Mid-winter birding

 Birding has definitely quietened down, which is typical for the mid-winter period. There are a few lingering species, but most of what is around are fairly typical wintering species. Getting out and about does provide a few photo opportunities, however.

There is still a good number of geese and even swans around, and as long as there is a bit of open water and not too much snow on the fields, I expect that trend to continue. In checking out some of the flocks of geese and swans, one comes across an occasional less expected lingering species. Such was the case when I was checking out the waterfowl at St. Clair NWA recently. After scanning a lot of birds, I came across this Snow Goose. Fortunately it was even on the closest side of the flock making this quite clear photo relatively easy.

As expected, there was a mix of geese and swans.

A closer look at the flock had the bird in the lower right hand side of the photo get my attention. It was a little smaller than the usual Canada Geese, and the bill was a bit smaller as well. At first I was considering Cackling Goose, but it didn't look quite small enough, and the bill looked a bit too large for a typical Cackler. Also the upper chest was light coloured, rather than the darker colour of a typical Cackling Goose. There are many races and sizes in the Canada Goose complex, and I ultimately decided it could be a Richardson's Canada Goose.

There had been quite a few Bald Eagles, up to 40 individuals, reported from the same general wetland complex along Lake St. Clair. That is a notable number, but not entirely unexpected. A couple of years ago on the SCNWA Christmas Bird Count, we tallied at least 58 birds, and there could have been more. In fact there were more reported by all of the observers that day, but I suspected there was some double counting since they are a large bird that would have potentially crossed into more than one observer's territory, so downgraded the total to a mere 58. That was a record for that CBC, and almost unheard of anywhere in Ontario. However eagles migrate here to the southwest, and since there were still lots of waterfowl around to feed on, especially with the ongoing hunting season that might have resulted in crippled ducks and geese, the eagles would likely take advantage of it. And why not if the food is there for the taking.

In some years, Lake St. Clair is almost completely frozen over, and any eagles that persist this far into the winter are scattered far and wide across the ice and along the lake shore areas. With no ice to rest on, and still a fair bit of food to partake of, they are more likely to be found along the shoreline areas.

Since the large number of eagles reported were on an extensive private marsh, I didn't try and attempt to see them. However I did travel to the Jeanette's Creek boat launch area, which provides a good look upstream and downstream along the Thames River, and I have regularly seen a few eagles there. On this occasion when I checked it out, I saw at least a dozen, and since some were on the move a bit, there were likely more. Especially since a lot of the riverine habitat was upstream from where I was able to see, and certainly much closer to where the aforementioned 40 birds were reported.

I managed to get a few photos, but most were quite a distance away, and so were difficult to get good shots of without a lot of cropping of the photos. Some young birds were cavorting in the sky, practicing for when they got old enough to attract a mate or defending a territory. Or maybe they were just enjoying the wonder of flight.

Most were sub-adults, and once in awhile a bird would get a bit closer.

And sometimes this was about the only view.

When I wasn't looking for eagles, I saw and photographed some of the 5 Great Blue Herons that were scattered along the river edge.

This Northern Harrier came upon me quite suddenly, and I was unprepared with the proper camera settings, so this is the best I could do.

I have been out to Rondeau on occasion (big surprise!), primarily to go for a good walk and photograph a few things that I will deal with in a future post. The woods are fairly quiet this time of year but I still marvel at the forest complex as I walk along. I have managed to see one of the resident Eastern Screech Owls on occasion....

...and a few Northern Cardinals here and there.

Yesterday I purposely stopped by the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons, hoping to see a Ross's Goose that appears either there or in the Erieau area on occasion. There were no geese in the lagoons themselves, but a couple of Mute Swans gave a good photo opportunity. I had to photograph something to show for my time there.....:-)

...and then I realized that there were several hundred geese out on a wheat field adjacent to the lagoons, so drove around to check them out. I wasn't certain I would be able to find a small white goose if it was a long way out on a snow-covered field, but fortunately it was in one of the closer groups of geese.

