End of year stuff, including another bird count

 The year 2020 is just about out the door. Here is hoping that 2021 is much better on a whole bunch of fronts! Meanwhile, getting out and finding birds is still one of the most satisfying, and safest things to do right now, so that is what I've been doing as much as possible.

The Erieau Rail Trail can be good, when the wind isn't blowing too hard since it is quite exposed. Those days are sometimes rare. But a visit not too long ago, just after a bit of snow, gave me a few things to look through. One of the target species was Common Redpoll, which don't always come through this part of the province in good numbers, but this year it has been much better than normal. I was also looking for the rarer Hoary Redpoll, but although one or two others had seen one here, I did not. The flock of redpolls was flighty, so I only got a good look at a few of the ~45 birds that were in the area.

Several White-crowned Sparrows were low down in the snowy branches....

....as were a few Song Sparrows, one of which was partially in view for a short time.

I also got out to roam around the area northwest of Chatham, looking for Snowy Owls. With a bird count in this area coming up shortly, it is always useful to find out where they are hanging out. I found 5, but most were well out in a field and not worth trying to photograph from the road. I did see a woman well out in the field as well, trying to get close enough to get a decent photo with what appeared to be a fairly basic camera requiring her to be up close. The owl was having none of it, however, and kept moving off. I had better luck, as I found a Snowy inside a chain link fenced area, and I was able to get this shot from my vehicle. The owl seemed quite unconcerned.

I also wanted to check on the ongoing reports of Snow Geese and a Ross's Goose at the Ridgetown Sewage Lagoons. I had seen them there a few weeks ago, but am always on the lookout for more and better photos. At first the Snow Geese were on a berm quite unsuitable for good photos. But waiting a bit was the key, as after a few minutes this group got up to go to a field of corn stubble nearby. This photo shows a 'blue' phase, in the upper left, as well as a first year bird, the lowest one on the right. The rest were mostly typical white Snow Geese....

...but not all of them. The Ross's Goose was in this group. It is relatively easily separated from a Snow due to its smaller size, a shorter, stubbier bill with no grin patch, and a slightly rounder head. If you click on the photo, these characteristics may be more apparent.

But the biggest event of the last few days has been the Wallaceburg/Walpole Christmas Bird Count, held on Dec 27. I helped get this count going back in 1986. My territory for most of the last couple of decades has included the St. Clair River north of Walpole Island as well as several roads and more woodland areas inland from the river, so there is a nice diversity of habitat. But the most important part is the river.

Unfortunately the river did not have a lot of waterfowl this year, compared to many years. It seems there hasn't been enough cold weather, forcing birds down from the more northern lakes. There was no ice on the river at all, and not many gulls either. Nonetheless there were enough to make parts of it interesting, but photographing the waterfowl had its limitations. Here are a few of the things I saw.

There were a fair number of Bufflehead, shown first. This one was getting ready for flight, and I got this shot a split second before it lifted off, hence its wing is partially out.

Common Goldeneye was about the most common duck I saw, although the number was still below 100 individuals.

There were a few Greater Scaup....

....and even fewer Lesser Scaup. The photo below actually shows a female Greater on the left, and a Lesser in the center. It is slightly smaller, has a slightly more peaked head, not as rounded, and the dark tip of the bill is much more restricted compared to a Greater.

There were a few gulls, and by far the most common was Herring Gull. I saw a couple of Ring-billed and Greater Black-backed Gulls but they were way too far off, mostly on the other side of the river.

A highlight was seeing a group of seven Hooded Mergansers but from a distance in a wide creek. The best photo opportunity for this species came at about the end of the day, as this male Hoodie was resting on a piece of ice in a narrow creek along a quiet road. I was able to get almost full frame shots of it right from the vehicle.

Mallard.....yes, there are always some Mallards around, so when the photos of more exciting things are hard to come by, why not shoot a Mallard....

...or one of the numerous exotic Mute Swans?

Certainly a little more exciting were 21 Tundra Swans right close to the river shore downstream from Sombra. They are more often seen in fields well away from the river.

As mentioned, I did some more inland areas, where songbirds and non-waterbirds were to be found. I found a fair number of American Tree Sparrows in a couple of locations.

