A bird with the aerial view decides to nest

 Nesting Mourning Doves in southern Ontario aren't uncommon at all. But the timing for this one, the chance to photograph it from start to finish, and from the comfort of air conditioning over the course of those mostly hot and humid days of August, gave the opportunity to create this post.

 This pair didn't even start to build their nest, as sparse and flimsy as it was, until early August of this year. The vast majority of bird species have finished their nesting cycle weeks earlier, and some have even begun their southward migration. But for a year-round resident species, the lateness of the summer isn't all that much of a problem.

A pair of Mourning Doves (MODO) have attempted to nest at this spot in the past. On one occasion, they were at least partially successful. Building a nest of their style does not lend itself well to this particular location. The branches of the White Pine tree are quite smooth and getting a bit of nesting material to stay long enough to construct the next stages is next to impossible, especially if there is any wind. Nonetheless this pair persisted, and eventually they had what they thought would do the job.

In spite of the visibility of this nest location, photographing it was not without its challenges. If there was any kind of wind from a northerly direction, some pine branches got in the way at just the wrong time. And for any morning photos, which was generally the most active period, the nest was backlit. Overcast days were generally better for morning photos, but that put the ISO of the camera higher than I would have preferred. The mirrorless R7, which I used almost entirely for these photos, handled the increased ISO much better than my other DSLR cameras,

 They were well along at this stage, but still had some finishing touches to complete.

It was interesting to see some aspects of the nest building process. The male comes in with a bit of nesting material.....

...and then typically climbs onto the back of the female, which is sitting in the partially constructed nest, passes the material over and she decides where it is needed.

This next photo was taken on Aug 8 the first day of incubation of what presumably were two eggs, the typical number for this species.

Day 1 of incubation

I took a few photos over the next several days, but there wasn't a whole lot of difference to show. It was on Day 14, that the hatching began. Nothing really to see in this photo, but the adult's general actions indicated something was happening underneath. The adult kept getting up and looking at the eggs it was sitting on....

Day 14 after incubation begins

...and by Day 16, activity increased to the point where it was clear hatching had begun.

It was around this time that I was reminded of a well-known bird observer from many decades ago, who made numerous astute and detailed observations of a common nesting species, the Song Sparrow: it was Margaret Morse Nice, and you can find a bit of information on her at this link. She didn't have high quality optics and camera equipment available, but used her exceptional ability to observe detail, and record that. She was definitely ahead of her time, and contributed observations of bird behaviour for several decades.

I am not putting myself at the same level of observing and interpreting bird behaviour as she was, but I thought at least I had the optical and camera equipment available to document some things that I could. While MODO is a commonly breeding species, they don't often nest in such a location that has an accessible view.

During the first few days after hatching, there wasn't much to observe. I took a few photos, but by Day 21, 5 days after hatching the two young were much more visible. They grow quickly!

The MODO does not feed its young in quite the same way most other species do. The adults ingest their normal diet of seeds and then proceed to create 'pigeon milk' in their crop. The young, as shown in the photo above, then 'dig in' to the adult's mouth and either get to where the pigeon milk is waiting, or sometimes cause the adult to regurgitate some of the pigeon milk to a more accessible part of its mouth. This goes on during the entirety of the nesting period, and continues for even a couple of weeks after they have left the nest. Then they will eventually switch over to the normal MODO diet of seeds.

Most of the first few days the young, when not feeding, are content to sit low in the nest, barely visible. It seems the adults were getting a bit restless from time to time, probably to stretch to compensate for the long periods of just sitting.

Day 22

By Day 26, when the young were about 11 days old, they were much more visible and active in their own way.

By Day 29, they were getting quite large, and a crowded nest was more and more the case. When one tried to move around at the edge of the nest, it might have even lost its balance a bit. At least this caused it to develop its wing muscles in preparation for future air borne mobility.

I should mention that the vicinity of the nest seemed to have been kept clean. In many songbird groups, the adults remove the white fecal sac from the nest and immediate area so that predators have less to go on when looking for something to prey upon. I never saw the removal of white fecal sacs with the MODO. However I did frequently observe the adult poking around in the nest, and coming up with and even eating small dark things which I expect was what the young had eliminated from their digestive system.

The young were increasingly observed just by themselves at the nest. It was definitely getting more crowded.

