The trickle continues

The spring migration of most species continues to trickle in. Of course many birders are anxious for a big push of birds, especially warblers and other passerines, but with the many north to east winds and very few weather systems with good south to southwest winds, the birds are not getting any help in arriving from their quite southerly wintering grounds. Nonetheless there is always something relatively new, or in larger numbers, to be found when birders put in the effort. There have been about 10 species of warbler reported so far, but according to most eBird reports, it is rare that a birder gets more than a couple of species a day. Hopefully in a week or so it will not be difficult to get 20 or more species of warbler in a day!

Yellow-rumped Warblers have been the most numerous, as expected. Some are fairly drab, not yet having attained their breeding plumage.

 More and more are looking quite dapper.

 I had my first Palm Warbler a couple of days ago. It was hanging around an open grassy area with several dozen Chipping Sparrows, as well as an ongoing Clay-colored Sparrow and a few Field Sparrows.

Palm Warbler

Clay-colored Sparrow

Field Sparrow

Other than Chipping Sparrows, found in open areas, the sparrow that is becoming the most numerous is the White-throated Sparrow, which is more often to be found scratching around in the leaves on the forest floor.

Hermit Thrushes are quite common.....

 ....but certainly are not the most common of the thrush family. That honour currently belongs to the American Robin.

Brown Creepers are a lot more common these days, but their small size and cryptic coloration makes them difficult to see.

The great thing about this time of year is that if the birds are few and far between, the wildflowers are showing well, so there is always something to see.

Spicebush

Last Saturday, just before I was heading out, I got a message that there was an Eared Grebe in the lake off of Erieau. This western species is not often seen in this area, so I made Erieau my first stop. Several others were there looking at the grebe already. It was not close, and could really only be satisfactorily seen through a scope. I attempted to get a record photo, but was barely successful, as this following photo was the best of the bunch. Its darker appearance, especially on the neck, as well as the more pointed tufted head, made it a relatively easy identification.

While it was nice to see here, I was fortunate to have seen dozens last July while travelling through southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and was also fortunate to have been able to get some fairly good photos of them in prime breeding plumage.

While we were at Erieau watching this grebe, a young Glaucous Gull was observed resting on the far breakwall. Its very large size and almost pure white colour really makes it stand out amongst the gulls.

The gulls got up and were flying around when all of a sudden we noticed about a dozen Willets flying in and landing on the armourstone surrounding the fish tug harbour. While at rest, they blended in really well against the colour and pattern of the armourstone, and initially we thought there were only 11. A closer look at the photo showed an even dozen.

The Erieau Rail trail hasn't been terribly productive lately, although there are always a few things to look at. Certainly the Wood Duck nesting box leaves a lot to be desired as a nesting feature, unless the ducks want one with an indoor swimming pool. I doubt it came with a sump pump, a feature I am glad to have at our place these days.

On the occasional sunny day, Painted Turtles will be out, soaking up some hard-to-come-by sunshine.

After leaving Erieau, I headed to the park. There wasn't much new to add to recent visits. I did stop at the Keith McLean Conservation Lands, as with the high water levels, portions of the fields are flooded, making it attractive to gulls and shorebirds. Steve C had seen about 27 Willets there yesterday. The smallest flooded area is visible from the road, but the better area for gulls and shorebirds is not. One has to walk along the very muddy edge of the trail (the trail itself was partially under water in places) to the bridge and just before crossing it, follow along the creek downstream. It paid off on this occasion. Several folks that I had talked to earlier indicated the Willets were not present, and not much else was either. But on my visit, I came across a couple of Lesser Yellowlegs and at least three Greater Yellowlegs, both expected species. However there were also two Willets, and I was able to get some fairly good photos, which were much better than the ones I got earlier at Erieau.

Gulls were noticeable by their absence on this visit. For some reason there was only this one Bonaparte's Gull at this spot, and there must have been something less than 100% about it, as it let me approach quite closely and never moved. Perhaps exhaustion, or perhaps ate something that didn't agree with it. Who knows...

There are always Red-winged Blackbirds about the wetland edges.

On Sunday afternoon, I decided to check out the Fletcher Ponds, between Merlin and Tilbury. It isn't a large area, but is kind of an oasis in the middle of extensive agricultural fields, so with the various ponds, shrubby areas and larger trees, you never know what might drop in. If you want to know a little more about the Fletcher Ponds, check out my blog post of about a year ago.  It doesn't take a long time to walk the trail and see what was there, and on this day there wasn't a lot. However I did see a few species and heard several Chorus Frogs. And I got my first Ring-necked Ducks there.