This adult Cooper's Hawk allowed me to get closer than I expected, although maybe it thought it was obscured enough by the branches.

A few Downy Woodpeckers came in to check me out as I 'pished' for birds.

Mourning Doves aren't exactly uncommon, but when a photo op presents itself, I'll take it!

Rock Pigeons were fairly plentiful, although most of them were across the river, roosting on a building connected to a power plant. But there were a few resting on some hydro wires along the road, and with a nice sky background for a change, why not?

Certainly the highlight of the inland birds was this Short-eared Owl. Okay it isn't all that obvious, and I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't met Mike B along the roadside who had seen it fly in and land way out in the field. I took a couple of photos of it in mid-morning, but there was just enough sunlight to create some haze, and those photos were not worth keeping. I came by again later in the afternoon when the sun was behind some clouds, and there was no problematic sunlight haze. Unfortunately the owl was always facing the opposite direction, so this is the best I could do. Between the camera/lens combination and some severe cropping, this photo is at about the equivalent of about 140 X!

The count ended up with 85 species plus an unidentified shorebird, which was a bit higher than normal.

This is likely the last post before the new year, as I will be busy preparing for the next bird count on January 1, so with that I will wish all readers a Happy New Year!

More on bird surveys, but maybe not the one you first think about.

I had planned on posting on my blog last evening. However from about 6 p.m. until sometime over night, our internet and land line was out of commission. A cell phone call to the provider got the wheels in motion to sort out the problem, and at some point over night everything was back to normal. It is amazing, and somewhat concerning, that we rely so much on internet, even my generation. I didn't join the technical age kicking and screaming, but for anyone who knows me well, I wasn't jumping into it all that enthusiastically like some were. I didn't even get a digital SLR camera until 2006, and I didn't get my own personal cell phone until sometime in 2012 when Marie got tired of loaning me hers when I was out in the field! I grew up quite nicely---at least I like to think I did :-)---without such technological advancements. For example rare bird notifications came by way of personal contact on a land line, or reading a newspaper nature column a week or so after the bird had been observed.

But that isn't the reason for this blog post. No, this time every January is the time when a phenomenon happens across North America regarding bird surveys. And I am not talking about Christmas Bird Counts. It is the Mid-Winter Waterfowl Survey (MWWS). I'm not sure exactly when it got started, but some time about the middle of the previous century. For waterfowl, the continent is divided into 4 major flyways which ducks, geese and swans use for their migration routes. There is some overlap, but banding waterfowl has enabled waterfowl biologists to determine the routes of various species or sub-populations fairly accurately. In southwestern Ontario, the major flyway is known as the Mississippi Flyway. At least part of the intent of these surveys was to establish long term trends of the various species of waterfowl, both in their overall numbers as well as their wintering areas.

Tundra Swans

I first became aware of these MWWS in early 1986, shortly after my career changed from being the Park Naturalist of Rondeau Provincial Park, to the District Ecologist for the Chatham District of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. By early spring, one of the things that crossed my desk were the results of the most recent MWWS taken in January of that year.

Hmmmm.....what was that, I thought.

I looked through the summary for Ontario, and specifically for the area encompassing Chatham District (Essex, Kent and Lambton counties). I was not impressed. I don't have those 1986 results handy as I write this, but it was vividly etched in my mind that conducting a waterfowl survey for this project clearly was not a priority for anyone within MNR. There were less than 4000 individuals of about three species...that was it. Even though I had been the park naturalist at Rondeau for about 13 years prior to this and there was always some waterfowl there around during the time specified for these surveys, I had never been contacted to provide information, or even knew it existed.

Apparently someone who happened to be out near a portion of the waterfront of the district made a passing attempt to identify and count the birds they saw, but clearly there was very little effort put forth. As a Christmas Bird Count participant for St. Clair National Wildlife Area CBC (I wasn't the compiler for another couple of years), I knew that even within that small area there were more than 14500 birds of 13 species. I also knew that other parts of the waterfront of the district, especially the St. Clair River, the Detroit River and areas around Point Pelee and Rondeau, often had lots of waterfowl in any given year. In fact several of these sites were nominated and accepted as nationally Important Bird Areas due to the major populations of birds, either breeding species or staging/wintering areas. This first photo shows what the sky can be like over SCNWA in late December and into January. Those aren't dust specks on the lens, those are hundreds and hundreds of ducks and geese in just a small piece of the sky.

