Roaming Chatham-Kent in early spring

The series covering Birds of Chatham-Kent, then and now, will continue soon. In the meantime, here is an account of more recent outings.

The short-lived taste of spring a few days ago was wonderful, but not to be sustained this early. And that is fine by me. I am a big enthusiast of spring, but once it arrives, it seems to quickly transform into summer.

I meandered up along the Sydenham River in northeastern C-K a few days ago, to see if a Bald Eagle's nest I encountered a few years ago was still there. I found one, but since I didn't make precise notes on its exact location, cannot be certain it is the same one. This time I took more careful notes of its location. It is in a very large Eastern Cottonwood.

It is quite visible from the road, but at a distance. This image was taken and cropped to the equivalent of about 50X, so if you come across it, don't expect to see the eagles' activities all that closely. In fact it wasn't until I got the photo on the computer and greatly cropped it that I could tell an adult was on it. If you look closely (click on it for a larger view), you may see the front portion of the head of an adult eagle just to the right of the largest left hand branch supporting the nest.

While some birds are beginning to nest, some winter birds are lingering. It was an excellent year for Snowy Owls in late December and into early January, but due to a lack of great habitat for them, most of them moved on to other areas. I have seen the occasional one in my travels, but seldom was able to get a photo until I came across this one.

American Robins are back in rather large numbers, typical for this time of year. I see them everywhere, sometimes seeing several dozen or more each outing. Most are males, with the darker head. Females will be arriving soon, if not already, and then nesting will begin.

I've been out to Rondeau a few times, not surprisingly, in part to photograph whatever birds I can find, such as the recent arrival of many Song Sparrows......

....and watching Downy Woodpeckers going through some courtship ritual in establishing territories and attracting a mate.

Golden-crowned Kinglets are fairly plentiful, moving about the park in small groups. They are always a delight to see, but due to their constant motion, are difficult to get a photograph of. My finger pressing the camera shutter has to coincide exactly with the 1/500th of a second the kinglet is relatively motionless!

European Starlings are not the favourite bird of many. It certainly isn't my favourite either. But in their own way, they are an attractive bird as their feathers wear off to show the heavily speckled pattern. This one was feasting on some well-ripened berries of Staghorn Sumac.

While wandering the trails, I often hear the early spring drumming of Pileated Woodpecker. This impressive Rondeau resident is much less often seen, however.

Now that the ice is completely gone from Lake Erie and Rondeau Bay, there are hordes of waterfowl making use of them as most will be traveling farther to get to their nesting grounds. On one trip, as soon as I got out of the vehicle I could hear the distinctive "owl-owl-omelette" call of the Long-tailed Duck. They were a long way out, but in the calm conditions, their calls were heard easily. It is always a highlight of spring to see and hear them. This individual was relatively close, at least within a photographic distance even with extreme cropping.

From one vantage point at the south end of the park, I could see a huge raft of ducks, well out from shore. I estimated that there were around 10,000 birds scattered in a raft that stretched for more than a kilometre. Most were Greater and Lesser Scaup, Redhead with both Common and Red-breasted Mergansers mixed in, along with Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye and Mallards.  This photo just shows a very small portion of the large raft.

The woods are quiet, other than the periodic drumming of a Pileated Woodpecker as noted above. There are few, if any, hikers on the trails. It is peaceful, soothing and quite an enjoyable aspect of roaming Rondeau.

Well soothing can occur in more ways than one! And clearly someone else had been using the trail before. It is a bit surprising how often I find one of these along the trails.

But the sunny, warmish days are quite soothing in other ways, just to enjoy the tranquil nature of such forested habitat.

There were a few Red-winged Blackbirds working the sloughs, but I didn't see any Rusty Blackbirds on this trip. It is a declining species, but hopefully there will be a reasonable showing of them this spring before they move on to northern forested wetlands.

 

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