just a little past this point on the left you will see a rocky
shoreline.

Marcie -

For those who don't know, Brown Booby is tropical seabird that in North America, is normally found only in southern Florida and occasionally in southern California. It is related to the more familiar Northern Gannet, also a rarity in Ontario but one that is nearly annual. Brown Booby has exhibited vagrancy up the coasts, and prior to this year their were only a couple Canadian records (in Nova Scotia). However both Brown Boobies and the rarer Blue-footed Booby have exploded into North America this summer, with over a hundred in California and records up the coast to British Columbia, where they experienced their first Blue-footed Booby the other day. (Photo here: http://bcbirdalert.blogspot.ca/2013/09/blue-footed-booby-off-stubbs-island.html)

Brown Booby range map (from http://sdakotabirds.com/species/maps/brown_booby_map.htm)

As far as I am aware, this is the first Brown Booby for the Great Lakes and obviously the first for Ontario. Luckily I have understanding bosses and so tomorrow I will hopefully be in Niagara at dawn to search for the bird. I'm sure I'll see many of  my blog readers there in the morning.

Jim Pawlicki, who I believe is one of the finders of the bird, posted some photos on his Flickr page here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmpawli10/with/10146535396/

Lakewatching at the beach - gannet time!!

I still have a few more posts to complete from the last two days of the Moosonee trip, however yesterday was an exciting day birding that I really wanted to post about!

Moderate northeast winds were in the forecast so I woke up early and drove down to Van Wagner's Beach located in Hamilton. As you can see by the following image, Van Wagner's beach is situated in such an ideal position as it is at the western terminus of Lake Ontario. On days with north, east, or northeast winds, whatever birds that are caught up on the lake have a decent chance of being blown over to the west end of the lake and viewable from several places, including the very popular Van Wagner's Beach.

Only a couple of birders were there when I arrived, but by 11:00 AM a good contingent were scanning the lake including most of the regulars. The morning had been OK at this point. We had seen several jaegers, including four that came close enough to identify - an adult dark-morph Parasitic, a juvenile Parasitic, and two subadult Pomarine Jaegers including one that gave us extended views sitting on the water and flying around, harassing Ring-billed and Herring Gulls.

At 11:19 Jean Iron got on an interesting bird to the east and a few seconds later proclaimed that it was an adult Northern Gannet! We all got on the bird rather quickly and watched it come in from the east, about 20 feet off of the water. The massive black and white bird lazily flapped on by, passing behind the wave tower. The bird was too distant for photography but the looks were incredible in the scope. What a bird! Twice we saw it plunge dive. For some of the observation it sheared up and down, following a similar flight path as jaegers often do.

15 minutes later the bird was still in view, this time following the Lake Ontario shoreline near Burlington and Bronte.

Undoubtedly this is the same gannet that has been making the rounds on Lake Ontario. Looking at the Genesee Birds listserv from western New York, the gannet was seen twice yesterday, heading west along the shoreline and last seen flying into Ontario.

 Here are all of the sightings of this bird that I am aware of since its arrival. I stole this off my Mike Burrell's excellent blog.


2012: 
-September 1 at Hamlin Beach State Park, Monroe County, NY by Dave Tetlow
-October 13 at Gravelly Bay, Jefferson County, NY by Antony Shrimpton
-October 21 at Derby Hill, Oswego County, NY by Bill Purcell and Ken Burdick

2013: 
-May 1 at Prequ'ile Provincial Park, Northumberland County, ON by Fred Helleiner
-May 7 and 18 at Hamlin Beach State Park, Monroe County, NY by Andrew Guthrie
-July 25 at Presqu'ile Provincial Park, Northumberland County, ON by Steve Oswald
-September 1 at Brandon's Condo, Hamilton, ON by Brandon Holden
-September 10 at Colonel Sam Smith Park by Garth Riley and Dave Pryor
-September 14 at Charwell Point, Prince Edward County by Mike Burrell


Ontario has about 45 accepted records of Northern Gannet over the years, all but 3 involving birds in juvenal plumage. This was my second gannet for the province, with the first surprisingly being an adult as well! That was on October 23, 2012 at Netitishi Point with Alan Wormington.

What a great bird!

Final day in Moosonee - September 30, 2013

Our final day in the Moosonee area held promise. The unabated south winds which had been blowing for several days in a row finally let up just a little bit, and combined with the overcast conditions, it just felt like we would find a rarity! Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, but it was still a good day of birding.