In just a couple of days, the month of May arrives. Over about a three week period, there will be a major influx of birders to southwestern Ontario, especially at places as well known for birds as Rondeau. Hopefully the birds will greatly outnumber the birders but there may be some days when they don't. It is always interesting to see the many people who arrive. Some of them you see annually at this time and are easily recognizable. Others will be new; perhaps it will be their first of many future trips to the park. And while some faces are well remembered from past years, others will not be, and have you stumped.

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks....a first for Chatham-Kent

For those in tune with the bird rarities in Ontario of late, it is no secret that the occurrence of two Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks this past Saturday was the highlight. More on that shortly.

Earlier on that day, many birders had been drawn to Rondeau to seek out the Lark Sparrow and Clay-colored Sparrow that were in close proximity along Lakeshore Road. Due to all the rain of the previous 48 hours causing some water issues in our basement, I didn't get to Rondeau until mid-afternoon. The Lark Sparrow had last been seen about 30 minutes before I got there, but I did catch up to the Clay-colored Sparrow, and got some decent record shots.

After awhile, it seemed that the Lark Sparrow was not going to show, and then came the message via Ontbirds, that two Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks had been seen right along Talbot Trail just west of Port Crewe. If the pavement hadn't been wet, I think we would have seen a cloud of dust along Lakeshore Road as vehicles made a very quick exit to go after the ducks, just in case time was of the essence. I couldn't go immediately, as I felt the water issues in our basement needed to be checked on, just in case. But after I got home, and realized that things were under control and not deteriorating, I considered going out to look for the ducks. When an early evening Ontbirds update indicated they were still there, I realized I had time to make it out there. So off I went. And there they were, as advertised, but a little farther away from the road then they had been earlier. The big telephoto lens came out and I got a few pics. Several more vehicles arrived, and the birds actually came closer to the road. By this time it was between 7:45 p.m. and 8 p.m., and sunset was quickly approaching, not that with the misty rain and heavy cloud cover one could even see the sun, so it was definitely challenging for photography. Here are some of the shots I got, after a bit more tweaking than usual.

Most of these were taken at an ISO of 6400, definitely higher than I like. But it was that or nothing, so it was an easy choice.

I had seen Fulvous Whistling-Ducks, their relative, along the south beach of Rondeau back on September 26, 1979. But these whistling-ducks were a first ever for me. This species has been seen in Ontario from time to time, and it seems every few years there is a very small influx of them. I hadn't gone looking for them elsewhere before, and these two birds, if accepted by the Ontario Bird Records Committee, will be the first for Chatham-Kent. They were a one-day wonder, and were not seen again after, although who knows if they might show up again somewhere else.

Yesterday, April 22 was Earth Day, and I was out at Rondeau for awhile. The weather was terrific, with sun, warm temperatures and light winds. There were quite a few birders out enjoying the great weather even though the birds were not terribly abundant. The White-winged Dove was quite cooperative, and most birders who tried for them got great looks. This male bird is attempting to build a nest again, on cottage owner Mel's car.

The South Point Trail was wet, but not nearly as wet as it was in May last year. Probably about 20% of the trail has water on it, varying from about 2-15 cm. Good waterproof footwear is a must.

Along the side trail that goes to the lighthouse, it is quite wet as well, and there were a few Green Frog tadpoles wriggling around in the water over the trail.

With the sun and warmer temperatures that day, there was the most butterfly activity that I had seen so far this year. I had four species, including a couple of Eastern Commas, several Red Admirals, a single American Lady and about a dozen Spring Azures, but only got photos of the latter two.

I stopped at the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons and while there was a good variety of ducks and grebes, there was nothing unusual, and most of the ducks were a long way out so I didn't bother trying to get photos. Rumour had it that someone had been there recently with a shotgun, so that may have made the ducks a bit more wary than usual for the time of year. The sprinkler cells had just a tiny bit of water in them, presumably left over from the deluge of precipitation a few days earlier. The only shorebirds were Killdeer. Hopefully that will improve soon. There were several Savannah Sparrows on territory, allowing me to get a few photos.

