Bird bands (not the musical kind!)

No this isn't about The Byrds, The Eagles or Counting Crows. It is about the feathered kind.

Birds are frequently on the move, whether it is to their breeding grounds or their wintering ground. Of course resident species don't migrate great distances, but they may move a few kilometres. As observers in our own little part of the world, we can see these changes over the months as our lists of birds observed change. Over the past couple of weeks waterfowl, and in particular geese, have been arriving in larger numbers.

At the other end of the size scale, birds such as Horned Larks are now arriving.

But where do these birds go and how does one discover the routes they go, and distances they travel? One of the main ways is through the banding process....called 'ringing' in Europe.....that is putting lightweight aluminum bands with a specific number on it.

One of the pioneers of bird banding was Jack Miner, who had an intense interest in Canada Geese,and established the Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary near Kingsville, Ontario. He apparently wasn't the originator of banding, but certainly popularized it. His biological understanding of predator-prey relationships and the balance of nature was weak, to say the least, but that is another story. His passion for Canada Geese and establishing sanctuary for them was amazing, and his efforts to discover their migratory movements were instrumental in early conservation efforts towards wildlife in general.

The banding process has basically been the same ever since the early 1900s: put an aluminum band on a bird's leg, with an individual number imprinted on it so that if it is recovered at some point in the future, some basic data can be obtained: how old that bird might be, where it came from, where it ended up, maybe even how long it took to get from one point to another. Of course if the bird is shot, or meets its demise in some other way, the information is limited. If the bird is captured at various points along its routes over several months or years, there is an immense amount of data that can be obtained.

Over the years there have been some changes. For example put a large coloured band with its own combination of numbers and letters (called alpha-numerics) on the neck of a goose or swan, and that bird can be identified from a distance, assuming the observer has decent optical equipment. Colourful neck collars used to be quite common a few years ago, and it was typical to scan through a flock of geese or swans and see several neck collared birds....orange with white letters/numbers was the most common in this area, but sometimes you could see collars of blue, white or black. In looking through those flocks these days, one does not seem to see collars as often, in my experience.

No collars on these geese!

That doesn't mean birds aren't being banded.....quite the contrary. There have been some creative ways to be able to follow birds. For example: Great Egrets. Since they aren't hunted, they aren't going to be shot and have the leg band turned in, and they aren't going to fly into mist nets which bird banders have set up to capture, band and release birds. Fortunately Great Egrets are large birds, so a colourful wing tag, with a visible number & letter code is sometimes used.This bird was banded at Nottawasaga, along the south shore of Georgian Bay on June 26, 2014, when it was too young to fly. I noted it along a creek just south of Petrolia, in Lambton, on September 22, 2014, so it was just a few months old. In the first photo, part of the blue tag is covered up, but the second photo show the code more clearly: 95K

Last fall while searching for a couple of Snow Geese that were hanging around with a large flock of Canada Geese in parts of Chatham, I noticed a Canada Goose with two leg bands.....an aluminum one on one leg and a larger, brightly marked plastic one on the other.

The aluminum leg band number would be hard to read unless you had the bird in hand, but the yellow plastic band is quite legible.

So if you come across one of these bands, what do you do? I'm glad you asked!

You can submit it to the bird band reporting website at: this link. I have done this at various times over the years, and it is always interesting to get a bit of the history of the banded bird. A few weeks after I submitted the information for this observation, including the photo, I received an email with a Certificate of Appreciation from the government agency that holds the database for all banded birds.

Part of the email included this message:

 The North American Bird Banding Program

Bird banding is important for studying the movement, survival and behavior of birds. About 60 million birds representing hundreds of species have been banded in North America since 1904. About 4 million bands have been recovered and reported.

Data from banded birds are used in monitoring populations, setting hunting regulations, restoring endangered species, studying effects of environmental contaminants, and addressing such issues as Avian Influenza, bird hazards at airports, and crop depredations. Results from banding studies support national and international bird conservation programs such as Partners in Flight, the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, and Wetlands for the Americas.

 It turns out that this goose was banded near Long Point, on June 26, 2015, and it was too young to fly when it was banded. I observed the bird on November 11, 2016, so it was about a year and a half old.

