Some Species At Risk birds and their related habitats

 It has been an interesting last few days. I've been out doing some grassland assessment for certain types of birds, and just wrapped up the second of two visits at two different sites, a few days ago. Each visit was about 10-12 days apart. Most notable at the one site was the promising number of Bobolink, one of the target species, and officially a Species At Risk.

The males still look quite distinctive in their typical breeding plumage.

There were several dozen Bobolinks, but at this time of year the number of fledglings certainly add to the overall total. They look very similar to the adult females, and in just a few weeks, the males will look more or less to be in the same, duller plumage as well.

As they flew around, they often landed in the grasses which bent under their weight, and then they were hard to see, and even harder to photograph. I got a lot more culls than keepers!

On occasion one would be sitting up nicely.....

...and sometimes had a caterpillar or something in its mouth, indicating they were still at the feeding young stage.

Other birds were utilizing the grassland habitats, including:

Common Yellowthroat

Eastern Kingbird

Song Sparrow

 

Along one of the shrubbier sections of the site was this Willow Flycatcher.

The grassland habitat varied. Some parts still had stems from the previous years growth quite visible, and it was here were most of the breeding bird action was.

Areas that for some reason had been matted down over the winter, showed a delayed growth, and so it was likely less appealing to the grassland birds when they returned this spring. There were very few birds using this shorter grass habitat.

Interspersed amongst the grasses were some prairie wildflowers, such as Ohio Spiderwort, one of my favourite grassland species.

While I was concentrating on birds, I couldn't help but notice some butterflies, including this Great Spangled Fritillary, a little worse for wear.....

...and given there were hundreds of milkweed plants, often in fairly dense clusters, it was a magnet for Monarchs.

Of course I have been at Rondeau on occasion, sometimes leading a tour for folks associated with the University of Windsor, but sometimes just on my own. One of the highlights was to find this Acadian Flycatcher on a nest.

As good as this find was, it was disconcerting to see the leaves right beside the nest, which tells of a questionable future. The leaves show a serious bout of Beech Leaf Disease, which is causing many American Beech trees to be in major decline. There are more than a few Am Beech trees in the park already dead, with virtually all of them in the park showing at least some signs of being affected. This will play havoc with the future of Acadian Flycatcher in Rondeau and other woodlots, as it nests almost entirely in these beech trees. On occasion they will nest in a Sugar Maple, but that is the exception. It does not bode well for this endangered bird species here in Ontario.

While some birders have reported more than one pair of Acadian Flycatchers along this Tuliptree Trail, I discovered that some people were attributing an Eastern Wood Pewee nest, shown next, to be that of an ACFL. The nest of the EWPE is typically on an open branch of various kinds of trees. At one point I actually saw an adult EWPE perched on the side of this nest, even though it is a bit dilapidated.

It is not in the fork of an Am Beech. They are both members of the flycatcher family, but quite different in many respects.

Eastern Wood Pewee

At one point I noted what I believe to be Fan-shaped Jelly Fungus on a log in a slough.

On another trail, I came across a cooperative Eastern Kingbird....

..an Appalachian Brown butterfly.....

....and a young Eastern Cottontail.

On another occasion I made a trip out to Clear Creek Forest Prov Park, for some forest photography on an overcast, relatively calm day. I was fairly happy with some of the photos I got.

While I was there, I wanted to see if there were any dragonflies to photograph in the old quarry on the north side of the forest. Due to the cool day with heavy cloud cover, there was hardly a dragonfly to be seen, so maybe next time!

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