Christmas Bird Count season has been in full force lately. The Blenheim/Rondeau one was at the beginning of the count period, and I reported on that a couple of posts ago. More recently has been the Skunk's Misery (SM) count, and yesterday was the Wallaceburg/Walpole Island count.
The SM count was slightly below average for me and my area, but overall the count tallied 53 species. My area is north of the Thames River and although I had my camera with me, I didn't photograph any bird highlights. However at one point I was driving the back roads looking for birds when I noticed a 'clump' of something out in some corn stubble.
Obviously it wasn't a bird, but deserved a second look. A cautious approach allowed me to get the following photos of this Virginia Opossum.
Normally opossums are more nocturnal, although sometimes they will be seen out in broad daylight as this one was. And normally they are quick to scurry away, so I really don't know what was up with this individual. Other than its behaviour, it looked fairly healthy, so at least I managed to get the best photos of a live 'possum I've ever had.
Waterfowl are not very plentiful on the SM count, even if the Thames River is open, as it mostly was on this day. The only waterfowl I got were a bunch of Canada Geese, a bit outside my territory.
It was a few more days before the next count, the Wallaceburg/Walpole Island count. However in between, some out-of-province birders had spent a fair bit of time roaming numerous roads between Wallaceburg and Tilbury, and come up with an impressive 21 Snowy Owls! I had seen 5 in one day a little while ago without a lot of searching. I suspect there had been a mini-invasion of the owls as prompted by some weather events. So when I had a chance to get out and do a brief search just after Christmas, I came up with 4 snowies, and three of them were sitting on poles or some other thing very close to the road. The first one I saw, either a first year bird or a female, was on a steel silo near the corner of Winter Line and Mallard Line.
Two of the birds I saw were very white, indicating they were adult males. They wouldn't stand out very well if they were sitting on a snow covered field.
Yesterday was the Wallaceburg/Walpole (W/W) Christmas Bird Count. I was one of the ones who started it back in 1986, and if it doesn't conflict with family Christmas gatherings, I participate in it, so most years I have been on it. As for most counts everywhere, the weather dictates how successful a count will be in terms of species diversity and overall numbers, and this count is no exception. With some major wetlands included as well as the St. Clair River which can at times harbour an enormous number of ducks, geese and gulls, the overall numbers of individuals can be impressive. On the other hand, with almost no ice to concentrate water birds and the river being completely open, water birds are very spread out and not always within the count circle. Such was the case for this count. The weather was about as perfect as one could hope for, at least for the participants being out in the field counting birds. There was no snow or ice to contend with, the skies ranged from cloudy first thing to bright sun as the day went on, and the wind was very light and mostly from the south. The temperatures were above freezing all day.
However, that made the birds very spread out. There were pockets of birds here and there. Certainly the counters on Walpole Is had a good diversity, as usual. It helps that the counters covering that area are excellent birders, some of which have excellent hearing.
The territory that I cover is spread out from about the north end of the Snye Channel north to almost the former Lambton Generating Station, and from the St. Clair River east to Hwy 40. The best spots are the river itself, as well as some areas not far inland. Woodlands are typically fairly quiet, and that was certainly the case this year. Also a lot of habitat is industrial, and off limits, so although it is a huge territory overall, access is limiting. One wonders what else might be out there!
I had 14 species of waterfowl, although much of the river was devoid of them. The area just downstream of the defunct Sombra ferry dock had the best concentration. There were only a couple of Canvasback...
....and a handful of scaup of both species.
 |
| Lesser Scaup |
Mallard was the most abundant species....
....and there were a few Redheads.
Gulls were not plentiful either, and I only saw two species: Herring and Ring-billed.
Some areas a bit inland were surprisingly good, although the birds were scattered in small pockets here and there. There were a few raptors such as this American Kestrel.
Raptors are often wary of vehicles stopping and having things pointed at them, so only heavily cropped photos from a distance are obtained.
I missed seeing a Northern Shrike reported by someone else, but it likely saw me.
Sparrows and others were not abundant, but represented by a few species, some of which even cooperated briefly for the camera.
 |
| American Tree Sparrow |
 |
| Downy Woodpecker |
A somewhat unexpected species for this area was this single Rusty Blackbird, which flushed up from a group of sparrows and juncos in a combination spruce plantation and prairie restoration.
One occasionally comes across other critters, as per the example of the opossum above. I saw a mink out on a thin bit of ice at the edge of a wetland, but was unable to get a photo. Not all encounters are of live animals, however. Along the trail from where I saw the Rusty, I came across this dead critter. It is a Short-tailed Shrew (
Blarina brevicauda), a very abundant little mammal, and a voracious eater and active all year round, but mostly underground.
Certainly the Rusty Blackbird was a less common bird to encounter, but the most surprising bird of the day for the whole count was one that area resident and birder Mike B found in a sewage lagoon in our territory. It turned out to be a Common Gallinule, Normally they are long gone from Ontario by mid to late autumn, but for some reason, this one didn't get the memo and apparently decided to stick around. According to eBird, this is the latest record for Ontario in at least the last decade, and one of the few ever for winter. Mike saw it and photographed it first, and then Steve checked it out and got some distant looks and photos. I came along a bit later. It was elusive at best, and only after I got well past the area where it had been last seen did I get a glimpse of it scooting across the water. The photos I got were only possible by quickly shooting into the hazy sunlight. Even by looking at the screen on the back of the camera, I knew I was not going to be satisfied with these.
It quickly disappeared into the cattails. I decided to go down behind the dike and out of view, then get around to the general area where it disappeared and where I would have a much better angle of light if it chose to re-emerge.
While waiting for the gallinule, I watched and photographed some of the other wildlife close by. Photographing Mute Swans is quite easy given their relative abundance and tolerance of people.
Muskrats are a little more wary than the swans, but if you sit quietly they kind of forget you are there.
It took awhile before the gallinule re-appeared, and even then it was only for a short time. Although it was a bit closer, it did not really get out from under cover for very long, and very few photos were obtained. Sometimes something else was in the way.....
...and often it was facing the wrong way for my liking. But that is bird photography!
I ended up seeing 43 species in my territory, so not too bad. The overall count had a total of 83 species, a bit higher than average.
One more Christmas Bird Count to go: the St. Clair National Wildlife Area count on January 1, 2020!
No comments:
Post a Comment