Speaking of Long Point.....the Long Point Bird Observatory is the oldest bird observatory in the western hemisphere, being established in 1960. Initially established to band birds and monitor local migration, it has expanded its focus considerably over the years. It has been known as Bird Studies Canada for several decades. It is by far the most knowledgeable and involved non-government (and arguably government) agency in all of Canada when it comes to bird research & conservation, monitoring, banding, education, coordinator of citizen science, etc. The knowledge, commitment and enthusiasm of their staff is nothing short of amazing. A mere blog post cannot even begin to cover the wide-ranging role it has in these areas, so I encourage anyone interested to check out their informative web site via this link.

And keep an eye open for bird bands!

Goose, Goose, Swan

Any readers who have kids may suspect I adapted the title from the Duck, Duck, Goose, game. It's true...but since this post doesn't really deal with ducks, but lots of geese and swans, hopefully you will pardon the writer's licence here.

Waterfowl are present in southern Ontario in increasing numbers these last couple of weeks, as mentioned in some of my previous posts. Since the Lake St. Clair area, including local marshes, have always held an attraction for migrating waterfowl, it is definitely worthwhile checking things out when hints of spring appear. The fields of harvested corn, beans, carrots or whatever, are an added attraction. And as far as waterfowl are concerned even though it is still January, if the snow and ice disappear, it gives them reason to gradually move north with these conditions, so that eventually when they make that bigger push to their arctic or sub-arctic breeding grounds, it is less distance to travel.

Greater White-fronted Geese had been reported in the Blenheim area a few days ago, and so last Monday I headed for the sewage lagoons there. Sure enough, there were 6 in the far pond, along with several dozen Canada Geese.

A couple of days later, Jeremy Hatt reported good numbers of various goose species near St. Clair NWA. I couldn't get out for a day or so, but yesterday I put it on my schedule. And just east of SCNWA, between Heron Line and Rivard Line, a good number of ducks, geese and swans had congregated, with more arriving all the time. The best views were from Rivard Line.

Some of the most obvious birds were Tundra Swans, their white bodies showing up against the dark landscape and their melodious kloo, kloo calls filling the air.

There were a couple of larger swans somewhat by themselves, so I grabbed a couple of shots of them just because they were relatively close at hand. But since I was really trying to check all the geese, which were smaller, more numerous and blended in against the snow-free landscape, I didn't pay close attention to these swans. My mistake.....at least fortunately when I got the images transferred to my computer and I started looking through them, I realized these were Trumpeter Swans!

Their larger size, the larger and longer bill, the lack of any yellow in the lores, the wider and less pinched black area in front of the eyes, the straighter line of feathering along the base of the bill and the pointed feathering at the top of the bill (the pointed feathering is most obvious on the bird on the left in the lower photo) all are characteristic of Trumpeters. I vaguely recalled hearing an odd swan call, lower and more nasal than a Tundra while I was there, but it wasn't heard often.

Trumpeters used to be a regular breeding species in the Great Lakes region, but were extirpated from Ontario more than a century ago. It was re-introduced in Ontario in the early 1980s primarily in central Ontario, and it has been gradually expanding ever since. Records in Chatham-Kent are very few and far between in the last few decades. However almost a year ago, there were 2-3 birds that showed up in Rondeau Bay at Shrewsbury and were around for several weeks. Once the ice broke up entirely and all the waterfowl dispersed, the Trumpeters were rarely seen, although Blake and Steve had three flying through as late as April 23. Interestingly, a Trumpeter was observed just outside of Rondeau, along Cty Rd 15, on June 7. There is habitat around Rondeau Bay, but no one that I have come across ever saw any evidence of breeding, although they could have done so unnoticed.

Regardless, there were two Trumpeters here near SCNWA. Maybe a few will be the norm again.



As mentioned, geese were the original target of my search on this day. And I was fortunate to see several kinds, including some of the rarer species.


Snow Geese are not all that rare in Chatham-Kent, but certainly are not in the numbers that they occur in in eastern Ontario, where at the peak of their migration, it is not uncommon to see 50,000 -100,000 in a day. But seeing at least 50 in one field here was a nice treat. In this first photo there are about 23 birds. Not all are the white phase, of course.

 This next photo show two of the blue phase Snows, with their dark bodies and white head.

 And here is a first year blue phase Snow, told by the dark head.

