A not so 'Sage' Thrasher?

 Many readers will be aware of the presence of a Sage Thrasher here in Chatham-Kent. It has been reported on eBird daily for slightly over a week, and given its furtive nature spending lots of time amidst some fairly dense shrubbery, might have been here for quite a few days before that. 

I have been out to see and photograph it a couple of times, and even got some fairly good photos in spite of it furtiveness.

This first one is a typical setting: in the shadows and amidst many branches. The image is unprocessed, but it is a start, and sometimes one like this is as good as it gets.

Waiting for it to get into a better lit situation pays off, and one has to maneuver the camera to reduce the branch distractions.....

....but there are still shadows to contend with. However the side profile is useful to get the overall shape and the relatively short beak, short, at least for a member of the thrasher family.

Here is a side profile of the typical thrasher of this area. The size of the bird, the reddish brown colour, the large beak and long tail make it easy to separate the two species.

Brown Thrasher

A frontal view of the Sage Thrasher shows a heavier and slightly different dark streaky pattern.

Catching it out in a more open spot where it is picking away at some berries and in good light, makes waiting for it all the more worthwhile. There is a slight shadow at the back of the head, and continuing down onto the back. The shadow was caused by an over hanging leaf.

There are quite a few berry producing shrubs along this trail. One of the most abundant is Staghorn Sumac. However the berries are covered in small bristly hairs, probably making them less palatable.

Staghorn Sumac

Honeysuckle is not all that abundant, and most berries are gone by now.

Honeysuckle

Climbing Bittersweet is scattered along the trail, but most have not opened up yet. They still have their hard outer shell protecting the smaller berry inside. The second photo shows the exposed berries which may be suitable for this thrasher.

Climbing Bittersweet

Autumn Olive is quite abundant, and while the berries likely would have served the Sage Thrasher well, I expect, at this time of the season virtually all of those berries are gone. Many warblers and thrushes have already passed through, feeding on the abundance of these berries.

Autumn Olive

The main shrub that seems to interest the thrasher for feeding on is Multiflora Rose. I'm not sure whether it is the size of the berries, the taste or the general availability of these rose hips, but for some reason the thrasher is most often seen in the vicinity of a Multiflora Rose bush where there is an abundance of the berries.

At least there was an abundance, but as the days have gone by, the number of berries has definitely diminished. And that begs the question, where will this bird go when this food source runs out? Will it just move along the shrub row searching for more berries, or will it finally leave the area altogether and head for where it normally would be at this time of year?

I used the term 'sage' in my title. That was because I'm not so sure this bird was 'wise' in its decision to fly to southwestern Ontario at this time of year. Sage Thrashers are a mid-western to western species, and are named because the habitat they occupy normally has a lot of sage growing in it. In Canada they can be found breeding in southwestern Saskatchewan, for example in the Grasslands National Park area, and farther west into the drier open habitats of southern Alberta and British Columbia. Normally this species would migrate south, not east. Perhaps this bird got its internal compass bearings misaligned, and in combination with the periodically strong westerly winds, ended up here. It appears to be a young bird, hatched this year, so likely hadn't had any previous experience with respect to the species' normal migration. Regardless, it is here.

Yesterday I took a small branch of Multiflora Rose out to add to the thrasher's favourite bushy setting. There were still a few berries lingering from rose bushes that grew there, but I didn't think that a few more added to its dining area would hurt. And close to the parking lot, but well away from where the bird was normally found, I noticed quite a few other berry laden rose bushes, so snipped off a couple of branches and added them as well.

This isn't the first, second, third or even fourth record of Sage Thrasher in Kent/Chatham-Kent. It is the fifth!

