Rare birds and herps

 I've been fortunate to have encountered quite a few rare, threatened or endangered bird and reptile species lately. Of course in the part of the province, the chance of encountering such creatures is higher than many other parts of Ontario. Some are permanent residents, while other are regular breeding species. Still others are just passing through, or way off their usual migration route.

I've also been fortunate to have encountered them with some very good photographic conditions. A prime example is the Acadian Flycatcher, currently featured at the head of my blog and in a previous post. It continues to cooperate, and I have gotten some additional good photos while showing it to a park staff person.

On another occasion, I specifically went out to see if one of the breeding Prothonotary Warblers would be cooperative. I had photographed it on a couple of earlier occasions this month, but always from a distance. On this day, as I approached its breeding territory on the boardwalk, several other folks were trying to photograph something almost right over the boardwalk. As I cautiously approached, it was clear that a female Prothonotary was busily poking through some spider web material. After a few moments of this, it headed directly to the nest box about 25 metres away. Although the light wasn't ideal, I shot it anyway. It is slightly less brilliantly coloured than its male counterpart.

That was the only time she was out in our area, but the male flew in very close on several occasions. At times the light wasn't great, but at other times is was about as good as one could hope for. These next two examples of several photos I took are some of the best ones I think I have ever gotten! They were taken with the full frame 5D3 and the 500mm lens, and not cropped very much.

I was quite pleased with the photographic efforts so far, as I should be. Yet while I was arriving home, I got a text message from Steve that two Glossy Ibis had been reported at the end of Angler Line, a bit south of Mitchell's Bay, along Lake St. Clair. My plans to arrive home were delayed a bit, as I headed towards the spot.

None were visible at first, and even after Steve arrived we saw no sign of them. As we were pondering what to do next in our search, one flew up from behind some cattail vegetation, then another and then a third! They didn't land in a good spot for photography, but they moved around a bit more and eventually landed out on the open side of the cattails. It turned out there were four of them. They were still a bit farther away than we would have liked (a typical birder/photographer lament :-) but eventually we got some fairly good record shots. These are heavily cropped.

I still hadn't been at the right place at the right time to see any Whimbrel, in spite of spending the equivalent of several hours over several days looking out at the lake. The south beach was a likely spot, so Kevin and I headed out to check on whatever we could find out there. The south beach has always been one of my favourite spots in Rondeau, due to the sometimes wild weather conditions as well as the wide open view of the lake, bay and marsh. The narrow sandspit is a draw for birds. So off we went. We saw many of the more common shorebirds, including Ruddy Turnstone, Semipalmated Plover, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Sanderling, etc. And eventually we came across 28 Whimbrel, which at first were not giving us any good photo ops, but eventually they did.

There were hundreds of gulls, most of which were Ring-billed and Herring, but we also saw a Lesser Black-backed Gull, and a single Little Gull which we saw clearly but were not able to photograph until it headed out over the lake. This is a poor record shot.

We also had a very cooperative Eastern Tiger Swallowtail stop by to sip something from a small area of wet sand.

On the herp/reptile side of things, some of them are becoming more visible in the warmer and sunnier weather. Unfortunately this first one, an Eastern Hog-nose Snake, will not be with us any more. It is, quite sadly, quite dead. Some folks had seen it writhing around, and at first thought it may have just been going through some of its defensive antics the species is know for. It will wriggle and writhe, and play dead when it feels threatened and any escape route is not available. However this one was fighting for its life and breathing its last. It was disgorging two American Toads, the largest one is shown below. But after a few minutes it stopped moving. I was told about it (thanks, Mike!), and after I came off the trail I had been hiking, went to the spot and found it quite dead. The second photo shows a close-up of its upturned snout, from which it gets its name. There was some speculation that the snake had bitten off more than it could chew, and was choking on the two toads. It didn't make a lot of sense, since even though toads will inflate themselves when threatened to appear much too big for a snake to consume, this snake species has a couple of teeth towards the back of its mouth specifically designed to puncture a toad, deflate it and make it manageable. So I was interested to hear from Kevin that when he checked it out, he could tell that there were several parts of its rib cage and vertebrae that had been crushed. While there was no outward injury visible, which would have been the case had it been run over by a car, it is most likely that the snake was run over by a bicycle and did enough damage to effectively kill it. So sad, when you consider that it is a species at risk in Ontario, and quite a rare find at Rondeau since it occupies the pine-oak forest community and edges, which are some of the most developed parts of the park. And this one was a very mature individual which had the potential to add to its population for a few years yet.

