Feb 2020 Birding

I haven't really blogged much this year so far. I still want to ... but I have not seen much of note this year so far!

Today I brought my son for a walk to Belle River Marina - it was mentioned by a few other birders as of late and I thought I would try my luck at that spot.

I believe that I observed Greater and Lesser Black backed Gulls. I have not confidently identified Lesser black backed Gulls over the years... so its  a pretty good sighting for me!

Of course, with this mild winter we've had, I think many people have had red-winged blackbirds for a while now - but it was nice to hear them singing this weekend at both Belle-Isle and Ojibway Park.

Another neat sighting - perhaps even a first for this blog is a Kentucky Coffee Tree - a rare tree in Canada.

I have driven out for a drive in the "pleasent valley" area of Essex County - out near Harrow.  There is always some nice birds to see in that habitat of open fields, floodplains, forest and even landfill site. Eastern Meadowlarks were seen for weeks on end but I was unable to catch up with them!

One afternoon, I was lucky enough to see a rough-legged hawk out there. It might be the only one I've seen this winter and last winter. 

Its nice to see the days getting longer. The tide of migration is swinging back in our direction - northern hemisphere. Good birding!

Dwayne

2019 - Highlights & Year in Review

I noticed this Cassins' Sparrow while stopping randomly along an Arizona roadside for a bathroom break. This little sparrow would take flight off the fence and sing then land nearby on the fence again. This particular behavior is unique to Cassin's Sparrows. This was on of many amazing nature observations I was fortunate enough to make this year.

Happy New Year!  2019 was a pretty awesome year for me in terms of Natural history observation and as per tradition - I am making a quick reflection on the previous year of nature observation. This posting will be summarized by the following four or so events:

I did a surprising amount of Travel this year - such as:
* Florida in March
* Carden Alvar in late May
* French River, Killarney in July
* Arizona in August

My life list went from 410- 460 this year!

Florida in March-
I saw many great birds in Florida this past march but to be honest, did not get any of my target birds! I specifically missed out on Snowy Plovers which I am 0/6 in Florida with. I think Snow Plovers migrate out of the state by the time mid-march rolls around. I could be wrong on this!

I did pick up some great butterfly species in Florida this time around though (Palamedes Swallowtail, Red banded Hairstreak and Phaon Crescent). The highlight being a Little Metalmark butterfly. While photographing this tiny Orange Metalmark - I noted an orchid species - Spring Ladies Tresses which was pretty exciting. See https://dwaynejava.blogspot.com/2019/03/fort-myers-birding-and-butterfly.html for more on this trip's butterfly observations.

Wild Burrowing Owls - at a baseball diamond 

* Pinery in late May

I finally caught up with an Olympia Marble in May of 2019. It was found in the Pinery Provincial Park and near Ipperwash as well. I had attempted to find this in previous years but this year, I had better information, and chose warmer days from the weather forecast which I think is a big help to see this beautiful species.

* Carden Alvar in late May
Carden Alvar in late may and June is always a treat for a naturalist. My time in Carden was a brief two day trip. Highlights were Golden winged Warbler, many sparrow species and an Eastern Pine Elphin.

* French River, Killarney, Ottawa and Smith Falls in July

French River and Killarney were quite beautiful places to discover this summer.
Just birding some of the parking lots at Killarney for example included looks at various breeding warbler species, and stunning looks at this Yellow bellied Sapsucker  (seen below).

French River Provincial Park

Silver Queen Mica Mine @ Murphy's Point Provincial Park

* Arizona in August

I picked up a mind-blowing 50 new species in Arizona this summer.  With at least 4 new woodpecker species, 5 new sparrow species, 8 new hummingbird species --- just to name a few. See my 7 or so blog postings in

https://dwaynejava.blogspot.com/2019/08/birding-southeast-arizona-4-day-birding.html

Local Highlights:

Some Local  Highlights this year were: 

Red Phalarope Near Rondeau (Lifer)

King Rail near Rondeau (Lifer)

Slaty backed Gull (Essex) (Lifer)

Common Redpolls (Essex)

Swallow-tailed Kite (self found at Point Pelee)

Perhaps one of the best birding observations of the year for me was this self-found Swallow Tailed Kite at Point Pelee. I will have to wait for the OBRC report for the year to see if I am the original finder - but regardless - I would chalk this up to being one of my top birding moments in the ten years that I have been birding.

The story was basically this: Kit and I met at the entrance of the park (NW Beach) as I needed to borrow some money from him (I realized I had forgotten my wallet at home and wanted some money to buy lunch at the park - Kit offered to lend me some and meet me at the NW Beach). We then proceeded to the DeLaurier Homestead where Kit proceeded to take a shuttle bus to the VC while I decided to take the path less travelled  (IE - Walk to the VC).
As I walked along Ander's Footpath, I noticed this rapter flying from north to south,  flying at tree-top height - directly over my head! I inspected my photos and quickly sent out an email to the ontbirds list serve. I took the above photo and saw the bird near the Point Pelee Cemetery entrance.

Thanks for joining me on my reflection of 2019 and I look forward to blogging more next year for more adventures.