We took the barge over to Moose Factory first thing in the morning. In the past I have taken a water taxi, but round trip the water taxi was $30 compared to only $18 for the barge.

water taxi in Moose Factory

As soon as we arrived in Moose Factory it was evident that birds were much more numerous compared to Moosonee! One of the reasons was the plentiful Mountain-ash berries, of which Cedar Waxwings and American Robins were making quick work of. We spent the better part of an hour watching the birds along a roadway containing many Mountain-ashes and came up with some decent finds in a late Swainson's Thrush and an Orange-crowned Warbler. I was able to get Jeremy onto his first ever Boreal Chickadee as two made their presence known by vocalizing. We had brief but good looks at them as they checked us out.

Om nom nom

Sparrows were much more numerous here than back in Moosonee. Lincoln's Sparrows had arrived in numbers (relatively speaking), joining the many Song, White-crowned, and White-throated Sparrows. A Fox Sparrow was still singing on territory in the coastal willows, and close to a dozen American Tree Sparrows were seen in the weedy patches. This northern species is well known during the winter months in southern Ontario, but in this part of Ontario they are migrants that will continue on south.

American Tree Sparrow - Moose Factory

One thing about Moosonee/Moose Factory is the number of dogs roaming the streets. According to Alan there are way fewer than in the past, when rogue packs would wander the neighbourhood. On this trip though hardly a minute would go by without hearing one or two dogs yapping away! Here is one of the few friendly dogs...

friendly dog - Moose Factory

By mid afternoon we headed back to Moosonee, packed up our gear and went to the train station. The last few sightings of this leg of the trip involved a flock of 14 Sharp-tailed Grouse flushed by the train and a solitary Northern Hawk Owl perching on a Black Spruce as the sun went down. A good day...

The rest of Moosonee

On Sunday, the winds continued strong out of the south, however it was gloomy and overcast with slightly cooler temperatures. It seemed like a rarity would be just around the corner as we wandered around town. Some southern or displaced birds were evident, as we noticed a few Mourning Doves as well as five American Golden-Plovers on the lawn near the train station.

juv American Golden-plover - Moosonee

The flock consisted of five birds, including a very late adult bird. Nearly all the American Golden-plovers in southern Ontario at the moment are juveniles.

adult American Golden-plover - Moosonee

We were able to get quite close to the shorebirds as they fed on the lawn. Occasionally one would pull up a large earthworm from the ground.

juv American Golden-plover - Moosonee

Always vary to any danger around them, every so often they would hunker down on the ground with an eye to the sky. They almost appeared invisible whenever they were like this. An effective camouflage, I guess!

juv American Golden-plover - Moosonee

There were about two dozen Horned Larks feeding in the short grass as well. At least two birds appeared to be "Hoyt's" Horned Larks, the subspecies that breeds in the Hudson Bay lowlands. This form is paler than usual with a white eyebrow.

"Hoyt's" Horned Lark - Moosonee

We continued around town and passed by the river. The Beared Seal was there! It was resting on the sandy bank of an island in the Moose River, a decent distance away though, unfortunately.

Bearded Seal - Moose River

It was a lifer for Jeremy. I saw my first on the exact same date last year, though the seal was lounging on a dock on our side of the river.

Bearded Seal - Moose River

Near the airport on the east side of town, a few Peregrine Falcons were flying and some pipits and larks were near the runways. We came across this very tame Mourning Dove (not the hoped for Inca Dove!)

Mourning Dove - Moosonee

Mourning Dove - Moosonee

Alan walking the tracks...

We stopped dead in our tracks when I noticed a small dark perch perching in a bush right beside us on the railway ties. On the ground beside it was a bright red and black bird with white wing bars - White-winged Crossbills! This was by far my best views of this usually difficult to see species. Usually the views are brief and backlit with birds feeding at the very tops of Spruce Trees. More photos to come of the pair!

male White-winged Crossbill - Moosonee

It was a good day (especially for photography), though we still hadn't bagged a big time rarity on this trip. There were still 3 full days left, however...

Moosonee "highlights" so far

It has been a slow trip to say the least. The winds consistently have been from the southwest, and combined with warm temperatures no new birds are coming in from the north. Whatever birds have blown in with the southwest winds have been difficult to find in the conditions.

Before I get into some of the sightings from Moosonee, I should mention that we did see two groups of Sharp-tailed Grouses (totalling 5 birds) from the train to Moosonee. They were lifers for Jeremy and finished of the trifecta of Ontario grouse in one day!

