More birds, less winter??

 It has been nice to see the intensive wintry conditions subside, at least a bit. So I have managed to get out to a few local places to see what is around. 

 A recent visit to St. Clair NWA wasn't terribly productive, but the combination of a nice walk and a few birds made it worthwhile. American Tree Sparrows are often around, scrounging on the now exposed grassy trail and retreating to the adjacent cattails when a hiker disturbs them.

A few Canada Geese are going to and fro, but not stopping in the still frozen NWA.

Views of the frozen NWA, taken from the observation tower, follow. It won't be many weeks until there is lots of open water, and hopefully lots of water birds!

Rock Pigeons are here and there, and on a really cold day they seldom fly, but as the weather warms up a bit they become less tolerant of a stopped vehicle with something pointed out at them. These three were part of a group that was a little more tolerant. 

I decided to make another trip up along the St. Clair River. There is still lots of ice floating around, making it difficult to get close enough to many of the waterfowl. I was hoping to catch up to a couple of Trumpeter Swans that are here and there, and although I did see them, I didn't get any photos of them. This next photo is of two I saw a few years ago.

A few other, much more common species of waterfowl, were more available for my photographic attempts. This first one features a male Ring-necked Duck in the foreground, and a male Redhead in the background.
 

male Common Merganser

male Canvasback

On another outing, I headed a bit east, into southeastern Lambton County, where it seems that eagles tend to over winter. I have seen and photographed Golden Eagles here in the past. However on this occasion I only saw one Bald Eagle, but didn't get an acceptable photo. I did manage a few other things, such as a fair number of Horned Larks in scattered locations, so I spent a bit of time capturing a few photos of them as they hung out in the fields adjacent to the road. They blend in quite well when in the corn stubble.

Horned Larks are fun to watch, and photograph. It is the the Bird of the Year for the American Birding Association.

A Red-tailed Hawk hung out on a tree quite a way from the road, but enabled me to get this heavily cropped photo.

Closer to home, I spent a bit of time hiking some of the less snowy/slushy roads and trails at Rondeau. I got a good hike or two in, but didn't photograph many birds. This male Pileated Woodpecker was the most successful of my efforts, and didn't seem to mind my camera pointed at him for several minutes.
 

I came across this workings of this Poplar Vagabond Aphid. I hadn't paid much attention to them in the past but they are more abundant than I thought. It looks quite a bit different in the mid-summer, and will try and get photos of it later this year.

Even closer to home, I checked out the water treatment plant outlet just downstream from Chatham. The open area is not large, but there are a few dozen ducks making use of it. Amongst the mostly Mallards, were a couple of others, such as this female Common Goldeneye, shown first...

...and this female Common Merganser. A Green-winged Teal was also there but I didn't get any photos of it.

 And even closer to home, were some American Crows, not surprisingly, and I took this through the kitchen window. Doesn't get any closer than that!

 

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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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St. Clair NWA 40th Christmas Bird Count

This year, on Jan 1, 2020, we held the 40th St. Clair NWA Christmas Bird Count. I've been involved as a participant since it began in December, 1981 and as the compiler since 1988.

This 24 kilometre diameter count circle was originally centred at the SCNWA headquarters, as it was Canadian Wildlife Service staff who organized the first few counts. It was moved slightly a few years later, to include the western fringe of Chatham, where one of the largest crow roosts in North America occurs, as well as to give the Wallaceburg/Walpole Island count circle, which began in 1986, a little better positioning.

Much of the SCNWA count circle includes agricultural land, which has limited benefits to many species of birds. The main attraction for the greatest diversity of birds is the extensive wetland area along the east side of Lake St. Clair, and of course included the National Wildlife Area. However the majority of the other wetlands are privately owned by hunt clubs. The waterfowl hunting season, which used to end in late December but now extends for some species into early January, makes some of these hunt clubs busier with member's hunting opportunities, so some of the best private wetland areas are off limits entirely, or at least much reduced.