 This next photo shows what parts of the St. Clair River or Detroit River can be like, with many hundreds and even thousands of diving ducks scattered across the surface.

 When the ice gets a little more extensive on either river, the ducks are packed in a little tighter.

I talked to my supervisor and we made plans to rectify the situation. So in early January of 1987, it was my 'duty' to go out and do a more thorough survey during the week long count period. It took me the better part of three days to cover the shorelines from lower Lake Huron in Lambton Co, down the St. Clair River, the accessible parts of Lake St. Clair, down the Detroit River as well as the accessible parts of Lake Erie.

It was a tough job, but someone had to do it :-). I did have some help for areas specifically around Point Pelee, and even when someone was available in subsequent years, to look around the Pelee Island shoreline.

That first year helped to augment the area's reputation for wintering waterfowl. Including the ~34000 birds on the SCNWA CBC over 50000 birds of 21 species were submitted for the tri-county total, so it was a good start. For 25 years, until I retired at the end of 2011, I was the coordinator for the MWWS for the tri-county area of extreme southwestern Ontario. During those years the efforts were shifted to include at least some, or even all, volunteers to ensure as complete coverage as possible without relying on paid staff.

The weather in winter is always a factor. There were a few years that either:
-volunteers were unavailable;
-the severe cold of an early winter resulted in almost no open water and relatively few birds; or
-on one occasion fog was so bad for a few days one could hardly see the water at times, although I remember hearing them through the fog.

Under such conditions the numbers were not reflective of the number and diversity of birds that were likely around. Over that 25 year period we had a low one year (1995) of barely 13000 birds of 20 species, to a high another year (2007) of over 205500 birds of 33 species (including American Coot). Nonetheless even taking into consideration the poor years due to the conditions mentioned above, we averaged almost 60000 birds of 25 species. Clearly it was a big improvement over the years prior to 1987.

One of highlights that I recall was seeing and photographing a Harlequin Duck along the St. Clair River at Sombra, which at one point was resting on a post underneath a boat house and it was so dark I needed a bit of flash to brighten up the photo. Another highlight, although not of a waterfowl species, was while surveying at the south end of Walpole Island we came across a somewhat bulky raptor sitting in a tall shrub at the edge of a cornfield. It was puzzling at first as it looked bulky enough for a Red-tailed Hawk but clearly wasn't. When it took off and flew very rapidly and powerfully just a metre or so above the ground it became clear that it was a Gyrfalcon, my first for the tri-county area.

Harlequin Duck, Sombra, 2015

I passed the torch to someone else when I retired (thanks, Brett!) who continues to coordinate it. I still participate as a volunteer surveyor, as well as contribute the results of the SCNWA CBC.

And that leads me to the next part of the purpose of this post. This past Thursday, Marie and I went out and did my usual stretch of the survey. That included just west of the mouth of the Thames River at Lighthouse Cove, along the south shore of Lake St. Clair to the eastern edge of Windsor, where someone else picks up the waterfront to continue through Windsor and down the Detroit River, etc.
(Note: none of the photos on this post were actually taken during this outing, as the majority of the birds were not close and it would have taken much too long to work to a closer vantage point.)

We chose Thursday since it seemed to be the best day of the survey period for travelling and viewing, unlike the weekend which is looking like a washout much to the chagrin of certain birders/bloggers who are more or less restricted to weekends.......

Lake St Clair was completely open except for a fringe of ice along the shoreline. It was windy, and the increasing winds actually helped us tally a good number of birds. The winds were brisk out of the southeast, which meant any forested edge of the lake shore provided some shelter from the waves and white caps farther out. It was at Tremblay Beach Conservation Area where I first noticed this. There was a huge raft of birds out along the edge of the ice, spread in both directions as far as one could see. Any ice that was on the lake had piled up along the shore, so that a scope was necessary to identify and count the birds. It turns out that there were at least 2200 Common Mergansers here, with dozens more streaming in every minute from more northerly and exposed parts of the lake. It was probably an underestimate as there were always some birds which were diving. Somewhat surprisingly there were only a half dozen or so of three other species: Bufflehead, Red-breasted Merganser and Common Goldeneye.

