Piping Plover update, plus other rare birds and turtles

 A busy time of year, and I am behind in my photography. But I thought it important to at least provide an update regarding the Piping Plovers.

This endangered species used to breed at Rondeau and area. Like about 80 years ago. According to the A. A. Wood unpublished manuscript Birds of Kent County, Ontario, it was cited as "numerous between Erieau and Erie Beach. Nest not found but young observed." Specifically at Rondeau, it was found regularly as recently as the 1930s, with two nests found in 1937 and another in 1938. Undoubtedly there were other nests and pairs which went undocumented due to the extensive habitat and general lack of observers. So officially, the last nest recorded at Rondeau was 84 years ago.

 And it looks like the wait will continue. One or more of this pair that showed up in May was observed over a period of about 8 days. There were indications of one creating a scrape for a potential nest site, and certainly they were somewhat vocal. However eventually the male seemed to have disappeared, and even the female tended to wander farther than what a normal territory would seem to be, and then she disappeared as well. There have been no observations since about the first of June.

It is uncertain exactly what happened. They were exhibiting territorial behaviour at a time when they would normally be establishing a territory and even beginning to lay eggs. The fact that they also stayed for several days indicated that they had a definite interest in the south beach of Rondeau. Factors that could have played a part in their abandoning this site include the number of people illegally enjoying the south beach, with campfires, picnics, kids and dogs running around and such. It wasn't just one or two events. On a nice day especially on a weekend, there can be dozens of people scattered across the beach area. Since this part of the park is rarely if ever patrolled by park staff, some of the general public treat it like a free beach for such activities, and even camping short term. It is difficult for park enforcement staff to access it, but for the beach goers from Erieau, it is quite easily accessible. Or it could have been that there were quite a few predatory type gulls spending time on the beach, although on occasion the plovers were observed chasing potential predators of this type. Regardless, the results were not what was hoped for.

Maybe next year....

I was out a couple of times. On one occasion Steve C and I went out, right at the end of May, to see what we could find. This first photo shows what part of the south beach looks like, with the forested end (locally referred to as Gull Island, but it isn't an island at all) and Erieau off in the background.

We saw an Osprey perched, scanning for a meal no doubt, but it wasn't easy with Red-winged Blackbirds dive-bombing it.

There were shorebirds, such as Ruddy Turnstones.....

....Sanderlings.....

...and a few Whimbrel. And gulls, of course. This first one is a Herring Gull, which has been banded. I sent the band information away, and found out that it was banded at Port Clinton, Ohio, slightly less than a year ago.

A Lesser Black-backed Gull, next, has been around for awhile.

There were at least two Little Gulls, both non-breeding youngsters, in the area. On occasion three birds have been seen either along the south beach or from Erieau.

The marshy areas are becoming rather colourful, with Bullhead Lily scattered across the quiet water...

....and Southern Blue Flag popping up in various places.

I've been to a few other places, and one of the highlights was to see this American White Pelican along the Erieau Rail Trail.

It was present for several days, fortunately.

A day or so later, there was a Tricolored Heron that showed up in the same place. I didn't get to track it down, and it was only there for a briefer period. It would have been nice to see, but I have seen that species before. Interestingly my first observation of this southern heron, which at the time was called a Louisiana Heron, was back in late April of 1981. I had seen one fly southward along the east beach of the park. I thought it would probably end up spending some time in the ~1000 acre marsh, so the next day I headed out looking. But before I saw the heron, I got distracted by another bird which I could not identify. Even after getting two or three highly experienced birders to join me and take a look, it took a little while before we decided on it being a Sage Thrasher! That was Rondeau's first, and at the time was one of the few Ontario records ever. Fortunately the bird stuck around for almost three weeks of the spring birding season, allowing many hundreds of birders the opportunity to get out towards the south half of the marsh trail and see this bird. This was, of course, well before the digital era, and my photo equipment wasn't the greatest back then. But here is one of the photos I got of that bird.

An occasional stop at the Keith McLean Conservation Lands has resulted in a few shorebirds, including

Dunlin

Semipalmated Sandpiper

White-rumped Sandpiper

I spent a bit of time at a private wetland complex in the Mitchell's Bay area and had some good photo experiences, shooting

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Great Egret

An Osprey flew by with a Bullhead in its talons. I didn't see it take it to a nest site, so it was probably just looking for a spot to eat in peace and quiet and away from being harassed by things such as this Eastern Kingbird.

A real treat was to get a quick look and photo of this Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle, up on a bank basking. They are very fast moving turtles, and it scampered back in to the canal. It is an endangered species.

The light for this wasn't the greatest, so I got a better vantage point and waited, hoping for its return. It didn't but I had a few Northern Map Turtles come by for a bit of sun. They are definitely more common than the softshell turtle, but still considered a Species At Risk.

Just north of Mitchell's Bay, along the north shore trail, I had the usual couple of Sandhill Cranes feeding on a berm.

And this Caspian Tern remained on this mud flat long enough for me to get a photo.

So all in all, it was a good few days, but the results of the Piping Plover were not so satisfying.

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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!