Some fun ups and downs of spring

 What a difference a few days make. Last Tuesday, April 19, I took this photo out the kitchen window. It's 'sno' fun being a robin in these conditions. How am I going to find any worms?

However that didn't deter them from doing what robins do. Two days later, it was well underway constructing a nest. It did most of it in a single day.

The finished product just a day or two later, as it was observed putting some final touches on the nest, and building it a bit higher. I haven't checked, but I suspect at least one egg is now lying in it, awaiting to be incubated. Usually 4-5 eggs are laid, with incubating starting on the day the next to last egg is laid.

I was out at Rondeau shortly after the snowy days. There wasn't an awful lot to report with respect to newly arrived migrants, but it was pleasant just the same. For anyone who had been to the park since April 12, one might have noticed some different changes to the grassy parts of the park, especially along the northeast side. What had looked like this first photo.....

was now looking like this. Finally, after about three or so years, the park staff were able to carry out a prescribed burn. These next few photos were taken about a week after the burn, so with the snow and rain, the black ash had been washed away, leaving it looking a bit less black. It was a bit too soon for any greenery to appear.

In the absence of several years of fire and the presence of a higher water table, the shrubs had really expanded, making it look less like an oak savanna that it should have appeared as.

However with there being enough fuel for the fire to enter the stands of shrubs, the intent is for the heat and flames to damage the sensitive bark, suppressing the shrubby growth and give the grasses and wildflowers a chance to rebound. Time will tell how effective this burn has been, and perhaps another one will be required next year. There were other areas that the park staff had intended to burn, but due to the conditions of the day, the fire was slower moving than hoped for, so the areas covered were limited.

The few days after the burn, and before the sudden upswing in temperatures, were still pleasant to get out for. A few Eastern Phoebes were around.....

...as were some Hermit Thrushes.

Pileated Woodpeckers were usually detected by their distinctive drum roll heard off in the distance, but on occasion I would catch a glimpse of one, and even get a heavily cropped photo.

While looking through pine trees for an elusive Pine Warbler, I noticed this ball of fur resting on a branch. I knew immediately what it was, but it was interesting to note that when I uploaded it to iNaturalist, the first choices they gave me were incorrect, and included things like Porcupine, and some mammals that don't even occur in North America. It is a Raccoon, having a rest while soaking up a bit of sun.

Eastern Gartersnakes were out soaking up a bit of sunshine, or at least hoping for a bit of sun.

While walking the Black Oak Trail, I flushed up this Turkey Vulture. I could smell something, and it wasn't the vulture. It was a decomposing raccoon not far off the trail, but I didn't bother with getting its photo.

Here is a bird quiz for you. I was busy trying to capture a different photo of this bird, but one of the photos turned out like this. Note the small size, olive-green lower back, and lighter coloured edges of the darker tail feathers. Any ideas?

Here is the same bird without the upraised wings. Obviously it is a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, a species which is fairly common these days.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet giving me a quizzical look

One of Rondeau best known denizens was out attempting to cross the road when it spied me. I could almost sense it deciding what its best options were, whether to race across or retreat.

It selected the former option and here I caught it with all four hooves in the air....

...just before it landed and leapt through a brushy tangle. This buck, as evidenced by its small black knobs which will grow into antlers in a few months, might have had a tougher time if its antlers were fully grown, likely snagging on some of the shrubby growth.

There are other things to see and photograph, such as this Common Greenshield Lichen.....

....and early spring wildflowers, such as this Early Buttercup.

Next is one of my favourites of early spring, the Round-lobed Hepatica, which differs slightly from a close relative, the Sharp-lobed Hepatica. As you might suspect, they have slightly different shaped leaves.

A few butterflies were out, although most weren't sticking around for a photo session like this Mourning Cloak was. This species overwinters as an adult, and a closer look shows some wear and tattering of its hind-wing.

 Fungi can be found in good condition, such as this Scarlet Elfcup, one of the earliest to be seen in spring.

