Roaming around south Chatham-Kent

 There have been lots of nice days to be out lately. Other things pop up so I don't get out every day, but in spite of the current lock down, I've managed to check out a few places.

Erieau, both the town site and nearby McGeachy Pond CA and Rail Trail sites near by have been some of my target places. The Bonaparte's Gulls have arrived in fairly good numbers for the time of year, and the marina at Erieau is a great spot to get a close view with photo opportunities. While the Bonaparte's are plentiful one always can hope for something a little less common. The Bonies are in various stages of plumage development, and this first one is looking pretty well complete in its breeding plumage.

Forster's Terns have arrived, pretty much on schedule. They can be hard to photograph, as they dipsy-doodle around and not always in the best light.

Horned Grebes are fairly abundant. These next shots show the variability in plumage as they shift from basic winter to alternate breeding plumage.

Killdeer have been back for awhile, and are well into the nesting cycle. When I pulled in to a parking spot to look over the marina, I no sooner turned the vehicle off that this one came right up to me squawking. Clearly I knew that a nest was likely near by, so I didn't move or even get out of the truck for awhile.

The adult put on quite a show, trying to lure me out of the area with its broken-wing act.

I eventually got out and walked carefully so as not to step on any eggs. I figured I had either parked right over top or had driven over the nest, so wanted to look around to see. After a bit of gull and tern shooting, I discovered this nest with one egg, and carefully moved the vehicle and left.

A subsequent trip two days later indicated that the nesting process had continued with now three eggs. I parked along the roadside since I knew where the nest was, and didn't want to upset the adults any further. They were a lot less concerned on this visit. But with the nest right in the middle of a parking area, it might not remain undamaged to completion.

Along the McGeachy Pond trail there weren't many birds to see close by, but there were several hundred birds of various species out on the lake, including at least 100 Red-breasted Mergansers and 150 or more Bonaparte's Gulls, all diving after what I presume was a school of fish swimming below. There were a few Ring-billed Gulls mixed in, as well as a Little Gull, but I couldn't get its photo.

There were a few logs along the trail that had turtles busy soaking up some sun. Most were Blanding's Turtle, the larger turtle with the yellow throat and considered Rare in Ontario, and a few Midland Painted Turtles, the two smaller turtles to the right of this next photo.

The Rail Trail is often worth a visit, and the light for photography is usually better later in the afternoon. There were several pairs of Northern Shovelers near by.....

 

.....and lots of Blue-winged Teal.

Several Canada Geese were quietly resting....

...and then all of a sudden, there was a mass exodus of many of the ducks. Before I discovered what the confusion was, the ducks had noticed this adult Bald Eagle approaching overhead and not all that high up.

Teal in flight

Gadwall

 The resident Mute Swans did not seem to be bothered, however.

Female Mute Swan on a nest

Around home we don't have a lot of bird action, but sometimes it pays to keep an eye out the window. Unfortunately with the window facing east, the light isn't the best for early birds, but you do what you can. We have had 2-3 Red-breasted Nuthatches hanging around for several days....

.....and three female Brown-headed Cowbirds sat on a nearby limb for a few minutes.

A recent stop at the Keith McLean Conservation Area resulted in seeing much the same species of waterfowl as what I had noted at the Rail Trail. But a couple of Great Egrets were present, although decided to get up and leave to a more distant part of the wetland complex.

Getting to Rondeau is always worth the time, although on occasion one wonders where the birds might be. There are often a few spring wildflowers to check out, including:

Carolina Spring Beauty

Cut-leaved Toothwort

Colt's-foot (not native)

Other things aren't surviving quite as well. This little Northern Brown Snake was attempting to cross the road at the designated crossing on Lakeshore Road for the Tuliptree Trail. Unfortunately it lingered too long, or the driver did not see it, or both. It will now likely be a meal for some scavenger.

Yellow-rumped Warblers are arriving in small numbers, and a few other warbler species have shown up in ones or twos. It won't be long, hopefully, that there will be 25-30 species seen in a single day!

I had this male Eastern Bluebird hanging out in what appears to be a good territory for it. I didn't see its mate, but will keep a lookout for it to confirm nesting for the current Breeding Bird Atlas.

There is no question that the bird highlight of the last few days has been the sighting of a Black Vulture initially along the east side of the park. I was otherwise occupied, doing some gardening things at home so wasn't able to get to the park to see it. However I have seen this rarity a couple of times before, including one inside the park back in 2000, and the one below, just outside the park.