The first record was one I found back in late April, 1981, at Rondeau, while on the search for another rare species. I had seen a Louisiana/Tri-colored Heron flying south, along the east beach of Rondeau, on April 25. I thought it might drop in to the Rondeau marsh, so on Apr 27, I headed out the Marsh Trail looking for it. As rare as the Louisiana Heron was, I got distracted by a bird which I had no idea what it was. I took notes, and then called out to some of the best known Ontario birders about it, including Alan Wormington and Norm Chesterfield, the latter of which had the biggest life list of birds in the world. There were others that came out as well, and although we got some decent looks, no one could definitively say what it was right off. After more looks and discussion, someone came up with Sage Thrasher, and then it all fit together. This was only the third record for Sage Thrasher in Ontario, with the two previously accepted records being in the mid-1960s and only seen by a very few. While my camera gear wasn't great at the time, I managed to get a few acceptable photos, all on film of course. This is a scan of one of them.

Fortunately for many birders, this thrasher remained along the southern half of the Marsh Trail for almost exactly three weeks. As it occurred right at the peak of spring birding, resulted in many hundreds of birders trekking down the trail to see it, as it was a lifer for almost everyone.

There was another record for Rondeau, and the second for Chatham-Kent, in early July of 1985, but only seen for a short time. A third record was in the winter of 1997, in Wallaceburg. The fourth record was one I had, again along the Rondeau Marsh Trail, on the Christmas Bird Count, in mid-December, 2008. And now this one. Five Sage Thrashers in C-K, and I've had at least one in each of the four main seasons.

Stay tuned as this particular bird may be around for awhile yet, and be the subject of another blog post.

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Terrestrial Exotics, Aggressive Exotics, and Really, Really Nasty Exotics

This summer I have spent a fair bit of time hiking along a decommissioned railroad corridor. One previous post had described some of the flora while another one described some of the fauna. However as is typical with a lot of 'natural' areas in southwestern Ontario and elsewhere, there is a fair bit of non-native flora and fauna present. Some are colourful, some not so colourful, some are fairly benign while others are highly invasive. I'll leave the nastiest one of all that I have encountered, to the last of this post.

This post deals primarily with some of the lesser known, but problematic non-native species in a terrestrial environment. Others, especially some that are more well known and problematic in wetland environments will be discussed in a future post.

One of the less problematic terrestrial ones is Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria). It is not common anywhere that I have seen it here in southwestern Ontario, and is rather attractive.

Moth Mullein

Closely related to this is one that is probably more familiar to most readers: Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus). It is definitely more problematic in woodland edges and disturbed sites.

Common Mullein

Many of the non-native species are very problematic in all sorts of areas where they can gain a foot-hold. They are early colonizing species, meaning they favour disturbed areas....and there is no shortage of disturbed areas in this part of the world!

Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora) is common place, even in prime natural areas such as Rondeau Provincial Park where it has come to dominate certain areas.

Multiflora Rose

Globe Thistle (Echinops sphaerocephalus) starts off looking a bit like a more common thistle, but soon appears with its characteristic globe shaped flower head. It is abundant along the rail corridor.

Globe Thistle

 A bit earlier in the season, one can find a lot of Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matrionalis) which occurs in both vivid pink and white. Its flowering period is long.....some may still be flowering into September.

Dame's Rocket

You've probably all seen those plants having a giant Dandelion-like seed head. It is the seed head of one of either Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius) or Common Goat's Beard (Tragopogon pratensis). They are common along roadsides, the inland part of sandy beaches, and certainly along railroads

 Goat's Beard

Common Goat's Beard

Some species that are not overly problematic in natural areas, but fairly common regardless are:

Everlasting Pea (Lathyrus latifolius)

Butter-and-eggs (Linaria vulgaris)

Rough-fruited Cinquefoil (Potentilla recta)

Teasel (Dipsacum sylvestris)

This next image shows the exotic Cabbage White butterfly (Pieris rapae) on the exotic Catnip (Nepeta cataria), while the image that follows shows a male and a female Cabbage White on Viper's Bugloss (Echinocystis lobata), also exotic.

 While it is nice to see butterflies flitting about, this European invader is one of the most widespread of butterflies, and it is a pest.....just ask any vegetable gardener or farmer, especially those producing cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kale, broccoli, radish, turnip and other members of the Cruciferae family.