It was still probably 250-300 metres from the road, so only got a distant and highly cropped shot, but good enough for identification purposes.

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An Avian Spectacle Indeed

 Residents of Chatham-Kent and area, might know immediately what kind of spectacle I am referring to. It has been a controversy for many years, but it is a spectacle nonetheless. I am referring to the mega crow roost that Chatham has become known for.

I used to drive by it daily as I went back and forth to the office where I worked. But since I retired 11 years ago, it has become much less frequent that I give it much thought. And that is on me, as it continues to be quite the bird phenomenon.

Beginning in mid-October or so, and until about mid-March, there are many tens of thousands of American Crows that migrate no farther than Chatham-Kent, and have established their night-time roost along the Thames River more or less at the west end of Chatham. The above photo shows a 'few' crows roosting in a tree just upstream from the Keil Drive bridge. They will use trees at least 100 metres or so upstream, but the majority of them use trees downstream from the bridge, and on both sides of the river.

They will also use rooftops of commercial and private buildings, and on occasion when the river is frozen, rest on the ice itself! Here is a photo from late January a few years ago, showing just that. It was a 15 second exposure, so I had to wait until well after dark when they were settled in and movement would be minimal.

Numbers of crows reported have varied widely. When the municipality hired a raptor specialist to come in during the fall, with several raptors, to try and disperse the crows, he indicated that there were likely about 250,000 birds. He was not able to successfully make a dent in the population, and after 2-3 years, the project was cancelled. More recently a municipal councilor at the time, who I doubt knew anything about estimating bird numbers, but wanted to make a statement in the hopes that the municipality would become aggressive towards this crow roost, was quoted in the local paper stating that there were 20 million crows!

Hardly. And nothing really came of his proposal to be more aggressive at deterring crows from roosting where they were.

On a couple of occasions, as we were preparing for the Christmas Bird Count, we organized ourselves to try and count, or rather estimate, the number of crows as they were leaving their spread out roost. It was a challenge to be sure, but on one occasion we came up with 159,860 birds. More or less. But it was impressive to see many hundreds of them leave a single tree over the span of 15 minutes or so, and realize that the tree looked just as full as it did before we started counting them as they left!

This past October, the municipality sponsored a Crow Fest, at about the time when the crows were arriving in Chatham. I didn't attend or participate, as it seemed to be mostly geared towards using that time to have some displays, music and celebrations of some sort, but I don't think there was anything that actually explained what the crows were all about.

A number of people have asked "Why are there so many crows that spend the winter in Chatham?" A few years ago, in the first year I started this blog, I wrote in a fair bit of detail why that is. Check it out so I won't have to repeat myself here. As some of you will know, the crows return to Chatham late in the afternoon to stage, before eventually coming into the roost after sunset. The numbers on the ground as they stage, can be enormous. Just try counting them, and these show only a small portion of the huge flock that is spread out across various fields at the edge of the city. The following two photos are from a few years ago.

But I hadn't given it much thought lately until Craig, a crow enthusiast from the greater Boston area, who pays a lot of attention to a crow roost within sight of his place of work, contacted me a year or so ago, and we started to correspond about crow roosts. Fast forward to late December of 2022, and he told me he was interested in seeing crow roosts in both Quebec and Ontario. So he spent the better part of a week in his January travels to check out first hand, two roosts in Quebec and three in Ontario, culminating with his visit to Chatham on January 15. I met him and spent almost two hours on site right at the roost, describing some history of it, the St. Clair NWA Christmas Bird Count which includes this roost, and the like. It was a most enjoyable time sharing it with a fellow crow enthusiast. I didn't have my camera with me that evening, but the weather was just about perfect for it. Mild temperatures, little to no wind, and a colourful sky as the sun was going down. Craig's most common comment as the crows arrived was "Wow, wow, wow". Wow indeed! He returned the following morning and got more photos of the crows leaving the roost. In his opinion, the Chatham roost is likely the largest one in North America, and I think that has been my understanding as well.

 Upon returning home, Craig processed a multitude of his still images, as well as a video clip, and sent it to me, encouraging me to share it. So with that, here is Craig's blog which features the Chatham roost. It is well worth checking it out.

