Erieau Harlequin Ducks + Breeding Carolina Wrens?

Easter Monday is traditionally one of my first days of spring birding --- but this year, I had relatives visiting from Ottawa --- so an afternoon of viewing early migrants was not in the works for me. But as you might have guessed from the title of this posting, I woke up early (ok 8:30) and headed out to Erieau Point to see if I could luck out with the recently found Harlequin Ducks. Blake, Allen and Ken had described them well in their blogs and since this was a lifer - I was almost obligated to go out and find them.


When I got to Erieau, it was cold, windy and rainy. I scanned the watery lake Erie lakescape and pretty well assumed I was not going to see them. But somehow, I picked out some dark ducks that had white facial spots. There were some false alarms with some female buffleheads but I think I have diagnostic photos of Harlequins here. A life bird at 398!

Breeding Carolina Wren Habitat

On Easter Sunday, I was at my dads house in Windsor.... and while hanging out in the back yard with family, a Carolina Wren started belting out its tell tale Tea-Kettle Tea Kettle Tea Kettle song! I walked around to the back area of my dads yard (behind his shed) and saw a Carolina Wren singing its heart out! I ran to my car and grabbed my binoculars and Bino-scoped it singing. The first ten seconds of this video are blurry but the remaining twenty seconds after that are not too bad. The wren jumped down to a pile of twigs and I had great views of it in my binos when low and behold, a second wren was bouncing around as well (his lady friend perhaps?). Its quite probable that these birds are breeding somewhere in the messy piles of sticks and twigs in my dads back yard!




Its not a total surprise though... I've seen / heard Carolina Wren at my parents house in Windsor on several occasions. Some readers may remember this wren I photographed on an icicle. It was drinking water dropplets melting off the barn roof! That was back in 2011.

I think that whether you are a pro birder or just starting out --- if you are having a drink at a family get-together and find nesting Carolina Wrens in you back yard.... and you're in Canada.... thats pretty cool.

Shuster Trail at Point Pelee? Nope --- my parents' house

Good birding!

PS: I dropped my old honda civic off at a local junk yard in Windsor and could not help but notice a little yellow flower in the gravel driveway... Dandelion? No... I think it could be Colts - Foot! A chance botanical discovery!

Rough legged Hawk and Ebird Occurrence Maps v2

 

It's funny. I went to Holiday Beach almost every Friday after work during the 2010 fall raptor migration and saw pretty well every migrating raptor with the exception of the Rough Legged Hawk. Then, during the Christmas Bird Count at PPNP, I saw one fly by in the distance and finally lifered the bird at #215. The next day, I see a Dark Morph RLH along sanctuary pond... and today I finally get awesome views at PPNP on the North Dyke road. The onion fields also had several Northern Harriers flying around. I watched one fly about 1m above a ditch at a slow pace. It was probably scanning for rodents.

Small flocks of birds along the North Dyke road included:
BH Cowbirds,
E Starlings,
House and Tree Sparrows.
American Goldfinches
Blackbirds were around as well.

Sadly, I did not see any owls that were recently reported in the area.



Red Breasted Nuthatch Update

The Red Breasted Nuthatch is such cool bird, I can't help but stop by my parents house on a weekly basis and check out if it's there.

Red and White Breasted Nuthatches around on Jan 5th but I did not see the red-breasted this morning

This morning, I stopped by my parent's house because I  wanted to take some better photos of the Red Breasted Nuthatch. But... I did not see him! (*edit: I saw him again but later in the afternoon around 4pm) I heard Nuthatches several times but it/they did not come into view (*until later).  I did however hear the telltale call notes of a Carolina Wren!!!! Breeet-Breeet-Breet..... Wow... I was shocked! I snapped a few photos from 30m away and came up with the ones below.

By the way... what an incredible morning! The sun has hardly been out on a weekend for at least a month!

Shuster Trail? Nope. Mom's House...Click to view full size!

Later, I saw him again drinking water from an icicle hanging from the side of my parents shed! Again, this is from about 30 meters away. Now that's brisk baby!

*This is a follow-up to this posting. I did see the Red breasted Nuthatch in the later part of the afternoon. I seem to see it around 4pm with the most consistency.

Of course, an out-of-focus clothes line runs through this photo.

Also Seen:
Crows
Blue Jays
Cooper's Hawk

I'm blown away!!!! I basically only see this bird (the Carolina Wren) at Point Pelee, Holiday Beach or Ojibway but in Residential South Windsor? I'm pretty convinced the Red Breasted Nuthatch is overwintering near my parent's home. How awesome!


Ebird Occurrence Maps

This is the occurrence map for the Red headed Woodpecker

Using Ebird.org data from birders all over the US, Cornell University made these dynamic maps that show how various birds move from county to county during the various months. You can see how there is an explosive movement of Red headed Woodpeckers towards Ohio as May approaches. Very cool! They have such maps for about 15 other birds as well. Check out this link for occurrence maps for more birds and information.

(right click, open in new tab)
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/occurrence-maps/red-headed-woodpecker

Good birding,
Dwayne

Sweet Bird Carolina

I reluctantly went birding to Point Pelee and Hillman Marsh today. It was cold and cloudy and basically not nice. The only reason I did go though was to pick up a Kayak from Pelee Wings. I started birding at Hillman Marsh... or should I say... Hillman Mudflats. Where is all the water this Spring?

I'm still really bad at identifying shore birds. But in short, Hillman had:
Sanpipers,
Bonapart gulls,
Terns,
Great Blue Heron
Blue Winged Teal
Lesser Yellowlegs
Killdeer

I quickly continued on through side roads I have never driven on before.... Have you ever heard the song "Where the streets have no name"? I think U2 was talking about Mersea township!!! Anyway, I got to get a good look at what Tom Hince refers to as the Onion Fields in his Birding Point Pelee book.

The North Dyke road had Killdeer and Horned Larks in small numbers and great distances.

At this point, I only had about 1 hour to bird Point Pelee.... What path should I take???

I decided on the nature woodland trail, as I have not been on that trail yet this year! I also wanted to take a quick peek at the bird sightings book in the visitor center.

Not a bad turnout!
I quickly noticed a male Downy Woodpecker, then a female Yellow Belllied Sapsucker. Its strange. This YBSS looked like someone had spilt coffee on her! I'm still looking for a Red Headed Woodpecker!. Moving along the path briskly, I decided to take the Redbud Nature Trail as I had never walked this path before... where are the redbuds???

I did end up seeing several Kinglets (Golden and Ruby Crowned)... but wow are they hard to photograph. The redbud trail is basically a cloud of fine tree branches. ... Impossible to zoom with. The photo below is the best I could do, but this was me focusing manually. The exposure is off, as the bright background will fool the camera into underexposing the main (tiny) subject.

I reached the end of Redbud trail somewhat happy. I had at least seen some kinglets... not a bad day. But then as I walked along the nature trail, parallel to the road for the shuttle,,, I heard "tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle"... then after trying to locate the sound.... wham... I see a rust-coloured ball of feathers on a mossy, decaying branch. Incredible! But I was not able to photograph it at that point. I patiently followed it as is meandered along the path and got a few more photos of it...

Did I mention that the Carolina Wren is a lifer??? Wow... I was really happy to see this guy. My birding ended there as I soon approached the visitor center.

I finally picked up my kayak as well... I'll leave that for another post...

Happy Birding
-Dwayne