A plant I am often on the lookout for in spring, before the forest floor greens up very much, is this orchid known as Puttyroot. The leaves are quite distinctive. It is a legally threatened species, so I won't divulge any details of where I found it. But it is part of a population that I have been watching for most of 40 years, and this year the leaves were the most abundant I have ever seen. I counted 117 of them, which is almost twice as many as I have seen in the past. It will be interesting to see how many send up a flowering spike, as typically only about 10-20 per cent do so.

The landscape features of the park are attractive in their own way at this time of year, as one can see much more detail than when all of the leaves are out. This first one is of a slough along Bennett Ave.....

These next ones are of a slough along the west South Point Trail. Sloughs showing so much openness, and not being choked with either buttonbush or the invasive Phragmites are getting harder and harder to find.

This distinctive tree root is that of Yellow Birch, which typically begins its life sprouting on a log or other exposed organic surface.

A trip or two to the Erieau area can be a nice change. Along the Rail Trail there is usually a good variety of ducks, although not always close enough to get a good photo of. This next photo shows a pair of Blue-winged Teal, which may stick around to nest.

A sunny day will cause a lot of turtles to be basking, and at this stage, most will be Midland Painted Turtles, the only Ontario turtle species that as yet, is not considered legally at risk.

Forster's Terns are the most commonly seen tern at the moment.

At the outset of this blog post, I mentioned what a difference a few days makes, and it was just so evident in the weather of the past few days. A warming trend, caused by brisk southerly warm winds, brought a lot of migrant birds that were just waiting for the right conditions to leap forward on their migration pathways. On the weekend there were at least 10 species of warblers recorded, including lots of Yellow Warblers. Even the rare Prothonotary Warbler was seen and photographed, but most were the early species typically seen first. They weren't always easy to photograph, however.

Yellow Warbler

There was an abundant diversity of new arrivals, including species such as Orchard and Baltimore Orioles, White-eyed and Blue-headed Vireos, Lincoln's Sparrow, Wood Thrush and Veery, several flycatcher types, etc., etc. One of the highlights for me was to have this stunning male Scarlet Tanager so cooperative, while feeding on some berries on this Red Cedar. The brilliant scarlet and black against a background of green and blue, made for a delightful time with the camera. While I was being dazzled by the cooperativeness of this beauty, I missed out on seeing an adult male Orchard Oriole that my birding companions saw. Such is birding.....and I shall not complain a bit after spend the time with this impressive bird.

So even though things are to cool down a bit over the next few days, I have no doubt that some of the birds that arrived on this warm period will stick around. I will be out trying to see and photograph as many as possible.

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Bison Birds

The American Bison was historically called buffalo. That is a misnomer, as buffalo are actually old world species, but when European explorers first arrived to North America and encountered these huge animals, they named them something that they were familiar with.

 Bison once roamed in the millions, mostly across the wide open plains of middle and western North America. There is some historical record of them even in extreme southwestern Ontario, in the vicinity of what is now the Windsor area, as there were hundreds of hectares of tallgrass prairie before settlement. But that is the topic for another post.

Bison were well adapted to the cold, fierce winters of the mid-western part of the continent. Their winter coats were densely hairy, as this image shows, with the front end of the animal being the most densely hairy.

This was incredibly useful when facing the wind, which they typically did, to withstand the cold.

After the winter weather, they lost much of the dense hair towards the back of their bodies as shown next. Even so, the front end of the animal still retained a lot of dense hair. 

 Bison were always known to roam widely. The huge herds would have a home range of hundreds of thousands of square kilometres or more of open grassland. This next photo shows a single bull bison on a huge grassland at Grasslands National Park in extreme southern Saskatchewan. At the time I took this photo, in July, the bulls are usually well away from the cows and calves.