Viewing the arrival of the crows with Craig on the 15th inspired me to get my camera and get some photos as well. I wanted a bit of colour in the sky so waited until earlier this week, on January 24, to attempt it. I also wanted to put my mirrorless R6 to the test, since it can get good results at much higher ISO than my older DSLRs. I was not disappointed, and here are a few. (Click on the individual photo to see them even larger)

The trees upstream continued to see more crows arriving.

At times there were some relatively brief lulls in the action.

Looking downstream one could see that almost every tree was full of crows, on both sides of the river....

...and a close-up of the previous photo showed that a bit further downstream, the sky was full of them.

As it got darker, I had to push the ISO up and up. I eventually took a few at an ISO of 12800, including the next one! That is a far cry from back in film days, when one didn't want to use film much higher than 400 ASA/ISO, and even that was pushing it. The best results came from film that was in the 64-100 range. How technology has changed. Given the quality of images taken at 12800, I will likely try some at an even higher ISO just to see what it can do.

I left after about an hour, as it was getting a bit too dark even for my camera I thought. Maybe I missed some opportunities trying at a much higher ISO, as even when I got back to my vehicle in quite a dark setting, the crows were still streaming in by the thousands.

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Rondeau, then and now

 Things are a little quieter out in the field these days, so I will take the opportunity to interject a post that readers might find interesting, especially if there has been any history with Rondeau. It will attempt to show some of the changes that have taken place, mostly within the last four or five decades.

Rondeau has long been known as a great spot for birding.

There are many species which, either for a short time or a much longer time, show up at Rondeau. The current list is slightly more than 360 species. One of the lwell-known high priority species that birders come to see is the endangered Prothonotary Warbler. It was first discovered breeding in Canada at Rondeau, back in the early 1930s, and the park remains a hot spot for it even now.

Woodland sloughs are the prime habitat for this species, and Rondeau has several kilometres of good quality habitat of this type. This next photo shows Phil, a former staff member of mine while I was at Rondeau, looking in a slough as he scanned for birds. The presence of water that was a metre or more deep in places, numerous dead trees in various stages of decay and the extensive openness were all important for Prothonotaries.

They like a bit more canopy cover than what these photos show, but will make use of fairly open habitat. As do other birds. I photographed this Northern Flicker at its nest in a dead tree right close by where the previous photo was taken, and also a Brown Creeper nest under some bark on the same tree, a fairly rare breeding species at Rondeau.

Anyone of a certain age who had an interest in nature might recall the TV series To the Wild Country, filmed by John and Janet Foster, and partially narrated by Lorne Greene. One of the episodes was entitled Wild Corners of the Great Lakes, and it featured a bit of Rondeau, and in particular the Prothonotary and its nesting habitat. If you are interested, you can see this episode here. The Rondeau segment starts at about minute 17. It is interesting that when it was filmed, back in 1974, the water levels of Lake Erie were at almost record high. Part of the segment shows a former Rondeau colleague of mine, Howard Coneybeare, canoeing through a slough, and discovering a nest of a Prothonotary. With the high water levels, and the openness of some of the sloughs, canoeing was quite possible. Some sloughs were extremely open, as the first photo shows. It was taken in about 1974.

This next photo shows a fairly typical large slough, as in about 1985. Canoeing was quite possible, with a little care.

But since then, conditions have changed. Water levels have had their ups and downs both seasonally and annually. These next few photos were taken in just the last few days, and while the overall lake levels have dropped a bit, they are still above average. However the local drought conditions have caused the sloughs to look quite different, especially with the aggressiveness of the non-native Phragmites. This next photo was taken at almost the same vantage point as the ones showing Phil the birder above.

And from about the same vantage point, but looking south towards the lake, is what the scene looked like in August, 1985.

There were always lots of turtles sunning here, along with a few snakes, and it was good habitat for nesting birds as well, such as Eastern Kingbird. But fast forward to 37 years later, and this is what the same area looks like, taken from about the same vantage point.