March 15, 2009

Maybe this one will stick around for a few more days to greet the birders who are exploring the area.

Waterbird photo ops

One of the highlights of this time of year is the photographic opportunities for water birds. The bird migration is just getting underway in late winter, and where there are bits of open water water birds, and in particular water fowl, are sure to show up. If those bits of open water can be approached easily, the photo ops can be tremendous. But with the rain and warmer weather (finally!) in the immediate forecast, those photo opportunities will be diminishing as quickly as the open water increases. Waterfowl are in their most colourful breeding plumage right now, and sometimes the males can be seen going through their impressive displays in their attempts to attract the attention of a potential mate.

The Thames River just downstream from Chatham has been very worthwhile lately, as the water treatment plant pours water into the river, maintaining at least some open water in even the coldest weather.

There are always a few of the most common species, such as Canada Goose and Mallard.

 Mallards are usually one of the most common ducks here in southwestern Ontario most of the year. Birders don't have to seek them out, as if any ducks are around, Mallards are most likely to be found; although birders have been known to say "Oh, it's just a Mallard" before looking for something less common, a male in breeding plumage is really quite an attractive duck.

Far less common at the Thames River location is American Black Duck, although at places like the Erieau harbour area, they can outnumber Mallards in the winter.

Some of the highlights found at the Thames River location in recent days are the following:

Common Goldeneye

Gadwall

Green-winged Teal pair

Hooded Merganser

 Most of the time the crest is down, but when it is trying to impress a female, it will raise it up.

Northern Pintail pair

Northern Shoveler

Sewage lagoons can be a good location to check. The Ridgetown lagoons on the north side of the road were still frozen over yesterday with no waterfowl except for two Canada Geese on the bank, but the ones on the south side had an open stretch of water with a variety of waterfowl. The light is never all that great looking into the sun, so the cloudy day made it a little more satisfying even though the birds were not very close. There were a couple of less common birds there, including these two Snow Geese, with both a snow and a blue phase.

 Much less expected was this Long-tailed Duck! It is much more likely to be seen on large bodies of water such as the nearby Great Lakes and the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers. I'm not sure if one has ever been seen at these lagoons before.

Other spots with a bit of open water will attract other water birds. The creek along Stefina Line southeast of Blenheim has been reasonably reliable for Wilson's Snipe yet again this winter, but in the last few days there have sometimes been two seen. It is entirely possible that they have both been winter residents, as this species doesn't normally arrive on migration quite yet, and there has been a good stretch of open water in this creek for most of the winter. Lately a Killdeer has been seen along with them. This next photo show all three birds sort of together, with the Killdeer on the left and the two snipe on the right. The far one is not in focus, however.

Earlier in this post I mentioned that waterfowl can sometimes be seen involved their courtship displays. One really needs to have a video to illustrate this, but I haven't achieved that yet. One of the more entertaining species, at least from a birder's perspective, is the Red-breasted Merganser.

Exciting times are ahead!

Ahhh....Indian summer

You gotta love the weather here in southwestern Ontario these last few days. Mostly sunny, light winds, temperatures in the 18-22C range. While this would qualify as Indian summer in most people's books, the Old Farmer's Almanac, which has been passing along its wisdom since 1792 would disagree, however. According to the almanac, to qualify as Indian summer you must have warm--check--dry weather--check--following a decent frost--check--in November--check--with clear chilly nights--check--but it has to occur sometime between Nov 11 and Nov 20! I'm not sure why it has such a restricted time frame. There are some attempts to describe it on their web site, but it doesn't seem to adequately explain why it has to happen in this 10 day stretch. For more information on this, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac, see what they say here. Regardless, I think most people would consider the weather of these past few days as a prime example of Indian summer, when the leaves that remain on the trees are mostly golden.

All that aside, I don't think many people would complain about the weather from Monday-Thursday of this week, other than those who will go unnamed but who have lamented nice weather during the week only to have crappy weather on the weekend :-). However the weekend weather doesn't look all that bad, so we shall see....