Day 30

The next morning, on Day 31 and about 15 days after hatching, there was only one bird in the nest. It seemed a little more restless and it was observed moving around on the supporting branches beyond the nest itself.

Day 31

It spent a lot of time on the edge of the nest, looking for where its sibling had moved on to.....

---and discovered it was sitting at the edge of the garden, all by itself unless an adult came in to feed it.

Later that same day, the presumably younger bird had decided it was time to get out, and by mid-afternoon it too, had vacated its home and re-joined its sibling.

They were seen in or near the garden on a regular basis for several days afterwards, always on the ground, but with decreasing frequency.

By Day 38, they were seldom seen at all, and on occasion clearly had developed their flying capability to get to above ground locations. At this stage, they were looking more and more like the adults.

MODOs are still around the neighbourhood, and will be for the remainder of the year and beyond. But it is next to impossible to determine which are the youngsters that came from this nest.

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Brilliant blue skies and raptor photography

 Migrating raptors have been on the move a lot recently. The two hawk watches in extreme SW Ontario and SE Michigan have documented thousands of raptors, especially Broad-winged Hawks, but sometimes ten different species over the course of a day. Mid to late September is definitely the peak time for the Broad-wings. However seeing them, and photographing them, certainly have their own challenges.

Many raptors, especially the broad wing types, also known as Buteos which is the genus of their scientific name, use the uplift of air thermals from the effects of bright sunshine on the ground, to carry them upward, When the effect of the uplift falls off, the raptors then stream off in the direction they intend to migrate to catch the next thermal uplift to form the next kettle of soaring hawks. It really is quite amazing, but means that weather is a significant factor influencing their migration. On sunny, warmish days with winds from a generally northerly direction, the migration along the lake shoreline can be quite spectacular. They seldom fly over the lake, as there are no thermals created by the sun reflecting off the water, so they follow the shoreline and leave Ontario, via crossing the Detroit River, to continue on their southward migration all the way to Central or South America.

The challenge can be, in a bright blue sky, and if the hawks happen to be at the top of their kettle, they can be impossible to see without good optics. So to help to find a kettle, a hawk watcher will explore some of the white clouds while using binoculars as a dark raptor stands out better. But that makes it challenging for photography, as a dark hawk against a bright white cloud, is not the kind of lighting photographers like.

I have been out on several occasions trying to see and photograph migrating raptors. Success has been variable, but on one recent occasion, things worked out fairly well. It was on a morning when there was lots of blue sky of late summer, and only a few white clouds. At first I was not seeing much of anything, but when I started to explore the sky through my binoculars, I could see hawks on the move. This first photo shows a distant group of Broad-winged Hawks, flying almost directly overhead, but without binoculars, I couldn't see them at all. I managed to find them in my telephoto lens, and this first shot is taken at about the equivalent of a 22X binocular. The birds are not all that big, are they (the large on on the lower right is a Turkey Vulture, while the rest are all Broad-wings).

I took several photos, and cropped some to show them in a little more detail, as the next photos illustrate. These are shown at an equivalent of about 75X.

One kettle of Broad-wings I estimated to be around 400 birds,and there were several smaller kettles. In less than a couple of hours, I concluded there were at least 800 Broad-wings which had gone over. According to the hawk watch sites a little farther to the west, there were probably 10,000 or more of this species pass by over the course of that same day.

There were other broad-winged types of hawks go by, especially a few Red-tailed Hawks.

 Other species went through as well, albeit in much smaller numbers. The accipiters and falcons generally did not soar quite as high, and were fairly quick to show up and flew directly southwest, so it was hard to get the camera and focus on them very successfully. A few American Kestrels came by....

....as did some Sharp-shinned Hawks.

Northern Harriers came by in very small numbers, and I didn't get any photos of them. They were usually too far to attempt. Turkey Vultures, were steadily in sight but not always very close by.

All in all, it was quite a successful time, and I am sure there were many hawks that I missed since I was on my own, and putting most of my effort into photographing them. At the hawk watch locations mentioned earlier, there are usually several watchers whose main purpose is to record everything in sight, and some days the records are in the tens of thousands overall.