A much more positive encounter was one I had with this Eastern Fox Snake, a species at risk, seen on Harrison Trail. I had just come back from birding, and noticed it quite motionless. I suspect it was hoping its pattern might make it less noticeable and that I would pass it by. After getting a few shots with my camera I did, and when I came back a few minutes later with a different lens combination hoping for some better photos, it had moved on.

Ontario's only lizard, the Five-lined Skink, is another species at risk, and occurs in various spots at Rondeau. While I was hiking along Tuliptree Trail, I noticed at least three of them meandering around a large fallen tree.

On another occasion, I came across an Eastern Ribbon Snake basking on the same tree trunk. It is also an official species at risk.

It looks very much like the much more common Eastern Garter Snake, but has a more defined black and yellow striping, as well as a small white spot in front of its eye.

So much to see and photograph!

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!

Glossy Ibis, Eared Grebe and other bird highlights, part 1

There is so much to see and photograph these days. Many birders have taken these last few days off and spent many hours a day birding. For various reasons, I have only been out to Rondeau 2-3 times in the last week, but still managed to see quite a bit. Of course warblers are one of the main draws, as the ~30 species pass through in large numbers, even in the thousands some days, and it is always a treat to see 20-25 or more of these species in a single day. But there are so many other birds and things to feast ones eyes on, and this post will highlight some of those that I have tracked down or stumbled across.

One of the highlights of these past few days was the Glossy Ibis that was discovered at the Keith McLean Conservation Lands, just north of Rondeau. It was not an easy bird to catch up to. Many birders stopped and checked, without success, according to eBird lists. The small parking lot was often fairly full. I did eventually see this bird. The usual vantage point to look over the wetland and see it required trudging through a bit of water, especially on those days when Rondeau Bay, and subsequently the KMCL was affected by high water levels due to the wind. Even the pathway to the observation tower was under water. And once you got to the top of the tower and managed to see where the bird was, this first photo was sometimes about as good a look as one would get. Certainly not great, and this was at an equivalent of about 16X.

Glossy Ibis, the dark spot in the centre

Not being satisfied with such a poor view even after waiting for awhile and hoping the bird would come out from behind all the dead cattails, I decided to walk around to the bridge. This was not easy considering the amount of water and mud one had to slog through. The trail was totally underwater and very muddy, as were the field edges. But the angle of view was better, and once I got to the bridge and walked along the edge downstream looking back, this next photo is the best I could get, still at about 16X.

Obviously it was an improvement, and after waiting a bit longer, the bird wandered to a point where it was even more out in the open. The second photo below is at an equivalent of about 96X, not super sharp but the best I was able to get. Fortunately it was overcast, so the light was a little more even without the harshness to contend with.

This bird would undoubtedly be a life bird for some who saw it, and a new Chatham-Kent or Rondeau bird for others. I had my first observation of this species back on May 22, 1971 along the south beach, where 4 of them had been present for several days. There haven't been very many at Rondeau in between then and now!

An Eared Grebe in prime breeding plumage has been at the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons for several days. It is possible that it is the same one that was at Erieau a couple of weeks ago. The bird has been very reluctant to give satisfying photo opportunities even with good telephoto equipment, so I dug out this photo of one I took in Saskatchewan in 2017.

 The White-winged Dove continues at various places along Lakeshore Road south of the visitor centre. No sign of a mate yet, but there have been several other reports this spring in southwestern Ontario, so it still may happen.

 On some days there has been a profusion of brightly coloured birds, such as Scarlet Tanager.....

 ......and Baltimore Oriole.

 Orchard Orioles are far less common, since southwestern Ontario is more or less at the northern extent of their breeding range. It is nice to get a photo or two of them in a natural setting.......

 ....but it sure doesn't hurt to have a few oranges around!