I've been able to be out and about several times these last few days, fortunately, and most often to locations in southern Chatham-Kent. I went looking for the Townsend's Solitaire one day, but it turns out that it was a single 'solitairy' occurrence on Nov 1, at least for now. But it is still likely somewhere in the park. The one that showed up back in April of 2011 showed up for one day at the parking lot of the South Point Trail, and then disappeared for about a week when one, and presumably the same one, showed up just a bit north of the Visitor Centre for a day.

There were lots of Cedar Waxwings feeding in the tree where the solitaire had been seen...probably at least 40.....and by the middle of the week, almost all of the berries that had been abundant on the cedar tree were now gone.

There were also lots of American Robins in the area, and on occasion a Red-bellied Woodpecker, which is always nice to see.

Butterflies were fairly common considering the time of year. There were lots of Cabbage Whites and Clouded Sulphurs, an Eastern Comma, a couple of Common Buckeyes and, somewhat surprisingly, 6 Monarchs trying to migrate along the east side of the park. At this point it is highly unlikely that the Monarch will make it to Mexico.

Clouded Sulphur

Eastern Comma

Monarch

On one occasion while I was taking a short snack break and sitting in the car, I noticed a good looking buck venture out from the trail along the south end of the maintenance compound. It didn't seem to mind my presence from a distance, and fortunately I had the telephoto lens right beside me. Notice the swelled neck. That is what happens to bucks during the mating season, with an increased blood flow to the muscles of the neck in preparation for the tugging and pushing of other bucks who are vying for a mate.

I ventured out the Marsh Trail one day, hiking about 10-11 kilometres out to Long Pond and back. It was a bit breezier than I would have liked that day, and it kept the bird sounds and chips covered up. I saw the usual mix of Fox Sparrows, White-crowned and White-throated Sparrows, Rusty Blackbirds, etc. And there was other types of fauna scattered here and there as well, especially herps: Spring (Fall?) Peepers, Leopard and Green Frogs, Eastern Garter Snakes and a single Northern Brown Snake.

Eastern Garter Snake

Northern Brown Snake

And there were many dozens of Autumn (a.k.a. Yellow-legged) Meadowhawks.

Just after turning back from Long Pond, I noticed a couple of Sandhill Cranes standing quietly not too far away in the cattails and Phragmites. I could see that they were not going to stay there long, and so I got prepared for them to take flight. They jumped up in sync and circled around before heading towards the south end of the marsh, yodeling their trumpet like call all the way.

There was a fair bit of Asparagus along the trail, quite obvious with its pale green and feathery leaves and bright red fruit.

I noticed a Red Cedar along the side of the trail with two of its three small trunks lying on the ground. A closer examination of it identified the tell-tale markings of Beaver gnawing.

Beaver don't normally chow down on conifers, but since there aren't many of their choicest items around, including poplar, willow, birch and the like, I guess this animal tried to make do. I'm not sure what his plans were for it, as there wasn't any evidence that it attempted to drag it away to its lodge for consuming.

I also came across this undesirable species of wildlife along the trail. Feral cats, which are not native, of course, have huge impacts on wildlife, especially in natural areas.

Has anyone been out to the observation tower along the Marsh Trail? I hadn't seen it for at least a month, but was concerned when I realized that two of the posts closest to the bay were not looking good.

It was evident that someone, presumably park staff, have stacked up a few sand bags around the posts, but that is a very temporary solution at best. Who knows what the winter storms and moving ice might do to this tower?

I also spent a bit of time along the Erieau Rail Trail and the waterfront. As expected, there is a huge number of waterfowl, especially ducks, in what is locally known for very good reason as Duck Bay. At least 10-15,000 birds are spread out from this southwest corner of the bay all the way to Shrewsbury, and there are still shorebirds using the mudflats and vegetation mats, but one needs a high-powered scope to see them well.

On occasion a few ducks were in the air, and did a reasonably close fly by such as these Gadwall did.

I didn't see the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher that has been seen by others, but I did catch up to the Northern Parula that has been hanging out for several days. It was seen again on Nov 5, which makes it one day later than the previous late date for this species in the Rondeau checklist circle. The bird was in the shade against a bright sky, so it wasn't the easiest to photograph. I had to do more than the usual tweaking on the computer to get it at least recognizable.

So all in all, an excellent few days to be out. I wonder what the change in weather will bring? More northern birds, maybe even a few more Snowy Owls (one was seen from the Erieau trail earlier this week)?

This is the time of year when White-tailed Deer have mating in mind, so be careful when driving the roads!