Weekend Birding

 My birding around Middlesex County has continued. This past weekend I put in some more time picking up year birds. First thing on Saturday, I went to the Fanshawe Conservation Area (where else?)

The large number of geese continued, but I could only spot two Cackling Geese. Hopefully more goose species will be found here in the coming weeks. I also spotted one of the Northern Pintails.

As for the passerines, I found my first bluebirds of the year, which was nice. A big surprise was a Chipping Sparrow coming to one of the areas people feed birds. Despite almost daily coverage of this area by birders, new wintering birds continue to be found!

Eastern Bluebird

My aunt and I went down to southwest Middlesex in the afternoon in search of raptors, in particular Golden Eagle and Red-shouldered Hawk. First was Shield Siding Road, where the hawk had been seen a couple weeks prior. No luck here however.

Argyll Drive was also pretty quiet. We spotted a suspicious eagle in the distance, but it disappeared before being identified.

We were driving down Watterworth Road, my tire pressure warning went off. I pulled over to investigate and found exactly what I was hoping it wasn't: my front tire was quickly losing air. I put my finger over the hole to try and save what I could (turned out we didn't have a tire plug kit, so it didn't end up mattering!) Funny enough, as I had my finger on the tire, an immature Golden Eagle flew over! At least we got our target bird!

Thanks to the assistance of a passing motorist, we managed to change the tire, but not without difficulty! The soft shoulder was certainly not kind to us. By any means, the birding was over for the day, and it was time to head back home.

The next day, I went for a long walk.(~11km) along the Thames River, starting at Springbank Park.

I spent nearly an hour sorting through a redpoll flock, but all I could find were Commons and a few tweener polls.

One of my intriguing redpolls. I left it as Hoary/Common. Who knows, they're probably the same species anyways (or at least, Acanthis flammea flammea and Acanthis hornemanni exilipes are). It would probably be easy to dismiss it as a regular old Common, but it stood out to me as a bit different. I'm always looking for those more "cryptic" Hoaries.

There haven't been a ton of ducks along the river this winter. My three year birds from the walk were all ducks, Bufflehead (basically absent from Middlesex this winter so far), Ring-necked Duck (unusual wintering bird), and a surprise Red-breasted Merganser.

On Monday morning, I got a text that a Harlequin Duck had been found on the Thames on the 9th. The finder was concerned for the wellbeing of the bird, so a location was not given. After some detective work, myself and a few other area birders were reasonably confident where the bird was, so on Tuesday morning, I went out to try and find it.

After searching for a couple hours, I finally managed to locate it. 

It eventually got up and went to feed and swim in the rapids.

Great looking bird, my second for Middlesex. The last one was 2016, and the last Harlequin I had seen period back back in 2018 in Hamilton. It was nice to catch up with one again.

That's all for now. Stay safe out there.

Some Aylmer Things

Today I went to the Aylmer Wildlife Management Area and Aylmer Sewage Lagoons with my local nature club, Nature London. We saw quite the variety, including Eastern Bluebirds, Snow Geese, Tundra Swans, Cackling Geese, and Greater White-fronted Geese.

Snow Goose (blue morph)

Tundra Swans

Canada Goose

Cackling Geese

Eastern Bluebird (male)

Eastern Bluebird (female)

Greater White-fronted Geese

Cackling Geese

Good Friday, Good Birding

Today I decided to do a "Little Big Half-Day" of birding. I started by riding my bike out to Uplands Trail, a place that is rich in birds and is less than 5 minutes away by bicycle.

The woods were alive with the sounds of early spring. Northern Flickers proved to be quite abundant, and there are at least a couple of pairs in the area.

Black-capped Chickadees are starting to pair off and scout nesting sites, if they have not already selected one.

Ruby-crowned Kinglets are moving through. I would learn later in the day that May is for Warbler Neck and April is for Kinglet Neck.

There were a few other woodland birds too, including FOY Hermit Thrushes.

Northern Cardinal

Hermit Thrush 

Eastern Phoebe

Coltsfoot is out in full force.

At the end of my visit to Uplands Trail, I got on a large corvid (the family crows, ravens, and jays belong to) that was making some unusual vocalizations. It was mobbing a Red-tailed Hawk, and, amazingly, the bird appeared to be the same size as the hawk. This alone leads me to believe that I saw a Common Raven, which is very uncommon to the area. However, I can't be sure as I didn't get outstanding looks at the bird.