 Pine Siskins have been hard to come by this winter and spring. I got my first one of the year this past week, at the Visitor Centre feeders.

Red-headed Woodpeckers have been in serious decline for a few years, and in some years it is hard to find a single one even though they used to be a fairly common breeding species here. For some reason they have been a bit more abundant this year. On one day, I saw 4 birds.

 With all the low wet spots in the park, Solitary Sandpipers are enjoying the conditions even if campers and hikers are not. This one was in an otherwise unoccupied campsite. I didn't see that it had a permit.

 Thrushes are fairly plentiful. This Veery was apparently much more intent in feeding along the Warbler's Way Trail (still not used to that name.....) than it was with the birders close by.

 House Wrens are busily cleaning out old homes, in preparation for a new season.

 The cooler weather on some days meant insect activity was closer to the ground, and that meant that insect eating birds such as this Great Crested Flycatcher was down at eye level or below instead of way up in the tree tops.

 A nice surprise was to find out about this roosting cavity of an Eastern Screech Owl along Bennett Ave. Screech Owls are fairly common in Rondeau and elsewhere, but finding a roosting hole that is visible from the road is a treat. A few weeks ago while I was calling for owls one evening just a hundred metres or so from where this owl is, I had 4 Screech Owls responding. Chances are this one was one of those calling back to me.

 While walking the trails, one has to be aware of some of the park's residents also on the trail. This Eastern Garter Snake must have been just warming up, as it did not move at all, and enabled me to get this photo from less than a metre away. I literally had to step right over it, and it never even flicked its tongue out.

 On one occasion my birding colleagues and I were searching at the north end of the park for a reported Brewster's Warbler. While that particular effort was not successful (more on that in the next post), we paused at the road and saw a Cooper's Hawk fly in. It was a male and had something in its talons. It proceeded to pick away at it very briefly. After a bit of chittering, another Cooper's Hawk flew in, this one was a female, and almost immediately they got a little romantic. Copulation took place, as depicted in the next photo.

 The male left and the female ate what remained of the bird, which appeared to be a young robin.

 When she was finished with the robin, she picked up a twig and flew off to a White Pine, where we noticed a nest. She is in the nest in this next photo. A close look will show her tail sticking out of the nest just to the right of centre.

 One evening as the wind was quietening and the sun was setting, I decided to take a walk out the Marsh Trail. The high water and regular pounding of the waves has caused a great deal of damage to this road. This next photo was taken from about the same location as where the Great Kiskadee was first discovered last September. It is looking north, a little way south of the last cottage, which you can see the top of here in the upper right hand corner.

Rondeau is a dynamic sandspit, and this is nature in action. It is a bit hard to believe, but as recently as the early 1970s this road was about 100 metres from the edge of the bay, with some excellent semi-open marsh in between. Now the waters of Rondeau Bay are cutting right through the road as this photo shows.

The most heavily damaged section of the road is in the first 400 metres or so south of the last cottage. From there on, it is more or less the same as it has been, at least for now. I must admit that I felt a bit melancholy while walking this damaged area. Having access to the marsh trail has been such an incredible opportunity to explore parts of the vast ~400 hectare (1000 acre) Rondeau marsh over the decades. Being able to drive out or bicycle out the 7 km trail has provided numerous fabulous experiences, and with the continued high water levels, who knows what the future of this road/trail might be?

Regardless of the current conditions, it was a very pleasant walk, so I went as far as the main parking lot. There were a few warblers, sparrows and thrushes, and even a couple of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds staking out territory at a willow tree just coming into flower. Nothing really out of the ordinary, but it was wonderful to have most of this 5-6 km hike to myself, with terrific light and very little wind, and just the usual marsh trail inhabitants.

Field Sparrow

 I heard a Least Bittern and Virginia Rail from somewhere in the depths of the marsh. Brown Thrashers were calling from the shrubbery and tree tops. Flycatchers, including Eastern Kingbirds, were present. Marsh Wrens were heard scattered amongst last year's cattail vegetation. A Green Heron and Great Blue Heron flew over the marsh surveying their domain. At one point a Great Egret must have been startled when it found out it had to share part of the marsh with a human, and so it squawked and flew up into a dead tree to survey the interruption to its feeding.