Bird numbers are building up, plus more species at risk

 Warblers, other passerines, and shorebirds continue their seasonal movements, with numbers increasing. Exploring places along the Lake Erie shoreline are great places to encounter them. This includes places like Erieau, Keith McLean Conservation Lands and of course Rondeau. And since due to the higher water levels minimizing these places for shorebirds, the local sewage lagoons are definitely worth checking out from time to time.

The warblers are fairly plentiful, that is until a cold front with its associated northerly wind comes through, and then a lot of them move farther south. But there often seems to be a fair number around. On some days, the number of warblers reported even rivals those days in mid-May! Getting photos of them is another story, however. 

The east South Point Trail of Rondeau can have pockets of warblers and vireos to capture ones attention. Here are some warblers that strayed within camera range long enough to get a photo, with some of them sporting a different plumage than they have in spring.

American Redstart

Bay-breasted Warbler

Black-throated Blue Warbler

There are lots of dogwood bushes along the trail, many of which are, or have been, quite laden down with berries. These birds are zipping in and out of the shrubs in their quest for the huge benefits these berries are as they build up their energy levels so they can go on the next leg of their migration. Many clusters of berries are half gone, as this next photo shows.

On my search for birds, I will come across other notable things, such as a few American Ginseng, a species at risk. It was not a great year for berry production, however, as some plants did not produce any berries, and even the ones that had some success, only produced one or two.

I also came across a new-to-me location small Black Ash. Normally Black Ash are found in wet areas, but this one was on a much drier than normal site. Ash trees in general have been hit hard by the Emerald Ash Borer, and Black Ash is now a Critically Endangered species in Canada. It is easily identified by its stemless paired leaves.....

...a brown pointed end bud.....

....and the underside of the leaves being hairy where they join the stem.

At the opposite end of the abundance scale is Great Blue Lobelia, especially common in open and damp forest edges.

At the Keith McLean Conservation Lands, the mud-flats are almost non-existent, and so it is not good for shorebirds. But Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons make good use of it.

The higher water levels have produced good habitat for Swamp Rose Mallow, and here I found another white variant of this species at risk.

Along the trail, several Cedar Waxwings were flying out from a willow tree going after insects, and occasionally came back and sat on a branch convenient for my photographic interests.

On another occasion I went to Erieau, looking for shorebirds along the beach, and whatever else I could find. With the regular beach hikers and dog walkers, on this occasion there weren't any shorebirds on the beach, but I found a few at the end of the lighthouse pier. There were a few Sanderling.....

...and at least a couple of White-rumped Sandpipers. They can often be separated from similar looking sandpipers by the longer wings, extending beyond the tail. The angle I got this photo of doesn't show it as clearly as I saw it from other angles, but didn't capture it with my camera.

Cormorants are present at Erieau by the dozens, even hundreds at times. This one was swimming and diving quite close by the end of the pier.

I scanned the horde of cormorants and gulls on the break wall across the channel. This large, predominantly gray gull caught my eye, and I managed a couple of shots, and after greatly cropping them, could only come up with this one. I am not quite sure what it is. It seems to be the size of a Herring Gull, but normally young birds of that species have a brownish colour to their plumage.  However Herring Gulls vary quite a bit over their huge breeding range, which extends from coast to coast, and it is possible it is just a young Herring Gull but not from a local Ontario population.

As I was pondering the gull, I heard a distinctive call approaching from behind. A large shorebird, with a long, down-curved bill flew quickly by, and by the time I was able to get a photo or two, all I got was its back end. It is a Whimbrel, one of the largest shorebirds to go through the area at any time of year, and much more common in the spring. I don't always see them in the fall.

Shorebirds at the Blenheim sewage lagoons continue to be fairly diverse and in good numbers. I certainly don't try and photograph the diversity each time I go, but try and get a few shots. The light wasn't great, but I did manage to get the following:

Baird's Sandpiper

Greater Yellowlegs

Short-billed Dowitcher

Stilt Sandpiper

While the St. Clair NWA isn't all that close to the southerly part of Chatham-Kent and the Lake Erie shoreline, it still can be quite worthwhile to explore and photograph the birds that make themselves visible. Wood Ducks are frequently seen flying over the NWA, and on occasion one will be resting either on some fallen branches.....

....or tucked under the woody vegetation along the shoreline.

A Belted Kingfisher was busily hunting for food....

...and a Sandhill Crane was feeding along the edge of a wet area.....

.....while this trio of cranes flew over and headed for the far corner of the marsh, presumably to find a spot to spend the night.

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More migrants, some late leps, a cactus conundrum and a house of yesteryear

 Autumn is unfolding as it should, and that means there are lots of things to photograph. A few days ago I was out in the Erieau area. I took time to check the main pier, as the uncommon Purple Sandpiper could appear any day. I walked all the way to the end, flushing a multitude of the usual gulls along the way, but only came up with a single Sanderling right at the end.

Maybe next time there will be a Purple Sandpiper to greet me.

A walk along the Erieau Marsh Trail and McGeachy Pond Trail is often worthwhile, so I included it in my itinerary. There was a nice mix of passerines, including:

Eastern Phoebe

Northern Parula

There were several others, but due to the very contrasty light, were hard to photograph.