Common Merganser, male

Common Merganser, female

Common Mergansers

Red-breasted Merganser

Bufflehead

Common Goldeneye

We continued westward, checking the lake where we could, but with all of the residential development that lined the lakeshore for almost the entire way, it was impossible to see everything. We did see a few small groups of Tundra Swans feeding/resting in some harvest corn fields along the way.

However for those places that were accessible, the waterfowl were present only in very small numbers. That changed a bit when we got to the Belle River marina. It provides a very good view both east and west for several kilometres so the scope is really handy here. There were a lot of Canada Geese, and a few dozen of several duck species, including more Common Mergansers, some Mallards, Common Goldeneye and a single Redhead. Our limited section of the survey resulted in 2711 individuals of 8 species, but I expect there will be at least 25 species for the overall tri-county area. Even just for the SCNWA CBC a few days earlier we had almost 62000 individuals of 23 species.

Canada Geese

Mallard

Redhead

It had also been the intent of surveyors to keep track of Bald Eagles observed, especially in the early years when this species was in extremely low numbers and, at least in Ontario, listed as Endangered. It has rebounded considerably in the last 2-3 decades, fortunately. We only saw two adults on this day, one adult out over the lake and another at a nest in north Essex, but undoubtedly there were more around, since the SCNWA CBC had 39 birds.

That's it for bird surveys for now!

Waterbird photo ops

One of the highlights of this time of year is the photographic opportunities for water birds. The bird migration is just getting underway in late winter, and where there are bits of open water water birds, and in particular water fowl, are sure to show up. If those bits of open water can be approached easily, the photo ops can be tremendous. But with the rain and warmer weather (finally!) in the immediate forecast, those photo opportunities will be diminishing as quickly as the open water increases. Waterfowl are in their most colourful breeding plumage right now, and sometimes the males can be seen going through their impressive displays in their attempts to attract the attention of a potential mate.

The Thames River just downstream from Chatham has been very worthwhile lately, as the water treatment plant pours water into the river, maintaining at least some open water in even the coldest weather.

There are always a few of the most common species, such as Canada Goose and Mallard.

 Mallards are usually one of the most common ducks here in southwestern Ontario most of the year. Birders don't have to seek them out, as if any ducks are around, Mallards are most likely to be found; although birders have been known to say "Oh, it's just a Mallard" before looking for something less common, a male in breeding plumage is really quite an attractive duck.

Far less common at the Thames River location is American Black Duck, although at places like the Erieau harbour area, they can outnumber Mallards in the winter.

Some of the highlights found at the Thames River location in recent days are the following:

Common Goldeneye

Gadwall

Green-winged Teal pair

Hooded Merganser

 Most of the time the crest is down, but when it is trying to impress a female, it will raise it up.

Northern Pintail pair

Northern Shoveler

Sewage lagoons can be a good location to check. The Ridgetown lagoons on the north side of the road were still frozen over yesterday with no waterfowl except for two Canada Geese on the bank, but the ones on the south side had an open stretch of water with a variety of waterfowl. The light is never all that great looking into the sun, so the cloudy day made it a little more satisfying even though the birds were not very close. There were a couple of less common birds there, including these two Snow Geese, with both a snow and a blue phase.

 Much less expected was this Long-tailed Duck! It is much more likely to be seen on large bodies of water such as the nearby Great Lakes and the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers. I'm not sure if one has ever been seen at these lagoons before.

Other spots with a bit of open water will attract other water birds. The creek along Stefina Line southeast of Blenheim has been reasonably reliable for Wilson's Snipe yet again this winter, but in the last few days there have sometimes been two seen. It is entirely possible that they have both been winter residents, as this species doesn't normally arrive on migration quite yet, and there has been a good stretch of open water in this creek for most of the winter. Lately a Killdeer has been seen along with them. This next photo show all three birds sort of together, with the Killdeer on the left and the two snipe on the right. The far one is not in focus, however.

Earlier in this post I mentioned that waterfowl can sometimes be seen involved their courtship displays. One really needs to have a video to illustrate this, but I haven't achieved that yet. One of the more entertaining species, at least from a birder's perspective, is the Red-breasted Merganser.

Exciting times are ahead!