Nonetheless, the results of this CBC, even towards the end of the count period, have some impressive results, often tallying in the top 10 of all of the counts in Ontario. In 2019, we tallied 93 species, which was the third highest total in Ontario. This year did not result in quite as many species, with only 83 noted.There were 17 people out counting, about half of whom are residents of Chatham-Kent, but with great assistance from fellow birders from Essex, Middlesex and Lambton counties.

Downy Woodpecker

In terms of total individual birds, I believe that this count is consistently the one with the greatest number in Ontario. There are two reasons for this, the first one being the presence of the absolutely huge crow roost which numbers anywhere from about 110000 to almost 160000 birds. The second reason is for the sometimes huge numbers of waterbirds. The latest count did not disappoint as there were almost 62000 individuals of 33 species. That included 23 species of waterfowl, six species of gulls, plus Great Blue Heron, American Coot, Double-crested Cormorant and Belted Kingfisher. Our total number of individual birds was 198597, slightly below our all time high of over 202000 a year ago.

American Coot

Since most of my territory included walking and carrying a scope and tripod, I did not have my camera with me.  Most of the following photos are from previous times.

Canada Geese are often abundant, and this year we tallied almost 10,000. However in spite of all of the geese, there was only one individual of another species: Snow Goose.

Tundra Swans were also abundant, with over 3200 counted, and were found in the NWA or foraging out in fields elsewhere.

 There were only 20 of the non-native Mute Swan, a far cry from the record number of 227 seen a few years ago.

 Mallards were the most abundant duck by far, with more than 46000 counted. A much smaller number of Am Black Ducks was recorded.

Am Black Duck in foreground, with parts of Mallard in the upper left corner.

 Diving ducks were not abundant, but reasonably well represented. Redheads numbered only 10.

 For Northern Pintail it was feast or famine. Our group had one male, whereas another group had a flock of 200 males, and the other groups had none! The official total of 201 birds surpassed the previous high of 172 birds. Interestingly in spite of so many individual birds of 83 species, we only set a new high number for this one species.

Bald Eagles were abundant, and we counted 39. This was lower than our all time high of 50 birds seen last year.

One of the reasons for this encouraging number was that this species is doing well throughout its range, compared to the dismal years of last century. Most of the 12 years this species has been missed on this count were in the first 10 years of the count. We have only missed it once this century. Another reason is that Lake St. Clair was completely open, and the eagles spent a lot more time around the edges of the lakes and therefore fairly visible rather than sitting way out on the ice.

Snowy Owls have been pleasantly abundant these last few years. We tallied 7 on this count, certainly lower than our all time high of 18 a few years ago, but a far cry better than so many years when it was difficult to even find one.

On a nice sunny calm day, these owls will often be found perched on top of a hydro pole or something similar. But on this quite windy day, they were all on the ground, and usually well out in the field.

A couple of woodpecker highlights included a single, young Red-headed Woodpecker, only the 6th time in 40 years one has been counted......

.....and 7 Northern Flickers.

Another highlight was a single young Yellow-headed Blackbird, only the third time one has been recorded in spite of a regular breeding location at the north end of the count circle.

As mentioned above, American Crows are by far the most abundant species. It really is quite a sight to see the thousands of birds congregating on fields and in trees.

There are various reasons for the Chatham part of Chatham-Kent being so popular for wintering crows, and for a fairly thorough discussion of this phenomenon, check out a previous blog post.

Some highlights of the SCNWA CBC

The 37th St. Clair National Wildlife Area Christmas Bird Count is now history. It is always a nice way to start off a new year, although in some years there has been some pretty horrible weather. This year it was almost too nice...sunny all day, very light wind and temperatures starting off a bit below freezing but for most of the day, above freezing.

So what is 'too nice' about it? The snow cover we had was completely gone, so birds were much more spread out to enjoy such great early January weather, making it more challenging for us counters! But that is okay....the birds needed a respite from the early snow and cold.

That being said, it was a successful count not only due to the great weather but overall slightly above average numbers of species.

This count began back in 1981 by staff of the Canadian Wildlife Service who had acquired a core area of this coastal wetland complex a few years earlier. I have only missed one or two years at the most, and have been the compiler since 1988. It has had its challenges. Much of the 24 km (15 mi) diameter count circle is wide open agricultural land, which does nothing to attract much bird diversity. A significant portion of the circle is Lake St. Clair, which is often frozen over. Historically the terrestrial part of the count circle would have been wet prairie or wetland, so woodland never was a dominant vegetation type.