Later in the day I headed out to Killaly ESA. First, we walked the trail on the south side of the river. Here we found a variety of birds typical for the area, including a FOY Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

House Finch

Turkey Vulture

American Robin

Chipping Sparrow

Northern Flicker - incredibly common today

This flower was all over the place...I'm not sure what it is though. Any thoughts?

Fig Buttercup

Is this a log or a Muskrat?...I'll let you be the judge of that!

Afterwards, we walked the north side of the river on which the majority of the ESA is located.

The Osprey have returned, however they are still ignoring the perfectly good nesting platform that the city and MNR erected last year.

I was pleased to see a few Six-spotted Tiger Beetles along the trails.

It was a nice surprise to find a pair of Eastern Bluebirds checking out a nest box. With any luck, they will stick around and raise a brood.

Kinglets of both the Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned variety were everywhere.

As usual, there was a Great Blue Heron hanging around.

Eastern Phoebes (or Easter Phoebes as Blake calls them at this time of year) are becoming easier to find as time progresses.

I finally saw my first Yellow-rumped Warbler of the year in Ontario! This species had remained elusive despite how hard and often I looked for it. It's always exciting to see the first warbler of the year!

I find that birding in April gets you excited for the big push in May, but also makes you realize that you are bored out of your mind looking at Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Little Brown Jobs.

Also present were several Cabbage Whites and Red Admirals.

After supper, to finish a great day out in the field, we headed out to Gibbon's Park, which is a spot well worth checking out in April, as early migrants are moving through.

Here we managed to find a Great Horned Owl.

The nest succeeded this year with three owlets.

Remember to follow all the ethics while viewing owls, especially nests, and NEVER use flash photography, as I saw people using tonight. In fact, one photographer had quite the extensive flash set-up that was blindingly bright.

Just as we were about to leave, I heard a soft but distinct peent!...an American Woodcock!

I always thought that Gibbon's had a great potential for woodcocks, so it was great to confirm my suspicions.

I ended my  "Little Big Half-Day" with 48 species, possibly 49 if it was in fact a raven I saw. Not bad considering I did all of it within a short distance from my house! Hopefully I can get out again soon.

eBird Checklists:
Uplands Trail
Killaly Meadows ESA (South side of Thames)
Killaly Meadows ESA (North side of Thames)
Gibbon's Park

Hawk Cliff and Port Stanley

Yesterday was Nature London's annual field trip to Hawk Cliff and area. I went last year, and it was awesome. Although this year things were a little slow, it was still quite enjoyable.

The day started at Tim Horton's, where all good nature outings begin :) On the way to Hawk Cliff, we found an Eastern Bluebird plus a Broad-winged Hawk.

I didn't take all that many photos because most birds were just too far away (or fast in the case of warblers.) Sharpies (Sharp-shinned Hawks) were the most numerous, I counted around 30 birds throughout.

The Monarch tagging demonstration really piqued my interest. I'm thinking to order a tagging kit so I can get involved next season. You can sort of see the small 9mm wide tag on this male.

There were quite a lot of raptors (9) to be banded during the banding demonstration. Sharpies, kestrels, a Northern Harrier, a Merlin, and a Red-tailed Hawk were banded.

I found a Common Nighthawk which a few members of the groups managed to see. I've been seeing them for the last few weeks, but I finally managed to get a picture!

There were a few passerines observed including Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (immature), Canada Warbler, American Goldfinch, Black-and-White Warbler, Blue Jay, Cedar Waxwing, and American Redstart.

After Hawk Cliff, we went to Port Stanley for lunch (Mackie's). A few of us went to the beach to see what we could find, and weren't disappointed. Although we didn't re-find the Sanderlings that I had seen fly by before we ate (I was the only one to see them), we did find a nice variety of gulls. Ring-billed was the most common, but Bonaparte's and Herring gull could be found with them. I didn't realize this at the time, but there were a couple Lesser Black-backed Gulls with them as well. A Common Tern was seen as well.

The last stop was Port Stanley Sewage Lagoons. I immediately found three Hooded Mergansers.

Greater Yellowlegs was the only shorebird species found, Other ducks include Green-winged Teals, Ruddy Ducks, Wood Ducks, and Mallards. Merlin and Kestrels were numerous at the back of the cells.

Black Saddlebags were quite common today.

There was a family of Pied-billed Grebes with 8 young and 2 (obviously) adults.

It was a great day, with very few photographs taken (sorry). I'll be in Algonquin next weekend, so I'm looking forward to that.


On a side note, I won second in my division at the Western Fair photo contest!

2nd Place!