Butterflies, on the other hand, were typically out in the open where they could benefit from the sunlight energy while nectaring on the flowers. The deep purple of New England Aster seemed to be the main flower attraction.

Orange Sulphur

Clouded Sulphur

The first two are pretty common, but these next ones are much less common. In fact the Fiery Skippers, of which there were several, were the first ones I had photographed this year.

Bronze Coppers, shown next, are to be expected at some point and usually much more common than the Fiery Skippers.

Female

Male

I also spent a bit of time up along some accessible areas along Lake St. Clair. There were some migrants, not surprisingly, including a good number of Blue Jays on the wing....

 

 ...and some even landed for another shot.

There were a lot of Yellow-rumped Warblers, by far the most abundant warbler almost everywhere you go these days.

And since it is still relatively early in the season, a few Great Egrets are to be found, and occasionally are in an excellent spot to be photographed.

On another outing, I photographed this Prickly Pear Cactus. Cacti of this type are popular, and always fun to be found. But they present a problem, mainly in the taxonomy. What species is it? For many years, the cacti known in southern Ontario were called Eastern Prickly Pear (Opuntia humifusa). A bit later, taxonomists changed the name to Opuntia cespitosa, and most of the ones are still known as that. However this first one apparently is a different species, known as Grassland Prickly Pear (Opuntia cymochila). It is more of a western species, but due to the arrangement and angle of the spines, is believed by Opuntia experts to be this species. This makes for an interesting element to Ontario's Opuntia, as this particular population in the former Howard Township was quite abundant back in the 1940s. A former co-worker of mine, when I was at Rondeau back in the late 1970s, told me of this population which occurred in a large sandy area almost right across the road from where he and his wife lived. His wife was a teacher at the schoolhouse just down the road, and walked by this population almost every day. That was back in the mid 1940s. However as time went on, the sandy area was converted to agriculture, and it eliminated most of the cactus. Now only a couple of dozen plants persist in the road allowance.

Another population of cactus occurs at Rondeau, in the southeast beach dunes. They do not occur there naturally, as some unknown persons transplanted them there in about 1994. They have done fairly well there since. This population has been determined to be genetically similar to the naturally occurring population on Pelee Island. Therefore the species is legally endangered under the province's Endangered Species Act. The conundrum is: what to do with these plants? They are endangered, sort of, but it is debatable whether transplants are covered under the Act. Or should they be removed, since they may end up being a problem species in an otherwise highly significant natural habitat in one of the most significant provincial parks in Ontario? At the moment, park staff are reluctant to remove them, so they continue where they are.

On quite a different topic than the ones above, here is one of the most photographed abandoned houses in southwestern Ontario, perhaps in all of Canada if you believe some reports. It is known as the Guyitt House, and if you google that name, you can find out lots more information about this house. Regardless, it is along the former Hwy 3, now the Talbot Trail, in eastern Chatham-Kent a short distance east of Palmyra and few kilometers before you get to the Elgin Co border. It was built in the 1840s and was occupied up until about the mid-1980s. I took these photos at various times in about 2010-2011. It has continued to deteriorate, but does so 'gracefully' and it is interesting to see the process.

I took these next two and processed them to reflect an earlier age

This next one was taken during a full moon, with a long exposure of slightly more than 300 seconds using the moon as the sole source of light. You can tell it was a long exposure by seeing the white streak just to the left of the chimney on the right hand side, which is how far a star 'moved' in those 300+seconds.

In recent weeks, an unknown person has complained about its condition, and asked the municipality to enforce a by-law forcing the owner to either repair it or remove it. This has caused a great deal of angst for the landowner, who would like to keep it as is, since it is such a popular photographic subject. The landowner gets nothing for it, just the satisfaction of having a popular photographic subject. There has been a lot of support to leave it as is. At this point nothing has been decided, so stay tuned.

Back on the lep theme, here is what Marie and I call our October Cat. It is a fairly well developed caterpillar of a Black Swallowtail. Interestingly although Black Swallowtail butterflies have been in our garden area periodically all season, it wasn't until the last couple of weeks where we could find any caterpillars.

We have seen about 7 in the last couple of weeks. Today we couldn't find any, so it is possible that the remaining ones have gone off to change over to a pupal form, in which it will overwinter.

And finally, a Magnificent Frigatebird appeared near the mouth of the Thames River yesterday. It was initially seen by some fishermen but word didn't get out until late in the day. It was believed to not be in good health. Several keen birders were there first thing this morning, and one group saw it tumble from its overnight roost and fall into the water, barely able to struggle to a log on the bank of the river. Clearly it was not likely to survive. A few people reported seeing it in the morning, and one or more believed a rehabber was tracking it down and taking it in to see if it could be saved.

Marie and I went for a drive out that way in the early afternoon. I had mixed feelings, as I don't chase as many rarities as I used to, and chasing a bird that was almost dead was not all that appealing. We didn't see it, so perhaps it has been rescued by a rehabber. I haven't heard any more on that. Update: it may have been euthanized due to its poor condition.

I wasn't too concerned about not getting to add it to my Chatham-Kent list, as I had the opportunity to see and photograph a quite healthy one off the south beach of Rondeau, back in early July of 2012.

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