Sharp-tailed Grouse - as seen from the train

On our first day in Moosonee we were dropped off south of town. We checked the dump before heading up to the lagoons. Right away we spotted a medium-sized bird sitting on one of the fence posts. A shrike!

Unfortunately, a closer look revealed it to be a Northern, not the hoped for Loggerhead. Still, a good find for late September in town.

Northern Shrike - Moosonee sewage lagoons

The typical ducks were in the lagoon. 3 Pectoral and 1 Lesser Yellowlegs were around the edges of one of the ponds, and an adult Bonaparte's Gull was a surprise.

Bonaparte's Gull - Moosonee sewage lagoons

Alan noticed an Atlantis Fritillary, a record late date for southern James Bay. Other insects seen included several dragonflies and damselflies, Common Sulfurs, and an Orange Sulfur.

Atlastis Fritillary - Moosonee sewage lagoons

The long walk back to town was largely uneventful from an avian standpoint. However, this Striped Skunk made an appearance, trotting down the road towards us.

Striped Skunk - Moosonee

Jeremy and I also found an underwing moth clinging to the road. According to Alan it is likely a Briseus Underwing (Catocala briseus). Their foodplant includes Trembling Aspen, a common tree of the area.

Yesterday was another slow day. We wandered around in Moosonee, mainly focusing on the river and the north end of town. Highlights included the first American Tree Sparrow of the autumn, a Le Conte's Sparrow (lifer for Jeremy and a year bird for me), and several raptors including Rough-legged Hawks and Peregrine Falcons.

Jeremy 

Ravens are always interesting with their antics...

Common Raven - Moosonee

Common Raven - Moosonee

Some more chickens from the north

The title says it all - some more photos of some Spruce Grouse from northwest of Cochrane, Ontario.

We saw all three species of grouses that day, all of them lifers for Jeremy.

I kind of like this one. Inadvertently having a slow shutter speed created an interesting effect.

I used the van as a blind and crawled on my belly to photograph this female.

At one point we found two pairs of Spruce Grouse together on the side of the road. They flushed up into some White Spruce and I was able to get some decent photos of them.

A male keeping an eye on us.

Days 1 and 2 of the Moosonee trip

Two days have passed and now Alan Wormington, Jeremy Bensette, and I are sitting in a hotel room in Moosonee with 5 more days of birding ahead of us. A quick synapsis of the past two days:

Yesterday, Alan and Jeremy picked me up around 3 AM and we were on our way. We made a few stops, and didn't see a whole lot!

Jeremy trespassed a fair bit...

We saw 31 American Golden-plovers at the Powassan lagoons, a group flying over. Near the Callandar lagoons were 2 Green Herons, a relatively north location for that species. Other than that, it was pretty much the usual species at all the spots we checked! We did see a Black-backed Woodpecker in an area of dead spruce trees near Marten River, Jeremy's first. The weather was hot and sunny and birds were essentially absent from most places we checked though, unfortunately. We ended up in Cochrane to spend the night.

This morning we drove some roads north of Smooth Rock Falls before catching the Polar Bear Express in Fraserdale. We were hoping to get Jeremy some lifers, and it wasn't long before we had less than satisfying looks at Gray Jays flying over the highway - the first lifer of the day for Jeremy! Finally, as the temperature crept above 4 degrees Celcius we came across a familiar black lump on the edge of the road - a Spruce Grouse (lifer #3 for Jeremy). With the cooler autumn temperatures, male Spruce Grouses get the urge to reproduce and will display frequently for the females who are often much less interested. Its quite an elaborate plumage and display this little chicken has!

Spruce Grouses ended up being abundant on the roads with a total of 13 seen! Mixed in were 4 Ruffed Grouses.

Female Spruce Grouses, while not having the gaudy red eye-combs or orange and black tail of the male, are subtlely beautiful with intricate patterns. I'll have more photos of these in a future post.

While driving backroads looking for grouses, we came across this mural painted on the wall of a local shack. Apparently the owner has a bone to pick with someone...

I'll end the post on that note...

More to come!

Swainson's Hawk retraction

So a few other birders who know more about raptor ID than I do have come to the conclusion that the bird I photographed in Leamington the other day is most likely a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk, not a Swainson's as I had originally thought. Some ID features include the dark patagial bar that is somewhat visible on some of the lightened photos, a faint belly band, and relatively broad wingtips. I am not sure why the bird appears to have dark flight feathers but it may just be an artifact of the light!

