Late January colours, birds and other highlights

This January hasn't been great for birding or other things, at least compared to a year ago when there were things like Baltimore Oriole, Barred Owl and Purple Sandpiper around. The steady cloudy conditions, cool weather and periodic precipitation suggests weather more like the northeast Atlantic I suspect. Nonetheless, getting out for a look around is still worthwhile, even if it just means going for a nice long hike in the woods!

If you look hard enough, there are still things around that brighten up the dominant grey colour. This first cluster of orange and red berries is the native Climbing Bittersweet. It dangles downward, unlike the following image.

 This is Oriental Bittersweet, a n on-native species, and it has very tiny clusters of berries, a bit smaller than the Climbing one, and in short, erect clusters along the stem.

 They aren't really popular as bird food, but some will eat them, as this immature White-crowned Sparrow was doing.

Some of the woodland type birds that can be found have a bit of their own red to add to the landscape. A Red-headed Woodpecker is still hanging around at Rondeau. It used to be fairly plentiful, but in the last couple of decades, while it is widespread in southern Ontario, it is sparse, even during the breeding season. This one has been digging out a fresh cavity. Presumably it is using it for roosting in overnight, but it may be one that it uses as a nesting cavity later this year.

 Much more plentiful these days is the Red-bellied Woodpecker.

 When walking through the woods, you may find evidence of the largest woodpecker we have. It sometimes makes an oblong shaped hole, but once it finds a good source of grubs or other tasty things inhabiting a dead tree, it can really tear the trunk apart! A former colleague sent me a photo a couple of weeks ago that someone had posted on facebook, showing a medium sized branch of a tree that they saw at Rondeau which was really torn apart and wondered what it was. Some of the respondents suggested a porcupine. While porkys can chew into a tree quite rigorously, they usually just barely get past the bark layer. Since porcupines don't occur at Rondeau, or aren't even within a couple of hundred kilometres, undoubtedly the maker of that chewed branch was the same creature that made this: a Pileated Woodpecker.

 I saw three Pileated Woodpeckers on my most recent visit to Rondeau, including a pair just a few metres from the trunk shown above. Two of them were high up, and with the grey sky, did not make it easy for a pleasing photo.

 Another one was much lower down, and at least didn't get as washed out. Both of the ones here are females. The one male was too camera shy for a photo on this occasion.

 Blue Jays are scattered around, and a bit more abundant than some years. Speaking of Blue Jays, pitchers and catchers will report for spring training in less than two weeks!

The lake is pretty empty these days, but there are still a few gulls wandering around.

Great Black-backed Gull

On one occasion when I was at Rondeau, there was still a fair bit of snow along the trails. Not deep, but covering the surface. I was surprised to see this little critter on the snow. At first it looked like a mosquito. It wasn't, however. It is a winter cranefly.

The Ridgetown Sewage Lagoons have had a lot of waterfowl using it up until a week or so ago. It is almost totally ice covered now, with mostly Canada Geese hanging out, but a short time before, amongst the variety of waterfowl using the site, there were four Snow Geese to be found fairly reliably: three adults and one young one that was still sporting its dark feathering.

There is lots of open water at the Erieau end of Rondeau Bay, with thousands of Tundra Swans, a couple of thousand Canada Geese and quite a few Canvasback, amongst other species. However most are well out at the edge of the ice and not easy to get good photos of. I did manage to catch up with the two Double-crested Cormorant that are still there, an adult and an immature.

There have been up to two Wilson's Snipe at the snipe ditch along Stefina Line, just a bit southeast of Blenheim. I have seen at least one on three different occasions, but never very close to the road. I suspect that with the ditch being fairly open throughout its winding path, they are a little farther downstream and out of view most of the time. It wasn't within view during the Christmas Bird Count, and in checking the data over the years, the 2019 count is the first time since 1977 that we didn't get a single shorebird on the count for the entire 7 day count week. We've had a total of 14 different shorebird species recorded over the years and on occasion have had as many as 3 or 4 species on an individual count day, but nothing this time. I'm sure there were some around, but it was so open and with lots of suitable habitat inaccessible, they just weren't available to be counted.

Elsewhere, I came across 4 White-tailed Deer foraging in a harvested cornfield a bit northwest of Blenheim. While seeing deer is not that surprising, it was the middle of the day, and what stood out even more was that the buck still had a fine set of antlers attached. Normally by late January, their antlers have fallen. When I stopped to get the photo, they immediately headed for the nearby woods, so this distant photo shooting through a bit of fine snow is the best I could do. But it was an impressive set of antlers. At least 8 points with a good spread to them, and depending on the size of the points closest to the base, maybe even a 10 pointer.

I finally caught up to the Peregrine Falcon that is hanging out in Chatham. Some folks have seen it right at the Trillium Village apartments, just north of the Thames River. I've checked there occasionally without success. The last time I checked, I also looked at some other nearby buildings that had some good height to them. And there it was, a little closer to the river. This first photo shows a heavily cropped, distant shot of when I first saw it.

I figured it would remain there until I could get to a closer vantage point. Again, the grey skies don't make the end result of the photograph very appealing, but you have to put up with the conditions you are given to work with.

There is a large group of Rock Pigeons that are almost always along the Thames River. I saw them on a lower building right beside the river, and I expect they were keeping a close eye on the falcon. The falcon has a lot of pigeons to choose from, so will likely remain for the winter. The river has been quite high, not surprising considering the high amounts of precipitation the drainage area has received. There is little sign of any ice forming in the river, so the water treatment outlet might not be all that productive in concentrating ducks, geese, gulls and even the occasional kingfisher this winter.

I have checked out parts of the former Dover Twp on occasion. Much of St. Clair NWA is totally frozen, but the several hundred Canada Geese are keeping a small part of it open. There are groups of Tundra Swans coming and going fairly regularly.

Right along the eastern edge of the NWA, I came across a pair of adult Bald Eagles in a tree, just a short distance from a nest. It won't be long before nesting is underway.

Earlier when I was returning from Erieau, I saw an adult eagle at the flimsy nest in the woodlot at the entrance to the Ridge Landfill. They built it in 2019, and although it appeared that they attempted to nest, I don't think they had any success. Perhaps they will this year, if in fact the nest stays where it is. The tree is not that substantial, in my opinion.

Still on an eagle topic, the nest that has been visible along the south end of Fargo Road, just north of Shrewsbury, has fallen out of the tree. I don't know when it happened, but in driving by on Communication Road, which goes between Shrewsbury and Blenheim I saw a new nest in the same woodlot, but a little lower down, and it may not be visible from Fargo Road.

And finally, there are still a few Snowy Owls around in Dover. Sometimes they are on a pole close to the road, such as this next photo shows, but all too often they are well out in the middle of a field on the ground.