More Christmas Bird Count news, and the ABA Bird of the Year

 The Wallaceburg/Walpole Island Christmas Bird Count was last weekend, and as usual I joined in on the fun. My territory includes a long section of the St. Clair River north of Walpole Island as well as some inland areas. Usually the river is quite productive for waterfowl diversity, although this year wasn't one of those banner years. There was no ice on the river at all, not surprisingly given the warmer than usual weather. Overall there was an average diversity, and some were even close enough to get a few decent photos in spite of the gloomy light conditions. At least there were no harsh shadows caused by the bright sun!

While most ducks are generally well out from any access point, the protected area downstream from the former ferry access at Sombra never disappoints. There are always several dozen ducks to be seen, and are often quite close to shore where one can photograph them from a vehicle, with a little help from a good telephoto lens.

Redheads were one of the more common species to be seen.

Mallards were also in good numbers, as usual.

A duck closely related to Mallard is this American Black Duck, shown next. It used to be much more common than Mallard in Ontario, at least at the time of settlement and shortly afterwards. Their preferred breeding habitat is wooded wetlands, which are far less available in the past century or more.

Scaup were in good numbers as well, with the Greater Scaup, shown first, the most plentiful. Even at rest, they are easily separated from the Lesser Scaup by the rounded shape of the head.

Another feature to use, when visible, is the width of the black tip of the bill. This next photo shows the narrower black tip on a Lesser, compared to a black tip almost twice as wide on a Greater.

When the Lesser Scaup is resting, note the more peaked top of the head with a slight notch visible....

...the notch is also visible when the bird is not at rest.

Canada Geese are often quite abundant somewhere in my territory, but not so much this year. I saw a few out in a field, and a few in flight, but not nearly as many as usual.

One of the highlights for me was not so much a rare bird, but an opportunity to watch an adult Red-tailed Hawk in action. Most of the time when a vehicle approaches a hawk on a post, the bird leaves quickly even before the vehicle comes to a stop. I saw this bird on a post and decided to approach slowly to see what would happen. Instead of flying off, the bird dropped to the ground beneath it and proceeded to investigate the grassy ground cover. It was not perturbed enough to leave, and in fact even after I got a bunch of photos, I left and it was still probing the grass with its talons, probably hoping to grasp on to a mouse or vole that it had heard scurrying around.

The road I was on was not busy at all, fortunately, and the bird allowed me to get so close that I had to change my lens down to my 100-400 and even zoom back to about 300mm in order to get these photos. They are hardly cropped at all.

I'm not sure if the hawk was successful or not, as I went on my way after a few minutes and the bird was still hunting.

Photographing birds against the sky was not nearly as successful. I did manage to get a couple of shots of a somewhat wary Northern Flicker, but against the very bland grayish white sky the result was not wonderful. Even after a fair bit of processing, this is the best I could do.

My total for the day was a mere 32 species, quite a bit lower than my usual total of around 40 for this area. But land birds were few and far between and, as mentioned, even the water birds were less abundant than usual. The final total overall was 82 species.

A day or two later I went back out to Keith McLean Conservation Lands, hoping to have a more successful result in looking for the Nelson's Sparrow and Least Sandpiper. The previous two times I was out, the wind was much stronger than I had hoped, and had zero success at finding either of these birds. On this day, while it wasn't totally calm, it was much improved. On the way, I had a couple of Bald Eagles fly over, including this 3rd year bird which at one point almost flew directly overhead.

Again, the type of sky did not make photographing it any easier.

A muskrat was scurrying around at the water's edge before it realized a human was quite close by, causing it to scamper for deeper water.

I finally came across the Least Sandpiper, and it gave me some very good views and photo ops. I'm not sure how it will fare over the next few days with the weather forecast being what it is.

I did not see the Nelson's Sparrow, although there were a lot of sparrows moving through the cattail vegetation and disappearing before I could get a good look. There was the usual mix of American Tree Sparrows, Savannah Sparrows and Swamp Sparrows, but I could not pick out a Nelson's.

Just east of Shrewsbury, I came across a flock of 27 Sandhill Cranes feeding at the edge of a field.

In other news, the American Bird Association has announced its annual choice for Bird Of The Year. Usually it is a species that has more relevance to Ontario than this particular choice, and in the past it has included such species as Green Heron and Cedar Waxwing. However the BOTY for 2022 is Burrowing Owl, an impressive little owl with its piercing eyes, no question.

There has been the occasional record for Ontario, including one back in the late 1970s showing up at McGeachy Pond Conservation Area just outside of Erieau. A few years later one showed up briefly on Pelee Island. I saw the McGeachy Pond one, but did not get any photos. The bird shown here was scanned from a slide I took of one at the Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, back in 1986.

Tomorrow, January 1, 2022 is the 43rd St. Clair National Wildlife Area Christmas Bird Count. We've averaged slightly over 82 species over the last decade, with a high of 93 species in 2019. It will be interesting to see how this count fares, but given the deteriorating weather over the course of the day, won't likely set any new overall records. The record for Snowy Owls, currently at 18, may be in jeopardy, however. I was out yesterday and saw 12 different birds in a small, but important part of the count circle. There could easily be twice that many overall, but the question will be, will they be sitting out in a visible location if the forecast rain comes to pass?