Then we get into some nastier, aggressive species. For example, White Mulberry (Morus alba). It is common along hedgerows, roadsides, urban and rural lots, railroad corridors, river valleys even some high quality natural woodlands. The dilemma is that the fruit is tasty to birds, racoons even humans. If you want to find birds in mid summer, find a few White Mulberry trees with abundant fruit as shown in the next image. There you will also find various fruit-eating birds, including American Robins, Gray Catbirds, Brown Thrashers, Cedar Waxwings and the like. However after the birds gorge themselves on these tasty berries, they leave and being members of the group of birds known as Passerines (perching birds), they perch on wires, fences, tree branches. And as the saying goes, what goes in must come out.....so when their digestive processes have completed the job, the seeds are pooped out wherever they happen to be sitting, sometimes several kilometres from where they originated. After a few decades, White Mulberry is all over the landscape.

White Mulberry

The unfortunate added dilemma is that there is a native mulberry in Ontario, the Red Mulberry (Morus rubra). It is limited in Canada largely to Fish Point Provincial Nature Reserve on Pelee Island, Point Pelee National Park, Rondeau Provincial Park and in the Hamilton area around the Royal Botanical Garden. There are a few other locations, but those are the main ones. Red Mulberry is now a legally endangered species, partly because of loss of the forested habitat which it prefers, but even more so because it hybridizes with the much more prolific White Mulberry. Even where Red Mulberry is relatively common, most specimens have some White Mulberry genes in them.

Another problematic plant species is White Sweet-Clover (Melilotus alba). It is a biennial, meaning that it takes two years to get to the seed-producing stage. Disturbed areas and even good quality natural areas such as tallgrass prairies, can have this species in abundance.

White Sweet-Clover

It can be difficult to find in an area one year as the first year's vegetative growth is under way. The following year it is super evident. It is a prolific seed producer, and the seed can last for years in the seed bank, so it is very hard to control. It also has a cousin, known as Yellow Sweet-Clover (Melilotus officinalis).

Abundant White Sweet-Clover

Another abundant but perennial species is Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea maculosa).

Spotted Knapweed

Spotted Knapweed in abundance

With these last two species, there is somewhat of an upside to them, fortunately. Pollinators love them! I have walked by some large expanses of both the White Sweet-Clover and Spotted Knapweed and been blown away by the number of bees, flies and butterflies that are present. In spite of the abundance of these plants, it almost seemed as if there weren't enough to go around....bees were almost lining up to find a spot on a flower head.

This brings me to what I consider one of the worst of the worst in terrestrial areas: Dog-strangling Vine, also known as Pale Swallow-wort (Vincetoxicum rossicum).

It is a perennial, a fast-growing vine and a prolific seed producer. It has seeds somewhat similar to milkweed, which are transported by air, so it can spread quickly. It also spreads very easily if even a small piece of a stem is transported to a potential site elsewhere.

Vincetoxicum rossicum

 Note its growth habit in the next image. As a vine, it climbs over existing vegetation, smothering it, to the point that it can be by far the most dominant vegetation at a site. Some places in urban areas are completely dominated by this beast.

It is not as abundant in Chatham-Kent as places farther east....yet. But I first noticed it in eastern C-K when I was doing some inventory work along this same railroad corridor in 2012. This year, I found it much more common between Chatham and Tilbury. It has probably been there for awhile, judging by its abundance, but it is only going to get more abundant. Effective controls for this species are not generally available. Even herbicides are only marginally effective.


There are many more exotic species present throughout southern Ontario and elsewhere. In fact on average even in a good quality natural area, the non-native plant species make up about 20-25% of the total list, but are often much greater in overall abundance. In highly disturbed sites such as railroad corridors, they can make up an even greater per cent of the plant list. They are here in abundance because of the great levels of alteration of the original landscape, courtesy of you and I and our predecessors. But that will be the topic of a future post.