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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Hawks on the move, Baird's Sandpiper and a late season orchid

 When I haven't been out with the black light, there are always lots of other things to enjoy. Just a few days ago, Marie called my attention to a large group of birds swirling overhead in the back yard. Given the time of year, I immediately thought of Broad-winged Hawks on the move, so I grabbed my camera and headed out. 

Broad-winged Hawks, indeed. One could see them arising from a woodlot east of home, likely Paxton's Bush or another one even farther east at the edge of town. They weren't in full kettle mode, so they were just lifting off from their overnight accommodations.

This first image just captures a part of a group. I counted 158 birds in this one, but there were many more beyond what I captured. There were  probably 200-250 birds in this single group. Over about a 30 minute period, there were quite a few groups of various sizes, some at least as large as this one, along with numerous smaller groups and even a few singles.

Quite a few flew directly overhead as I stood in the back yard, or just outside the fence to get a less obstructed view.

Of course there was a mix of birds, including adults, shown next....

....and sub-adults, like this one.

Overall, I estimated there were at least 2000 birds that flew over the yard, or within sight of it. It was certainly the largest number of Broad-wings I had seen from the yard in many years. There was an occasional Turkey Vulture and Red-tailed Hawk mixed in with them, and likely others.

Broad-winged Hawks in these numbers are not typical in this immediate area. Usually they make their way to the north shore of Lake Erie, using the thermals of rising air to soar and glide. But the lake doesn't produce these thermals, so they use northwesterly winds to carry them along the lake shore to where they can cross at the narrowest point, which is at the Detroit River, before continuing southwards to their wintering grounds. However when they are on the move and the winds are predominantly easterly, they may travel farther inland, resulting in the occasional soaring over places like our yard, before continuing west and southwest.

Sticking with bird highlights, I have been to Rondeau on occasion, but sometimes more for some exercise and botanizing, although always keeping an eye open for birds. There have been various warblers, but they were most often seen darting across the trails from one dense stand of shrubbery to another, so getting a photo was next to impossible. I did manage to get a quick, back lit shot of a Blackpoll Warbler, which seemed to be the most common species when I was around, so not surprising that it was one I managed to photograph.

There were a few vireos around as well, including this Red-eyed Vireo.

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks were scattered here and there, and occasionally sat on an open branch long enough for a photo.

There are other things to see as well, including this Tall Bellflower, which has normally finished flowering weeks ago....

...and this White Snakeroot, which is in more or less peak flowering condition these days.

Another one that is usually fairly common these days is White Rattlesnake Root.

 

I was in the vicinity of a known population of the endangered Red Mulberry, so grabbed some photos of its characteristic large, pie-plate sized leaves, with long drip tips.

In some of the recently mowed areas, there were a few of these Great Plain's Ladies' Tresses in various stages of flowering. It is not officially rare, but is not common either. It is widely scattered across southern Ontario, and can be fairly abundant if the conditions are right (open sandy grassy areas, that have not been mowed for several weeks).

It has a characteristic strong fragrance, reminding me of a particular type of hot plastic. Another feature is to see the humped shape of the individual flower and the yellowish centre of the down turned lip.

A visit to the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons can be worthwhile, although sometimes it is anything but. However on one of my returns from Rondeau I stopped here and found it worthwhile. There were quite a few gulls hawking over some of the ponds, mostly Ring-billed Gulls. There must have been a large number of insects flying about to get their attention. As expected, both adults and sub-adults were in the mix of a couple of hundred gulls.

I saw this Red-necked Phalarope from quite a distance. The light was better for this photo, but due to the distance it was greatly cropped.

I did manage to get to a closer spot, but the bird was back lit, so even with a bit of extra processing, this is the best I could do.

A dozen of more Northern Shovelers were swimming back and forth with their characteristic 'bill in the water'  style as they swam around, their wide bills scooping or filtering small items to gobble down. Again, most of the time they were back lit.