SCNWA at a much warmer time of year

From a bird diversity standpoint, the best areas remaining are the immense wetland area along the shoreline of Lake St. Clair. One of the reasons they still exist and have not been converted to farmland is because decades ago, rich industrial executives liked to hunt ducks, and combined business with pleasure while out hunting. Hence the majority of the wetlands were once owned by well-to-do owners, and duck hunting was a priority. Fortunately many of these wetland owners still believe in the value of conserving wetlands, partly for the tradition of waterfowl hunting but also for the much larger benefit that wetlands provide to a huge diversity of wildlife. As a former hunter myself, I can understand the philosophy of hunting and conserving that go hand in hand.

When this CBC started in the early 1980s, the waterfowl hunting season typically ceased a day or so before Christmas, which meant that holding a count that included these private wetlands after the season ended was possible. A little later it was extended to the end of December, so an early January count was still possible. Currently, hunting continues into early January, and so unless things freeze up and the ducks are mostly gone, some private wetlands are not accessible for our count.

We are fortunate that we still have access to some of the best private wetlands. And of course there is the ~240 hectare (~600 acre) St. Clair NWA available.

My territory typically includes part of SCNWA, as well as a few small places elsewhere in the circle. This year I had the immense pleasure of counting birds in an adjacent private marsh. The marsh manager, whom I've known casually for several decades, allowed me in along with one other person, to view the baited area before the ducks were disturbed by the arrival of the morning's trailer load of corn. Once that arrived, most ducks at the feeding station would move elsewhere within the marsh, to the two or three other locations several hundred metres away where there was open water and lots of ducks.

The marsh manager even suggested that I climb up into a tree stand that partially looked out over the open areas where the ducks would re-locate to. It was a safe enough distance so that the ducks would not be disturbed. So I climbed the tree stand, carrying scope and binoculars, and watched. There were already several thousand ducks swimming in the open water or resting on the ice surrounding the water. By far the most numerous were Mallards, with a few Am Black Ducks and a handful of others, including Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Green-winged Teal, Gadwall, Hooded Merganser and Lesser Scaup. There were likely others, but they were so jam-packed it was impossible to see them all.

A few ducks and geese in the air....photo from last year's CBC

And then I heard a thundering rumble from the direction of the feeding station. In seconds, the sky was almost black with the arrival of several thousand more ducks! When all was said and done, I firmly believe there were upwards of 16000 ducks in that immediate area.

Unfortunately I only have memories of this. With my all of my optical gear, I didn't have my camera with me at this point. I'm not sure that a few frames taken with a still camera could capture the essence of this event anyway. But it is an event that I will likely never forget.

The rest of my day was not anti-climactic, but different from the first part. I travelled along one of the dikes of SCNWA with John, the marsh manager there. An adult Bald Eagle was noted in a tree.

Elsewhere in the trees along the dike were things like Brown Creeper and Downy Woodpecker. Creepers blend in so well at times!

There were lots of waterfowl here too, adjacent to a private marsh. Clearly they were contented geese!

Green-winged Teal in the centre

I did some more inland, non-wetland areas, but birds there were few and far between. There were the usual suspects, including White-breasted Nuthatches and Northern Cardinals.

Somewhat of a surprise, was to find a Tufted Titmouse. I have never had one in my territory before on this count.

A non-bird bit of interest was to come across an opossum out roaming around in broad daylight. It didn't stick around for long and most of my views were of it running away, but managed to get a couple of side view photos.

We had crows, as usual, and by far the most abundant species of bird on this count. It is difficult to get an accurate number, but our best estimates were about 126,000 birds.

Our total for this count was 84 species, a bit higher than our most recent 10 year average of 81 species. There were five count week species, including the Nelson's Sparrow that I wrote about in my previous blog. Blake, Pete, Sue and Don worked hard to try and relocate that bird so we could add it to the count day total, but it was not to be. Our record of 92 species was not in any danger of being broken.....maybe next year.