Death of a Giant Senior Citizen

It is true....one of the giants of Chatham-Kent, indeed of all Ontario, has come crashing down and is now dead.

I'm talking about a tree, an American Beech tree to be precise. The last time I measured it, it was about 95 cm in diameter at the official measuring height of 4.5 feet above the ground. Here it is as of April 2016.

It is located in one of the newest provincial parks in Ontario, Clear Creek Forest Provincial Nature Reserve, at Clearville in southeastern Chatham-Kent. It is one of the least known and visited natural areas of Chatham-Kent. I devoted a blog post about it in my series of Natural Areas of Chatham-Kent a little less than a year ago. You can read that post at this link.

As I was winding down my career with OMNR in 2011, I took some of the colleagues out to a few sites to pass along various aspects of their significance and management. Here is one of my colleagues being impressed by this huge tree......

.....and here is what it looked like this past week. The staff of Rondeau Provincial Park are in charge of administering Clear Creek Forest, and maintenance staff had been here recently to clear the trail from the huge trunk that had fallen across it.

You can see from the first two photos above that there was a lean to the tree, which is typical of many older growth trees as they age. The right hand side of the base of the tree had deteriorated with age, so it was only a matter of time. One of the fierce westerly winds we had over the past couple of months was the deciding moment, and down it came. Although I doubt that anyone was there at the time to verify it, I am quite sure it made quite a bit of sound when it fell! It took another medium-sized beech tree down with it.

 As mentioned, its diameter was almost a metre. According to one source on trees of the Carolinian Zone, where this species is abundant and grows the best, the largest one known a few years ago was 92 cm in diameter. The tree here was several cm in diameter larger, but the other specimen had not been measured for awhile and if it was still alive, may have surpassed this one. Regardless, the one at Clear Creek Forest is/was one of the largest of its kind in Ontario.

This next photo shows how fragile this tree was in its old age. The outer shell looked fairly sound, but the inside at the bottom was quite hollow, again, not unusual for a tree of this age.

 And speaking of age, I did a count of the rings as best as I could although parts of the cut surface were hard to see due to the chainsaw cuts. You can see from this next photo that some of the rings were quite close together, and others were relatively far apart, reflecting the varying ability to grow over the decades. Certainly a lack of moisture at a critical period of seasonal growth would be one limiting factor.

 Close to the centre, it was impossible to count any rings due to deterioration, as you can see in the next photo. However since American Beech is a tree of a closed canopy type forest, typically the growth is very slow in the first few decades of its life. Unless there is a larger over storey tree that dies or falls down providing a significant amount of sunlight to the forest floor allowing young trees like beech and maple to grow vigorously, the growth rings would be so close together it would be difficult to count them. So with that in mind, I estimated that this tree was at least 250 years old, and could very well have been 300 or more years. Large mature trees are known to live up to 400 years.

Now that this tree is dead, it will no longer be providing beech nuts for critters such as the Eastern Grey Squirrel, Blue Jay, various woodpecker species or Wild Turkey.

However its remains will be quite useful for many other creatures over the next few decades until it completely decomposes. In fact it is well known that a dead tree provides life for far more species than a live tree, so all is not lost. Whether it be beetles or other invertebrates, various species of fungi or other creatures, this fallen log will be of enormous benefit to many forms of wildlife. Salamanders will be one of the larger types of wildlife that will eventually call this rotting trunk home.

Blue-spotted Salamander

Red-backed Salamander

While I was checking out Clear Creek Forest, I wandered the trail to see what else there was to see. Obviously this provincial park is about more than just one tree, although the older growth character along the main trail is certainly an important one, and a reminder of what large parts of Chatham-Kent once looked like.

Spring wildflowers are finally appearing. I saw several species, including:

Dutchman's Breeches

Hepatica

Bloodroot

Skunk Cabbage

Silver Maple

Birds were not plentiful on this brief woodland visit, just things like chickadees and robins.

I did spend a bit of time on the north side of the road where a very different character of the provincial park occurs. There were geese and ducks in some of the ponds; swallows and kingfishers were searching for food, and a couple of Yellow-rumped Warblers were busy in their search as well. On occasion one of the swallows would take a break and rest on a branch over the water.

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

A few Ruby-crowned Kinglets were busily foraging along the shrubby edges of the ponds.

May this forest giant 'Rest in Pieces'