Some of the local Ruddy Ducks were at a distance, but this one was trying to keep a low profile in a build-up of floating vegetation.

It eventually must have realized that it wasn't as well hidden as it thought, so sat up a little more and swam away.

Lesser Yellowlegs were, as usual, the most abundant shorebird.

But the highlight for me on this visit was to get a fairly cooperative Baird's Sandpiper in view, and I was able to get a few shots. The somewhat brownish colour of this 'peep' along with the longer wingtips that extend beyond the tail, are key features for identification. It is not a common species at any time, but typically show up in ones or twos in the autumn migration. The greenish colour in the water is a result of some kind of chemical that is used for the sewage lagoon water treatment process. I do not know what it is, and I hope it is not detrimental to any birds there.

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Some hawk migration observations

Hawk migration is just getting well underway these days, as one can see from the various hawk watching reports. Hawk Cliff just south of St. Thomas, Holiday Beach in southwestern Essex County and the Detroit River Hawk Watch in eastern Michigan adjacent to the Detroit River, are the best known and most prolific sites in the region. Daily watches since about the first of September have resulted in between 1300 and almost 2000 birds being recorded passing through so far.

These migrating raptors follow the Lake Erie shoreline, since they don't like to cross large open stretches of water, and exit the province where the water is the narrowest. Hence places along the Detroit River are where the birds are eventually most concentrated.

However before the birds get to the Detroit River many pass through southern Chatham-Kent, and near the shoreline is often a good place to watch from. Winds from the NE-N-NW are typically good conditions to help the birds to move.

Yesterday, Saturday Sept 13, the winds were fairly brisk from the N-NW which is usually favourable. However the heavy overcast conditions were not the best for hawk watching, at least initially, but when the forecast indicated some clearing in the afternoon, I ventured out. But I went to a more local place. The shoreline east of Rondeau and south of Morpeth is one of the better locations. And since a rare Swainson's Hawk had been reported from the Hawk Cliff site the day before, I was hoping I could find it passing through the Rondeau area!

Initially there wasn't much movement. Almost immediately a single Sharp-shinned Hawk flew through fairly low down. I decided to get my camera ready in anticipation of more action. The raptor movement was rather sporadic, which is par for the course. From time to time, there were several birds in view, and then there were stretches of 10-15 minutes or so without a single bird to be seen.

As the sky cleared a bit, the birds got a little more active. Overall in the almost two hours I was there, I observed 34 raptors of 7 species: Sharp-shinned Hawk--14; Cooper's Hawk--1; American Kestrel--2; Broad-winged Hawk--2; Merlin--1, Bald Eagle--7; Turkey Vulture--7.



Photography wasn't the easiest, since much of the sky was still partly cloudy. And the birds were on the move, of course, and mostly quite distant. However I got a few shots.

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Broad-winged Hawk

 This isn't the normal profile one expects of a Broad-wing on migration. However due to the brisk wind and cloudy skies, there weren't any thermals of rising air to float upwards and along on. So today their wings and tail weren't showing the typical look.

Broad-winged Hawk

Bald Eagle juvenile

Bald Eagle adult

It is possible that one of the sub-adult eagles I saw was double counted, so I may have only seen 6, not 7. At one point I did have three eagles in view simultaneously. Photos of these birds were a challenge. Even though the camera set-up I was using was the equivalent of a 12X binocular, with the birds being mostly a kilometre or more away, I had to do some heavy cropping to even get these!

Alas, I didn't see a Swainson's Hawk. But I did see this.

Gashawk (not a raptor :-)

The Broad-winged Hawks should be moving in large numbers in the next week or so. Mostly sunny skies with light NW winds are ideal for them to move in substantial numbers. Usually upwards of 100,000 of them are recorded from one or more of the hawk watch sites over the course of the season. On one occasion several years ago, the Holiday Beach site recorded about 80,000 in one day! Kettles of them can be seen almost anywhere slightly inland from the Lake Erie shoreline. I am looking forward to getting out again soon!