There were more Greater White-fronted Geese....at least 8 by my count. Three of them are in this next photo, standing quite close together. They are slightly smaller than the more abundant Canada Geese, but their browner body, pinkish-orange bill and white feathering at the base of the bill are all diagnostic. The second photo shows one in flight, and a closer look might explain why one of the other names for this species is 'Speckle-belly".

Greater White-front in flight

There were some Cackling Geese as well. They are diminutive versions of the typical Canada Geese, but their shorter legs, smaller body size, shorter neck and stubbier bill are characteristic. I didn't get any photos on this day, but this next photo is one I took less than a year ago in a field close to SCNWA.

Cackling Goose in the centre

There were other white geese in the field. They are smaller versions of the Snow Geese, called Ross's Geese, and there were at least 6 in the field. They are not much larger than a Mallard. Some of the key features, besides their size, is the lack of the 'grin' patch on their bill, the straighter drop to the white feathering at the base of the bill, and the smudgy bluish-gray colour at the base of their bill. They also have a shorter, stubbier bill and a more rounded head. These next two photos are of different birds. The first one is quite probably a hybrid between a good Ross's and a Snow, which happens regularly. The subsequent off spring typically show a mix of the diagnostic characteristics. The bird in the first photo is small, but not quite as small as a Mallard. The grin patch is lacking, and the base of the bill shows the bluish-gray colour, but the bill looks a bit longer than a pure Ross's. Conclusion: a probable hybrid.

This next photo is probably a better example of a good Ross's Goose, showing all of the typical characteristics.

While out and about, I did wander some of the roads in the former Dover Township to see what Snowy Owls I could find. Without trying too hard, I came across 7 birds. Most were a long way from the road, and some were not visible except with binoculars. Typically they were standing beside a clump of grass, or a post of some sort. This next photo is of the closest Snowy I found, and it was taken and subsequently cropped to the equivalent of about a 30X 'scope view.

Waterfowl are the order of the day...hints of spring?

A few days ago it was time to check the St. Clair River. I hadn't been there since the Wallaceburg Christmas Bird Count (CBC) on Dec 27, and the river at that time had very few ducks compared to what it can look like. On that day, I had to resort to some of the creeks entering into the river to find much....even Mallards!

The sky was quite brightly overcast that CBC day, making this shot of an immature Bald Eagle flying overhead challenging.

There were a few Long-tailed Ducks...always a highlight in my opinion.

Gulls were almost non-existent. There was the occasional lake freighter moving up and down. I always get a kick out of seeing how much the bow of the ship raises the water level as it plies its way through.

On this more recent trip, things had improved a bit. There were some quite large rafts of ducks, almost entirely Redhead. There were probably in excess of 5000 birds altogether.

Raft of Redheads

There were a few other species mixed in, including Canvasback as well as one of my favourite ducks, the Ring-necked Duck.

A couple of male Ring-necks mixed in

Common Goldeneye were plentiful in small numbers, as were some of the other typical diving ducks such as Bufflehead and scaup.

Common Goldeneye

A bonus bird was this Common Loon in its winter plumage. There is often one somewhere along the river, but since so much of the river is not in view due to residential areas, there is no guarantee one can find it. This one was fairly close to my side of the river, and no housing was nearby to obscure the view.

On the way to and from the river, I checked out out the area along Meadowvale Line, just south of Wallaceburg. It has been one of the more reliable spots to find Snowy Owls this winter again, and today was no exception. There was one right close to the road, but it didn't like that the car was slowing down, so it headed farther into the field.

A bit of a surprise on this particular visit was the large number of Tundra Swans already in the field, and while I was there, more kept pouring in. There had to be more than 500 swans spread out across the field, and certainly more than I had seen in several weeks. Perhaps the recent mild weather had encouraged them to return, and they were spring migrants???

At one point a large falcon came through, flying low and fast and hugging the ground before landing briefly in a tree. I didn't get a definitive look at it, but the way the swans reacted, it was something they were concerned about, and about a third of them got up and left in a hurry.

Given the arctic flavour of the day, with Snowy Owl and Tundra Swans the only birds in view, I considered it might have been another arctic species...a Gyrfalcon. I'm not sure a Peregrine would have elicited the same response by several hundred swans. Nonetheless, I just entered it on ebird as a large falcon.

Yesterday I took a trip to Erieau. There was still lots of fog around!