Yesterday they were sitting up nicely, with 4 of them on poles or grain bins close to the road, while the others were well out in a field, or beside a post.

Happy New Year!

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Mega bird rarities of the Rondeau checklist area

Back to the rare birds series, and here is hoping that the production of this blog post is a little smoother and less problematic than the previous post! Nonetheless, I need to do a bit of revising since some of my birding friends have pointed out some things that I should have considered in my first version. Thanks, guys!

With 365 species of birds on the Rondeau checklist, there are some birds that are extremely rare, with maybe only one or two appearances in spite of the intensity of birding there over the past century or more. There are some species that I just don't have any photos of that fit into this mega rarity category, including species such as Passenger Pigeon or Eskimo Curlew, obviously, but also others that are not extinct and would include White-collared Swift, Thick-billed Murre, Northern Gannet and Northern Wheatear. The swift was seen by a single observer. The murre and the gannet were way before my time at Rondeau, and when the Wheatear showed up, I was out in southern Alberta. Maybe someday I will get have the privilege of seeing these species and get photos as well.

But here are 17 species that I would place in the mega rarity category that I do have photos of. Some of them will appear near the end, in what I consider a "mega-mega rarity" category due to their very unexpected presence. A quick note here: as often as possible I have included photos of the birds actually seen at Rondeau, but in a few cases, which will be noted, they were taken elsewhere.

This first photo is of a Cinnamon Teal. There are about three records for the Rondeau area, and two of them are from birds that were shot during the autumn waterfowl hunt. Identification of them in the autumn is much more challenging, and it is possible that there are records that have been missed. There has been only one record of this species in the spring breeding plumage, in the 1990s. The photo here was taken in southern Saskatchewan in July, 2018, with a single bird surrounded by Wilson's Phalaropes.

There have been a few, scattered records of this next species, Glossy Ibis. In fact one of my earlier birding memories at Rondeau was seeing 4 of these out along the South Beach while on a birding trip with the park staff, back in about 1966. The bird shown here was taken in May, 2019, at the Keith McLean Conservation Lands just outside the park.

Lark Bunting, shown next, has only been recorded on 2-3 occasions. I have not seen this species in the Rondeau checklist area, but did see one in Essex a few years ago. This photo was taken in July, 2018, near Grasslands National Park in southern Saskatchewan.

 Little Blue Herons show up in Ontario from time to time. However there have been very few records for the Rondeau area, less than half a dozen. The one below showed up along the causeway just outside the park in late August, 1982 and stayed around for a little more than a week. There have been a few records since, usually in late summer, but nothing that I have come across since 2000, where one was seen from August 26 until September 14, during which time it was reported by numerous birders.

 There have been a few records of this next species, Sabine's Gull but it is often very hard to come by. Records across Ontario are not plentiful, but with all of the waterbirds that come through Rondeau, it is a bit surprising that we only had the first record in November, 2007 following some stormy weather. I didn't see my first one in the Rondeau area until 2015, shown below. It was seen in the Erieau area, and the south beach of Rondeau is in the distant background here.

This next species, Sage Thrasher, could almost be considered in the mega-mega category. Prior to this one that occurred in April, 1981, I believe there had only been one accepted record for Ontario. I discovered this bird well out along the Marsh Road while I was trying to track down a Louisiana Heron. I did not immediately identify this bird, and even after I got several far more experienced birders to check it out, (e.g. the late Norm Chesterfield, Alan Wormington) and we all scratched our heads, did we decide it was a Sage Thrasher. The bird stayed around for at least three weeks along the southern half of the Marsh Trail, and since it was the first real opportunity for Ontario birders (and many birders beyond Ontario) had a chance to see it, there were probably well over a thousand people who trekked out to look for it. It isn't the greatest photo as it has been scanned from a slide. Due to its rarity and celebrity status, I didn't want to venture too close and risk scaring it. Of course the photo equipment I had at the time was not as high a quality as I eventually acquired. The likes of the late Dennis Rupert and Jim Flynn, both expert photographers with high end equipment, got better photos. An interesting little side story to this bird record is that because of its fairly extended presence, about a month later I had the opportunity to spend an hour or so birding along the Tuliptree Trail with none other than Roger Tory Peterson and one other Ontario birder.

 While the bird in the previous photo was the second Ontario record, Chatham-Kent, and specifically Rondeau, was to enjoy the presence of other Sage Thrashers over the next few years. This next photo was taken at the southern end of Rondeau in the early summer of 1985, of a bird that was only present as far as we know, for a couple of days. A few years later, a bird showed up in the winter in the Wallaceburg area. And in 2008, I had one on the Christmas Bird Count out on the Marsh Trail! I think I can safely say that I am the only one who has seen 4 Sage Thrashers in Chatham-Kent.