 It was said by early explorers that bison always moved into the wind as they were foraging, especially during the more inclement weather. This resulted in their long-range movements, and was advantageous in that a large herd of bison, numbering in the thousands, would eat off much of the short-grass prairie, but by keeping on the move, they would find new grasslands and give the areas they moved from, a chance to regenerate in time for a following season. Sometimes they would feed intensively on areas that had burned off via a prairie fire, and was regenerating with lots of tender fresh, green fodder.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, OK

And that brings us to the Bison bird.

Most birds build their own nest, lay their eggs in it and raise their young.  This next photo shows a typical eastern grassland type bird nest. It is that of a Song Sparrow, and at the time of taking this photograph, it did not have a cowbird egg in it.

 But the Bison bird is a species that depends on following Bison, for the insects they disturb by their hooves during their movements as well as the seeds they break off of the grasses they are moving through. So the birds must follow the movements of these herds of Bison, and don't stay in one place for several weeks while they build a nest, lay eggs and feed the young to the point of the next generation being able to fend for themselves. No, these Bison Birds adapted so as to lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, with the new host raising the young of the Bison bird.

As time went on, Bison herds diminished considerably, and were at great risk due to the loss of foraging and roaming habitat due to settlement as well as the slaughter of millions of animals for their hides, or just for what was considered 'sport'. Large areas of the Bison's former habitat was turned into grazing lands for other animals, such as beef cattle. Probably the most best known breed at one point was the Texas Longhorn, but other breeds were eventually added. Hence the likely reason for the current name of this bird species. Texas Longhorns were aptly named, and came in various colours. They were the new grazer of the mid-western part of North America, some roaming free and others on large fenced grazing lands.

I'm sure that most readers will have caught on quite early in this post that the bird species I am referring to is none other than the Brown-headed Cowbird. 

male

female

 It is the only North American bird species that demonstrates this 'parasitic' behaviour, much to the dismay of some bird enthusiasts. I admit that I have had mixed feelings over the years, especially when I see a cowbird egg in the nest of a more 'desirable' species such as a Yellow Warbler, Prothontary Warbler, Wood Thrush, or some other species. All three of the aforementioned species have been, or are, considered a Species At Risk. 

Yellow Warbler

Not quite sure if this next image showing the young bird being fed is a cowbird or a young Yellow Warbler. It has some characteristics of being a cowbird, but would be easier to tell a few days after this photo was taken.

  Cowbirds are certainly not at any level of risk. In fact they often can be seen in huge flocks.

 

Presumably when these Bison birds were more or less confined to the wide open spaces of the mid-west, they had fewer potential host species to choose from. But as the eastern forests were cut down and opened up to a more agricultural landscape, these Bison birds adapted and became widespread throughout the east. In fact the cowbird is known to parasitize more than 220 species of birds in this way! As a result of the loss of forests, cowbirds became the dreaded edge species as they would regularly venture into a forest for 100-200 metres, and interior forest bird species nesting within that zone were heavily parasitized. Some ornithologists consider interior forest to be a minimum of 100 metres from any edge, whereas other specialists consider interior forest to be at least 200 metres from an open edge. Currently most forests in southwestern Ontario have been reduced to the extent that there is very little good quality interior forest to prevent cowbirds from entering and impacting the interior breeding bird species. Wood Thrush, now a Species At Risk, is usually an interior forest species, but sometimes can be found near the edges especially when proper interior forest is diminishing.

 This next photo shows an adult cowbird visiting the nest of a Yellow-breasted Chat, an extremely rare breeding bird in Ontario. 

I took this photo in about 1980. This was the first confirmed nesting of the Yellow-breasted Chat at Rondeau, and one of the few in all of Ontario. It was well away from any real forest edge, although a severe windstorm had caused a lot of blow-down which resulted in some shrubby habitat dominated by raspberry. It was great habitat for chats, but cowbirds also made it into the area. Fortunately the young chats in the nest were well along in their development so that if a cowbird laid an egg, it would not hatch before the chats would likely have fledged.

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