Upper part of turbines rising through the fog

I noted the male Harlequin Duck at the far east end of the rocks across the channel.....too far away for anything more than a record shot. At least the water was fairly calm, allowing the auto-focus to hold on the bird. This bird has been in the area for more than a month, although not always visible.

Harlequin Duck on the far right

Today I headed over to St. Clair NWA, hoping that the warmer weather would have brought in some waterfowl. It has been fairly quiet there in the last couple of weeks, due to most of the visible area of the NWA being frozen pretty solid. And it was mostly frozen today as well, but there were lots of Canada Geese in the adjacent fields, feeding on what looked to be left over carrots from last year's harvest. There were at least 1000 Canada Geese, with some white ones in the mix. I noted them first from Balmoral Line, on the south side of the NWA, but later headed over to Bradley Line, the next road south. Of course the geese were about half way in between, in a slightly lower part of the field, so a scope was necessary to examine the flock and photography was challenging.

There were also 18 Snow Geese mixed in, including at least 4 blue phase Snows.

Six Snows on the right, and at least one blue phase on the far left

There had been some Greater White-fronted Geese seen in the vicinity of the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons earlier today, and I scanned this scattered flock carefully to see if any were here. I didn't see any but off by themselves were two small white geese, about half the size of the Snows. I was not able to see their heads, as they were tucked under their wing, so I couldn't check for the 'grin' patch which if present, would indicate they were Snows. But the very small size was pretty characteristic of Ross's Geese! Definitely an unexpected highlight, but no photos to be had.

With all the mild weather, will Snowy Owls stick around or be heading back north?

Water falling....

....and no I am not talking about all the rain we've been getting. Some readers will know that I really enjoy waterfalls. I haven't been to very many lately, but last week I had the occasion to visit a couple near Hamilton, a.k.a. the City of Waterfalls. Being on the Niagara Escarpment provides lots of settings where waterfalls are present.

One of the more accessible ones is Sherman Falls. It is a mere 200 metres, more or less, from the nearest road. It is on private property, but since the Bruce Trail runs right along it, it is accessible for viewing. This is the first view, showing the water falling in two stages for a total of about 8 metres from top to bottom.

 And a slightly different view.

Admittedly it isn't as colourful at the moment as it is at a warmer time of year, such as this next photo, taken in September. But the place isn't as crowded with hikers, either.

Another easily accessible waterfalls very close to Sherman is Tiffany Falls. It is on property owned by the Hamilton Region Conservation Authority. It is a little farther from the parking area, but well worth the easy hike.

Nonetheless, in winter the trail can be snow-packed and icy. Such was the case on this visit. There is a viewing platform at the end of the trail, just visible at the lower left hand side of the above photo. The trail was extremely icy in spots on this day, however, and we didn't venture as close as we normally would have since the uneven and wet slippery surface along side the jagged rocks were not something we wanted to contend with!

Tiffany Falls often flows all winter. The water drops about 10 metres in total. In the coldest part of the winter, there are massive ice columns and walls that are created and, with special permits from the CA, people who want to practice ice climbing are allowed to climb up the ice walls at Tiffany.

There are some excellent resources to finding and photographing waterfalls in Ontario. Probably the most useful one I have found is conveniently called  Waterfalls of Ontario.

Much closer to home, I noted more than the usual bird activity in our yard one day. There were at least 10 American Robins, more than I had seen so far in 2017.

It seems that there has been a deluge of American Robins in southern Ontario over the past few weeks, with most Christmas Bird Counts recording them in record numbers. Are these late migrants, or do they represent an influx of Americans who were threatening to move to Canada pending the results of the US election :-) ??

A Red-breasted Nuthatch shows up regularly in the yard as well.

Of course there are the more regular bird species, including Dark-eyed Juncos, House Finches, American Goldfinches, European Starlings, House Sparrows Downy Woodpecker and even the occasional American Crow :-) !

Not a yard species yet, but the Snowy Owls continue to show in their usual places. The numbers aren't as high as the last couple of years, but on a good day it is still possible to find anywhere from 2-5 birds in the area between Chatham and Wallaceburg, with the 2-3 birds near Meadowvale Line being the most predictable.