On other occasions I went to places like the Erieau Marsh Trail. There wasn't a lot to photograph or even see during the time I was there, but I did get a few photos. Small groups of Wood Ducks are here and there. They are normally skittish when people are around, but I got these photos through some small gaps in the shrubbery surrounding the ponded area they were feeding in.

An adult Bald Eagle flew quickly overhead, and this shows what photographing a black and white bird against a white cloud can end up looking like even after a lot of processing.

A quick stop at the local sewage lagoons turned up a few species of shorebirds including a somewhat uncommon White-rumped Sandpiper, but I only got photos of the much more common Lesser Yellowlegs....

...and Pectoral Sandpiper.

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A western visitor and more local denizens

 The highlight of birds in the past few days was the presence of an Eared Grebe. Although this species does show up in various places in Ontario in most years, it is largely a species that breeds in the western half of the continent and roams a bit farther afield on fall migration. It is not reported in Chatham-Kent every year. This individual was at the Keith McLean Conservation Area, in one of the ponds which were established a year or so ago. I watched it for awhile, and it would pop up at one end of the pond, then disappear and show up at the other end. On occasion it would be across the pond from me. It never came very close, so there are all heavily cropped images.

A bit of time at nearby Rondeau turned up a few interesting things, as usual. I went part way out the newly refurbished Marsh Trail. It was nice to get back out there after it being in such significantly deteriorating condition over the last couple of years. Kudos to the Rondeau Waterfowlers group for getting this done.

I didn't photograph a lot on this visit, but did see a Merlin perched on a dead limb a long way up......

....and this Song Sparrow that perched for a short time, showing that it was missing its tail.

Along some of the uncut grassy areas in various parts of the park, mostly on the east side, there are some of these orchids showing up. They are just getting underway, as the latter half of September is when they are in their prime. It is the Great Plains Ladies' Tresses (Spiranthes magnicamporum), a rare orchid in Ontario, but fairly regular and sometimes common at Rondeau. There are other members of the Spiranthes genus to be found, but most of them occur a bit earlier in the season in similar grassy areas, and not all at Rondeau.

I spent a bit of time on one promising day at the Morpeth Cliffs, a well-known local spot to watch the hawk migration in the fall, especially when the winds are primarily from a northern direction. I managed to see at least a couple of hundred raptors on the move in the hour and a half I was there, but they were mostly way up high, and difficult to even see without binoculars let alone identify them. I did see various species, such as Bald Eagle, Broad-winged Hawk, American Kestrel, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper's Hawk, Northern Harrier and of course, Turkey Vulture. There could have been others. My photos were hardly worth taking, as the birds were so high and the camera had difficulty locking focus on. Here are a couple of my more successful ones, greatly cropped, such as they are:

I went over to the Erieau Marsh Trail, but only photographed these next two subjects. This hatchling snapping turtle was crossing the path. A cyclist had just come through moments before, and fortunately did not run over the little critter. He wasn't moving, so maybe he was still in shock. I picked him up and put him on the far side of the path, in the direction he was going.

A Double-crested Cormorant gave me a photo op.

The shorebirds continue at the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons, although I haven't spent much time there as the species mix remains fairly constant. In my limited time there, I got these shorebirds:

Greater Yellowlegs

Lesser Yellowlegs

Greater in the back, and Lesser facing the camera

Stilt Sandpiper

A Northern Harrier cruised by a couple of times, and I managed to get some decent photos showing the facial features as well as the white rump. This would appear to be a female, or possibly a youngster.

Checking out the Mitchell's Bay North Lakeshore Trail often provides some nice photo ops, especially for heron types, and occasionally for others. A recent venture to that trail resulted in the following:

Great Blue Heron

Several Great Egrets were around in various locations, some of which provided some good photo settings for me.

There were two Green Herons, which always seem to be skulky, and did not pose in good light.

Double-crested Cormorants were quite abundant, but mostly well out on the Lake. This one liked the quiet water of an inner channel......

...at least until it thought I was getting too close.

Checking out St. Clair NWA can be worthwhile almost any time, but getting photos that I am happy with don't always happen. Here are a couple from my most recent visits. Two Sandhill Cranes landed a little way away, but in some fairly thick cover, while another half a dozen flew in and landed elsewhere.

An Olive-sided Flycatcher was perched at the top of a dead branch, and against the bland sky, was not the kind of photo I was hoping for. Maybe next time.

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