Some goals for next year(s):
More travel - Perhaps to:
Bruce Peninsula Orchid Festival?
Midwestern Tallgrass Prairies?
Alaska?
Churchill Manitoba?
Thunder Bay?
Tennessee?
The Gulf of Mexico?

Good Birding, Naturalizing... and All the best in 2020!
Sincerely,
Dwayne

10 Year Blogiversary ... Reflections on a 10 Year Birding Apprenticeship

Eastern Fringed Prairie Orchid - Ojibway Park, Windsor Ontario

Wow - ten years ago ... I started this blog after an interest in birding started as a result of a few chance interactions with Ojibway Park in West Windsor.  At that time, I was going through some personal challenges and in a way - I found some relief in natural history. This blog attempted to document that journey.  I've met many great naturalists on this journey - such as Paul Pratt, Blake Mann and Allen Woodliffe.  I've made many new friends and acquaintances as well - mainly the Windsor Essex birding community.

During the last ten years - I think I've grown tremendously as a person, I had two new children, I earned a business degree, and traveled extensively. I did my best to balance a career, schooling, various home improvement projects, parenting etc.

Here are some other reflections based on topic below:

Travel - 
In the USA, I have traveled to Michigan, Florida, Oregon, and Arizona to further my natural history observations and experiences. On the Canadian side of the border - I have traveled to Algonquin, Carden Alvar, Manitoulin Island, Ottawa, BC, Alberta, and New Brunswick for birding and travel.

Photography - 
I've done my best to capture this journey with photography. I started out ten years ago with digital rebel (Canon DSLR), then moved to a Canon 40D, then to a Canon 7D. Just recently - I made a decision to perhaps invest in a new camera system - a mirrorless Sony Alpha 7 series camera. I bought the 350mm telephoto lens but I am waiting on the newest version of the Sony Alpha 7 series which has yet to be released (hopefully before May 2020).

Botany- 
Botany has become a strong interest over the years. I have made an effort to seek out all of the rare plants that our local Ojbiway Park contains. Seeing the rare and endangered species at Ojibway and sometimes even self-finding rare species has been tremendously exciting! (some that come to mind include Pink Laddies Slippers at French River Provincial Park this summer, Ragged Fringed Orchid in New Brunswick and Spring Ladies Tresses in Florida at Babcock Web WMA).

Butterfly Watching - 
Butterfly watching has been tremendously exciting over the years, especially observations that were made during my traveling efforts. A few special occurences that come to mind include seeing the Karner Blue butterfly in Newago Michigan, the Olympia Marble this Spring in the Pinery Area or Lambton County, and the Little Metalmark in Florida at Babcock Web WMA.


Conservation and Ethics - 
I end off this reflection with a final thought which is a conundrum that I struggle with. I am increasingly concerned with my 'carbon footprint' that I leave as a result of my birdwatching efforts.  I must admit that I think its wrong (for the most-part) to engage in cross-provincial twitching trips - yet I have engaged in them in the past and I am currently debating driving to a Toronto area bird that would be an amazing life bird. One consolation that I like to think about is that my current car is very fuel efficient (50MPG Highway) and I am hoping to eventually buy an electric car, which would be a huge carbon reduction investment.

So thanks for all the readers of Nerdy for Birdy for joining me on this 10 year apprenticeship into birding and Natural History. Its been a fun ride and I still feel I have more to learn and more to contribute moving forward.  I look forward to reading and learning from fellow bloggers and being a small part of Ontario's blogosphere.

Happy New Year and all the best in 2020!

Sincerely,
Dwayne Murphy

Backtrack Birding: May 18th, 2019 at Ojibway Park

Sometimes, I will go look at some former postings - and I realized that I did not blog about an excellent day of birding that I had back in May  -- May 18th if I'm not mistaken -- at Ojibway Park.

Ojibway park is a large complex of parks in West Windsor that is probably a nice oasis of natural area in an otherwise human-altered landscape.

This past May - one birder reported a Cerulean Warbler around mid-May. Another young woman who is new to birding and nature photography had photographed a Worm-Eating Warbler --- but was unaware of its rarity factor -- having shown the photo to other birders at a later date.

On May 18th, I don't recall the details too much other than I had seen some great birds around Ojibway --- and one small flock of Warblers had a drab bird that I couldn't really figure out what it was at first.  A less experienced version of myself might have dismissed it as warbler sp. or but for some reason, this birds foraging efforts allowed me to watch it as it slowly moved from the right to the left along the pathway I was standing on. I switched between trying to photograph it and just trying to view it through my binoculars. It was really cool to slowly realize that this was a Golden winged Warbler... Perhaps one of my best finds this year!

This was my first self-found Golden winged Warbler in Essex County --- having only seen a handful of other sightings exclusively at Point Pelee which were usually pointed out to me by other birders.

As I recall - I caught up with this same group of warblers about an hour later and I was amazed to re-find the female Golden Winged --- this time in better sunlight.

Seeing Canada Warbler and a few Scarlet Tanagers made this outing pretty sweet. Its nice to know that this natural area - just minutes from where I live can attract such nice birds.

Good birding!

Not the best photo - but... Diagnostic!