Snipe hunt, waterfowl survey etc

With the Christmas Bird Count season behind us, less intensive birding, etc is the order of the day at least for me. There is a mid-winter waterfowl survey that takes place in the first week of January across the continent...okay so the first week of January isn't really the middle of winter...I don't know why that term was used. Regardless, a waterfowl survey takes place during that time, with the results being used to gauge the long-term health of the waterfowl populations. I began coordinating this locally back in 1987, during my MNR days. It was always fun to get out and do some focused counts within the tri-county area wherever waterfowl could be found. When I retired 5 years ago, I continued doing a route as a volunteer.

Fortunately the St. Clair NWA CBC falls within the survey period, so those waterfowl results can be used for the waterfowl survey.....it would be difficult to duplicate the survey effort again. The SCNWA CBC waterfowl results are almost always impressive. This year was fairly normal. We totalled 25983 individuals of 22 species. The year 2007 was memorable, and our best single CBC when we tallied almost 96000 individuals of 28 species.

Redhead and scaup

There have been some huge numbers of individual species over the years on the SCNWA CBC. For example: Canada Goose (17413 in 1984); Tundra Swan (10870 in 2016); Gadwall (185 in 2007); Am Black Duck (5370 in 2007); Mallard (35800 in 2007); Northern Pintail (172 in 1997); Green-winged Teal (325 in 2012), Canvasback (25800 in 2007); Redhead (15200 in 2007); Greater Scaup (3203 in 2004); Common Goldeneye (479 in 2006); Common Merganser (2899 in 2008); Ruddy Duck (663 in 2016); etc. The Lake St. Clair marshes have been well known for decades by waterfowl hunters and specialists, which is the reason so much of the wetlands have been acquired by private hunt clubs as well as the federal government.

This past weekend was the time I set aside to do my waterfowl survey route. What a difference a few days of cold weather makes with strong northerly winds! The southern shore of Lake St. Clair, once you get west of the mouth of the Thames River, is not prime for waterfowl. Wetlands are almost non-existent and the waterfront is largely built up. Nonetheless there are sometimes small numbers of waterfowl to add to the overall survey.

Not so in 2017. This is what Lake St. Clair looked like from the mouth of the Thames.

There was a small opening not far from shore, but the only birds making use of it were a handful of crows. Presumably they were picking at the remnants of a dead fish abandoned by a gull.

This next photo was taken from the Belle River marina, looking west towards Windsor. Not a speck of open water in sight.

It was at this point, I decided to discontinue my waterfowl survey along this stretch. The first time ever I have been skunked here!

One of the things I did notice were several large plumes of smoke coming from the north end of the lake. These would be the marsh fires that occur almost annually at Walpole Island, where people are burning dead Phragmites which had been sprayed late in 2016, or they were clearing the cattails so they could trap muskrats. Fire has been going on there for centuries.

Having abandoned this part of my route, I returned to Chatham to check a portion of the Thames River where the warm water outlet is. As expected there was a bunch of ducks, mostly Mallards of course, with a small number of Am Black Ducks, but there is often a few others. This time it included Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal and Hooded Merganser.

Am Black Duck and Mallard

Female Hooded Merganser

So the day wasn't a total washout for recording waterfowl. I did have time in the day to check on Snowy Owls closer to Wallaceburg. I came across 4 altogether, with three of them being in one field along Meadowvale Line. They must be getting tired of people searching for them, however, as they are often well away from the road and even a cropped photo taken with a good telephoto isn't as close as one would like.

Yesterday I decided to go to Erieau, as I hadn't been there for several days, and with the ice build-up along the lake shore, some open water right at Erieau would likely have a few species of waterbirds there.

There were 17 species of waterbirds, not including gulls! Things like Tundra Swan, Ring-necked Duck, both scaup, Canvasback, etc., etc. Not all were in decent photo range, however. I was hoping that the Harlequin Duck might be there, but not that I saw. It has been missing in action for awhile now.

I also swung by Stefina Line, where there is a sizable pasture that is sometimes grazed, sometimes not. When it isn't grazed it sometimes attracts Short-eared Owls, but I haven't seen any reports of them there this year. One thing that is there all the time is a medium sized drainage ditch that has lots of low vegetation in it. Most winters it has some open water, and also a Wilson's Snipe hanging out. This is what it looks like from the road....there is a WISN in there.

 Can you see it? Maybe if I zoom in a little closer....

 How about this one?

It plays hide-and-seek behind the clumps of vegetation, so is often difficult to see.