To be honest when I first observed the bird, it did not give me the impression of a Red-tailed Hawk. It seemed too long-winged, narrow-winged, and long-tailed (plus of course the two-toned wing that recalls Swainson's Hawk). But, it was a very brief field observation (that was backlit) and so I am not sure how accurate my impressions of the bird in the field were.

Right from the start, I had problems with the faint belly band that was visible and the relatively broad wingtips. I convinced myself that the belly band was an artifact of the bad light, but I couldn't justify the broad wingtips. Swainson's Hawk is supposed to have relatively pointed wingtips - like a Broad-winged Hawk with longer wings.

At any rate, that's the way it goes sometimes. Here's hoping the next SWHA that I call is actually one.

I guess that's how you learn right?

Swainson's Hawk at Point Pelee

It looks like I made a pretty accurate prediction in my last post.

After birding in the park all morning yesterday, I noticed that the winds had started to shift a little more to the northwest, as opposed to the solid west winds they had been early in the morning. This time of year, thousands of hawks and other raptors are migrating south, and north winds push them to the shores of the Great Lakes. Raptors don't like flying over water - thermals only really form over land - and so they follow the coastlines south and west.

I headed to the Seacliff Hawkwatch around noon, located in Leamington and officially inside the Point Pelee Birding Area. I set up my scope, set up my cooler against the back of my car to act as a makeshift seat/wind break, put on my sunglasses, and sipped my coffee.

Eventually I started noticing a few raptors floating on by, fighting the winds that were still rather westerly. A few "kettles" of Broad-winged Hawks began to drift on by as the skies slowly cleared. After about an hour of watching, I got on one bird to the south of me, directly over the treeline along the edge of Seacliff Drive. Unfortunately the sun was making the bird backlit and I immediately guessed it was a Northern Harrier due to the wing shape and somewhat wobbly flight. I got on it with my scope and studied it for about 15 seconds. The bird seemed too Buteo-like and thoughts of Swainson's Hawks danced in my head. I ran to get my camera (I had left it inside my car, while I was standing with my scope about 10 meters away), and fired off a dozen shots or so. The bird was very distant for a 300 mm lens, but when cropped you can make out some details.

I continued watching the bird for another 10 or 20 seconds before it drifted farther south and became hidden by the treeline.

Looking at the photos on my computer after, the bird appeared to be a Swainson's Hawk. I sent a few emails out with a cell phone shot of the photo on my computer screen, and everyone agreed that it was likely a Swainson's. Here they are!

This first photo is the original file straight out of the camera. Even at that distance, the long-winged look is evident.

Here is a crop of the same photo that has also been brightened...

It appeared to be a light morph adult Swainson's Hawk. The hooded effect can be seen in the above photo.

The next two photos are the same image with the second version lightened by a few stops. The dark flight feathers (primaries and secondaries) are one ID feature of a Swainson's Hawk. One issue with the bird is that the wingtips aren't pointed like what is usually seen with Swainson's Hawk, but I don't have much first-hand experience with the species...

You can also see the relatively long tail in the next photo - a feature which makes Swainson's Hawks look more like Northern Harriers. Most Buteos have short tails. Undoubtedly more than a few Northern Harriers have been called Swainson's Hawks before in Ontario. This image shows that the bird may have broader wings than what it seems like in the previous images. I'm not sure if it is the angle or if my initial impressions of the bird are off...

Swainson's Hawk is an exciting find for me. It was a new Ontario bird, only the 3rd species I've added to my Ontario list this year despite a considerable amount of time birding. I have some doubts about the bird though, such as the lack of pointed wingtips, plus the fact that my ID was based off of analyzing the photos more so than what I saw with my eyes, since the lighting was so poor. I sent the photo off to a few other birders, and some thought it looked good while others were not sure. At any rate I'll do more looking into this bird to determine if it actually is a Swainson's Hawk.

Swainson's Hawks show up every year in Ontario, usually at hawk watches flying by. As of the end of the 2011 report, there were 52 accepted records for Ontario. However, their status as a rarity is somewhat skewed. There are hawk watching stations set up in about 5 places in Ontario that are manned nearly every day during migration for most of the day. With such a large amount of time spent every day dedicated to hawk-watching, Swainson's Hawks appear more common than what is actually the case compared to other rarities. Just think - if there were manned bird observatories in 5 or 6 places along the north shore of Ontario in Hudson's/James Bay that scanned the ocean for 8 hours a day every day during the spring and autumn, how many shearwaters would be found in Ontario! I would imagine that a lot of species would prove to be quite regular; species which may only currently have one or two records in Ontario.