May 7th - Birding Malden Park and Ojibway Forest

I'm unable to take time off at this most beautiful time of year. I'm drooling with jealousy of my friends and birding brethren who are just out birding their hearts out for the week.

Stiff from a 50 hour work week - I go birding at 4pm after work here in Windsor - because a trip to point pelee from Windsor requires a 5 hour time envelope (one hour each way to drive).

Thus --- I have to settle for the Ojibway Complex in West Windsor. It can be surprisingly good at times. It never has the mega-rarities that Pelee typically delivers - but some of the seasonal expected birds can be quite easily seen.

Some highlights from today were:

Scarlet Tanager (Malden Park)
Yellow throated Vireo (Malden Park)

and at Ojibway - a few more warbler species plus a flock of PURPLE FINCHES eating Birch Catkins.

Believe it or not - I rarely see Purple Finches - and when I do its typically females. Today I had a flock of about 15 Finches with 1-2 Males mixed in.

Lets cut it short here. I have to conserve energy for work and... birding.

Good birding,
'Murf

Gorgeous Galinule Glimpse - Purple Galinule at Fox Creek in Kingsville

Along the shore of Lake Erie on the southern edge of Essex County is a wonderful series of small towns between Amhurstburg and Leamington. There is an ERCA Historical Attraction called John R Park Homestead on the shore of Lake Erie nestled beside Fox Creek. This is between Kingsville and Oxley.  A Leamington birder/photographer named Brad Oullette was driving along the shore when he spotted a Purple Gallinule foraging along the Fox Creek marsh. Brad is no stranger to mega rarities... he found a Fork Tailed Flycatcher  at Point Pelee about 10 years ago!

I attempted to find the bird on Saturday (yesterday) but after looking for 1 or so hours, I left only to have it come into view shortly after I left. I tried again today and upon arrival, there was a group along the road looking through scopes, cameras, binoculars... which was a good sign. I snapped a few photos just as I arrived on scene and boom... the bird was gone!

Fox Creek was a nice little wetland that hosted Kingfishers, Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Green Herons, to name a few. Carolina Wren was singing periodically. Warblers were noted in the trees along the shoreline. A small group of birders had also pointed out an Eastern Garter Snake which had attempted to eat a large toad. The snake had the toad's leg in its mouth but after a few minutes, the snake realized that its going to be hard to swallow the toad with the other limb being free.

 

Good Birding!!!
Dwayne

Late June Lepidoptera Observations around Windsor

 Lepidoptera is a term coined by Carl Linnaeus in 1735. The term is derived from greek origins meaning "Scaled Wing". The photo above (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidoptera) shows a scanning electron microscopy view of the scales on a butterfly wing at 50X through 5000X. The scales on the wings of butterflies have many functions: to attract mates, camoflage, mimicry, thermoregulation, insulation and pheromone production (wikipedia). (A small area on male butterfly wings called 'stigma' glands is what actually produces pheremones if I'm not mistaken). So when I go out birding, if I get a chance to get a good look at a butterfly, I take it! With the right optics, you can really get amazing views of the details, colours, patterns that butterflies provide. Some butterflies will allow close looks where you can almost grab them, and others will flutter away and keep a safe distance never to be seen again. I recall trying to find Hackberry Emporer butterflies at Point Pelee one summer, and while searching for one, one landed on me! I had another land on the dash of my car!

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better" - Albert Einstein.

Even with a cheap 55-250mm lens, you can actually see scale detail on butterflies if you get a good exposure. Do you know what butterfly this is?

My latest nature walks have focused on our local endowment of about 40-80 species of butterflies that can be found in Essex County (there are 174,250 species worldwide in the order of Lepidoptera). Right now (July) is prime time to go out and get a look at these fluttery beasts*! 

Red Admiral Butterfly - Dorsal and Ventral Composite

Red Admiral Butterfly. It took several exposures and adjustments on ISO, Aperture and shutter speed to get this shot! Once in a while a butterfly will afford you some time to capture it. This is the exception, not the norm though.

Hickory Hairstreak.  This rarity is pretty easily found at Brunet Park in Lasalle. This one only gave me 3 seconds of viewing.

This photo was of an obliging Banded Hairstreak. It was fresh and was nicely perched  at the forest edge sunning itself. Its hard to describe the colours you get from a fresh hairstreak. While moving its hindwings, it gives off a sheen of blue, purple and reddish copper colours. Brilliant!