There is no water in what remains of this slough, no logs other than what has washed up along the beach, just sand and grasses, as the erosion of the southern part of Rondeau has caused movement of the shoreline inland more than 50 metres. And just a 100 metres or so east of this spot, used to be a fairly large picnic area, with parking and a large picnic shelter. All that is gone now, and has been for several decades. This next photo shows where it would have been, but now well out in the lake.

And these next few photos show what a wet slough looks like in early 2023. It would be impossible to canoe in them!

Here are a few more items, illustrating some changes over the last 50 plus years. Some readers may well remember the days when there was a beautiful campground at the south end of the park. It was generally well-wooded, unlike the very open campground that remains at the north end of the park. It was established back in the 1950s, I believe, and when I was growing up, I remember our family camping there back in about 1963. There were four or five substantial washroom facilities to service the campground as well as the picnic area mentioned above.

South Point campground washroom

There also was a campground office, to service requests for camping. It was located on the left hand side of what is now the South Point Trail, formerly a road to and from the campground, right at the corner of the sharp S-bend.

 The campground closed for good, in about 1973 due to the very high water which flooded the campgroun, other than for a couple of months in late summer and early fall of 1985. The building gradually deteriorated and I remember quite a few Barn Swallows nesting in the open structure that remained.

In 2023, this is all that is left.....what I presume is the septic tank of the campground office.

More on some other historical changes in a future post!

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SNOW on the roof, and yodeling from on high

 Readers will note that Snowy Owls have not been very plentiful so far this winter season. That hasn't changed a lot, but a bit. We didn't get any on our St. Clair NWA Christmas Bird Count, quite a change from our record of 23 last year. But I keep going out into their usual territory, hoping to at least see one. And quite unexpectedly, just a few days ago I saw 4! The first two were on the roof of a house.

Clearly one or more had been there off and on for a few days.

Just 100 metres away was this third one, in a fenced off area around some gas line pipes...

...and a fourth was along a laneway just a short distance away. All four were within sight of each other, I am sure.

They were a little unpredictable, as I know of others who had gone out looking in all of these spots, and not seen a single owl. But just a couple of days later I went out hoping that the blue skies would present a better background. I didn't see any with the sky as a background, but I did see two owls, both on the ground. This first one was near the gas fence....

...and this one was on a laneway access right adjacent to the road. I took this one while standing just a few metres from my vehicle, and the image is hardly cropped at all.

Sticking with a bit of a snow theme, I stopped at St. Clair NWA and saw a dozen or so Snow Geese. They weren't very close to the access berm, so the photos are heavily cropped. This first one shows three white phase birds.....

...while this one shows 4 blue phase, along with 2 whites and 3 Canadas.

I've also been out to Rondeau a couple of times, looking for whatever I could find and photograph. Along the Black Oak Trail, I came across a few typical winter birds. This Black-capped Chickadee was quite close to the trail, but constantly on the move.

This Downy Woodpecker was less active and so stayed in one position for more than a millisecond.

A bit later I went to the north end of the park. As I got out of the vehicle, I heard the distinct yodeling of Sandhill Cranes. They can typically be heard from a long distance, so I started scanning the sky, and then noticed not one, not two, but a whole bunch of them almost directly overhead, but way up high. At first they seemed to be in a loosely organized group...

...and spent a bit of time circling, but gradually drifting off to the southwest.

After a few minutes, they seemed to get more organized...

...and eventually got into a more typical migratory formation and continued southwest, rising above the clouds and disappearing. There were 49 birds in this group.

After that bit of excitement, I continued over to the campground, looking around for whatever was around. It was fairly quiet, but a large black bird with white wing patches appeared in the distance and landed on an oak tree. It was intent on digging out something, and allowed me to get fairly close, although it was fairly high up and not at the best angle. At least it was mostly in the sun. It was a male Pileated Woodpecker.

I expect it had been to this tree before, as it seemed to be busily digging into a familiar cavity, and attempting to extract some little creatures.

This final photo is a cropped version of the previous one, showing its tongue in action.

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