Members of the Flycatcher family are well known for their sometimes erratic migration, and they can show up most often in the late summer. Our first record for this next one, a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, was in 1987 not far from Blenheim. Another record was in the early 2000s just outside of Rondeau, which is the bird that I saw briefly. The bird shown here is of a nice adult which I photographed in southwestern Missouri in 2009, a place where they are much more likely to be seen than in southern Ontario.

There have been a handful of records for Yellow-crowned Night-Heron in the Rondeau area, but for some reason, none in the last two decades. This first photo shows an adult that appeared along a slough on the Tuliptree Trail in May of 1990 and was seen by at least a few folks.

 This next one is a photo of an immature bird that spent some time in a slough just south of Gardiner Avenue and was seen by many over the course of the day or so it remained.

 Western Grebe is a species that for some reason is not often encountered in the Rondeau area. In fact this is the only record, and it occurred off the south beach of Rondeau in mid June of 2013. I trekked out the South Beach to get this photo. It was also seen by a few birders from Erieau, but only with 'scope views. This species likely passes through on rare occasion but is just missed, as it is seen with more frequency at the eastern end of Lake Erie and the western end of Lake Ontario.

The next few bird records are what I would consider to be "Mega-mega" rarities, although it is a personal choice as some of them aren't really any more rare than ones in the first part of this post.

There are relatively few records of Black Skimmer anywhere in Ontario. I believe there are no more than three, including the one shown here. It was present at Erieau and the south beach of Rondeau for several days in September of 1981. I think the only previous Ontario record was a flyby along Lake Ontario, and only seen by one or two birders. The bird here was seen by many especially since one could drive up to the edge of the pier and 'peer' across the channel to see it surrounded by various gulls.

There is only one or maybe two records for Brown Pelican at Rondeau. I have not seen it in the Rondeau checklist area, although the one shown here I photographed in Chatham-Kent at Wheatley harbour in late August, 2013.

There is one record for Burrowing Owl, a bird which showed up at the McGeachy Pond area back in late June of 1977. It was around for a couple of weeks. I saw the bird, but did not get any photos. The photo shown here is one I took at Grasslands National Park, in southern Saskatchewan, in June of 1986.

 The following dead specimen is of Cassin's Kingbird. I found it along the southeast beach in late November of 2013. Although it is now on the park's checklist, no one can count it since it was already dead when discovered. As mentioned previously, members of the flycatcher group are known for showing up well out of their range following, presumably, a mis-direction in their migration. I seem to recall that this bird was only the second or third record for Ontario. I think there has been one since.

 Still on the mis-directed theme associated with flycatchers, this next one fits as well. It is a Say's Phoebe, a western species found in late September of 2018, in a farm yard a bit north of Erieau. Interestingly this was the second one of this species for the Rondeau area, and credit goes to the Burks, Jim and Keith, who found both of them. The first one was in another farm setting only a couple of kilometers or so east of this one. I only got some distant photos of the first one, so will use photos of this second sighting which turned out much better. Way to go guys!

I'm not sure how many Western Tanagers have been discovered in southern Ontario, but they are very few and far between. The one shown here occurred at the southern end of Lakeshore Road at Rondeau in mid-May of 2011. Fortunately it was in prime time for many birders, so although it didn't stay around for a long time, it was seen by a fair number of birders.

During the general mid-summer lull of birding, this next one was discovered in very early July of 2012. It is a Magnificent Frigatebird, and it was present in the Rondeau area for a few days. The best views were from a boat off shore of the South Beach (thanks Ric & Anne!) as it perched at the top of an Eastern Cottonwood tree for several hours. It was apparently first seen a few kilometres east of Rondeau during some Canada Day celebrations the day before. There have been a very few records of this species showing up briefly in southern Ontario in the years before and after this record. It is likely that such birds got caught up in some severe hurricane type storms that arrived from the south and got blown well north of their normal more tropical range.

Last, and certainly not least, of the Mega-mega rarities is this next one: Great Kiskadee. It is not a species known for meandering beyond their normal range of the extreme southwestern USA and Mexico and even farther south. So for this one to show up and cooperate/tease/tantalize thousands of birders for a week to ten days at a time, off and on from early September until early December of 2018, was nothing short of phenomenal. It is the first Canadian record, and since it spent its entire known time at Rondeau in the north end, including the beginning of the Marsh Trail, and the southern end of the campground, birders who put in a bit of time were guaranteed to have satisfying to excellent, if not crippling, views.

There will be a couple of articles in an upcoming issue of Ontario Birds, the official publication of the Ontario Field Ornithologists, so for any member of OFO, be on the lookout for it. One article has been written by Laura Rainbow Dragon, the finder of this incredible bird, while I have written a related article discussing a bit of background on this species and some extralimital records.

There are a few other species which I would love to feature as part of this series, including Tropical Kingbird, Black Rail, Lazuli Bunting, Gyrfalcon, Bell's Vireo, Bewick's Wren, Swainson's Warbler, Black-throated Gray Warbler, Painted Bunting, etc. but I have yet to get photos of them. Perhaps in a future post if I am so fortunate to photograph them!