The "hairstreaks" of a hairstreak butterfly is an example of self mimicry. A hungry bird wanting to eat this butterfly might be fooled into biting the wrong end of this butterfly - its non-vital hindwing, giving the butterfly one more chance to fly away and see another day.

Banded Hairstreak

Red Spotted Purple - A butterfly that mimicks the bad tasting Pipevine Swallowtail.  Its really a colour morph of the White Admiral butterfly!

Baltimore Checkerspot

Great spangled Fritillary on Purple Milkweed

My latest birding efforts have been good but nothing outside of what would be expected. I have seen and heard a great number of Great crested Flycatchers this summer at Ojibway, as well as Orioles, Indigo Buntings and Eastern Wood Peewees. One highlight from the third week of June was a group of five fledgling Green Herons at Ojibway (see below).

Five Green Heron Fledglings at Ojibway Park

American Toad 

So next time you're out in nature, take a second look at the lepidopteric gems that flutter about you. You just might be amazed at what you see! If you don't know what you are looking at consider getting a good field guide [link] .

Interested in joining a butterfly count in Essex? Read below for details of the Essex County butterfly count:

The Windsor Butterfly Count is being held Saturday, July 5 (2014). If you would like to attend we are meeting at 9:00 am at the Ojibway Nature Centre. We will then divide up into groups to cover the various parks and natural areas for butterflies.


Good Birding!
Dwaynejava

* "Fluttery Beasts" was a term coined by Ohio Blogger Jim McCormac. I must give him credit for that lexicographically brilliant description of butterflies.

Birding Malden Park During Spring Migration

I birded Malden Park in West Windsor this week on Monday and Tuesday afternoon and was pretty amazed at the density of migrating birds! This park has two small ponds that attract Green Herons year after year which I find pretty amazing! I watched this Heron snap branches off a tree and then carry them back to another to make a nest. Amazing!

Huge numbers of Palm Warblers, Yellow Warblers, and Yellow-rumped are present this week. Amazingly, I noted two Ovenbirds, one Nashville, one Black throated Green and a Wood Thrush! Somehow, Wood Thrushes are a bird I never see, and more often hear singing from a distance - So it was amazing to get a momentary glimpse of one this week.

I'm cutting this posting short for tonight.

Good birding!
Dwayne

Northern Bobwhite at Malden Park

With recent ontbirds postings about Northern Bobwhite at the Dow Wetlands in Sarnia, I had been wanting to drive out there to see it, but couldn't work up the motivation to drive out there (ozone action days). Luckily, an ontbirds posting mentioned Northern Bobwhites at Malden Park, of the Ojibway Complex in west Windsor. Since Malden Park is just minutes from my home, I stopped by Malden Park to see if I could find this awesome bird myself.

With very little effort, I found it this morning on the north end of the park, where the bike path runs along the backyard fences of a row of about 15 or so homes. The bird was seen about near the fourth house from the west-most home. I heard it calling before I saw it. It was calling "White!" without the "Bob-ba" preceding it. Northern Bobwhite is not a lifer for me as I did see it in Florida at the Babcock web reserve. This is my first photo of this bird though!

Note:Northern Bobwhite is a species at risk in Ontario. The link below mentions that harsh winters with lots of snowfall seem to kill off any natural popluations of this bird. Natural populations are basically limited to areas around Walpole Island where Lake Huron flows into Lake St Clair.  This is probably a captive released bird  http://www.rom.on.ca/ontario/risk.php?doc_type=fact&id=110&lang=en

The Green Heron fledglings seem to be doing very well as they were foraging for food this morning. Belted Kingfishers and Spotted Sandpipers were seen as well.

I spotted a Spotted Sandpiper...

My first Android Application- Tickle Tufted Titmouse!

Actual Screenshot from my HTC Sensations 4G phone. I'm running Android 403 (AKA Ice-cream Sandwich)

I picked up a book recently on how to create android apps for touch-screen smartphones. I've had it sitting around for a month or so but finally started reading it yesterday. I read the first 150 pages and created my first app. Instead of petting a kitten and hearing meow, I decided to have a Tufted Titmouse and have it make its call: "Peter Peter Peter".

One app I would like to create is one that might take verbal dictation out in the field, convert it to text and then possibly create a text file (.CSV) that could be uploaded directly to E-bird. That might be too ambitious but its something to shot for. 

Visual IDE environtment of AppInventor. Expereimenting with Speech Recognition

Good Birding!
Dwaynejava

PS: The wildflower show is about to begin!

Turks-Cap Lily or Carolina Lily ... Ojibway Park Tallgrass Prairie