April Fowl's Day 2020

On Monday James Holdsworth found a stunning male Common Teal, the Eurasian (nominate) subspecies of Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca crecca) in Lambton Shores, near Port Franks. While many authorities consider our usual American Green-winged Teal (A. c. carolinensis) and Common Teal to be two different species, here in North America, they are currently considered one. Perhaps one day they will split it!

I missed seeing the Common Teal that showed up at Hillman Marsh a couple years ago, so since this bird wasn't too far, and it was a nice day for a drive, I decided to go for it. Distancing myself from others wouldn't be an issue, since it was in a field on the side of the road!

Upon arriving, I could see the fields were flooded a lot more than what they were last week when I checked out the area (after seeing Middlesex's first nesting record of Common Raven close by). Lots of American Wigeon and Wood Ducks, along with many Bonaparte's Gulls were present. I saw my first Tree Swallows and Blue-winged Teal of the year, and heard my first Eastern Meadowlark. I only saw a few Green-winged Teal, all Americans, so I hopped back in the car and went a bit further up the road. On the other side of the creek, was a larger group of ducks, the majority of them Green-winged Teal.

I scoped out the flock, and on my third pass, I picked out the target bird. I was soon joined by "MB" who also got to see the bird.

Photos are pretty bad, but they show the characteristic bold white horizontal stripe on the side, and the lack of the vertical white bar (American Green-wingeds lack this bold horizontal stripe, and possess a vertical bar). In person, the bird also appeared a bit paler.

A successful little outing, and it was nice to see some more migrant birds coming through.

Charitable Big Day: London Report

Today was the Charitable Big Day, which is a Big Day competition raising funds for Wildlife Preservation Canada. Teams got 12 hours between 8 am and 8 pm to find as many birds as possible. I teamed up with my friend Owen from Toronto. Since we are both high school students, and not able to drive to a place to bird together, we decided that he would bird in Toronto, and I would bird in London. At the end of the day we would put our species list together, and see what the outcome was.

The outcome was great!

There will be two parts to this post, the "London Report", which I am writing, and the "Toronto Report", which Owen is writing, which will be published soon.

Anyway, on with the London Report!

I started the day at one of my favourite local spots, Uplands Trail. Unfortunately, it was slower than I thought it would be, so the day started out average instead of the "bang" I was hoping for. The warbler count was 8, but that is nothing compared to the number of warblers Owen was seeing meanwhile in Toronto (I won't steal his thunder!) American Redstarts, Common Yellowthroat, Nashville Warbler, Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, Northern Parula, Cape May, and Wilson's added a bit of colour to the morning.

Wilson's

Cape May

Black-throated Green

A few Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were buzzing around.

Thrushes were well represented this morning.

Swainson's

American Robin

I also managed to see an Olive-sided Flycatcher, however it was very brief.

I moved onto my next location, hoping to find a few more species for the day list. I had staked out Pied-billed Grebe and Blue-winged Teal, and I was hoping to catch up to them.

The Pied-billed Grebe was found right away.

Blue-winged Teal, Green-winged Teal, and Northern Shoveler followed suit.

Green-winged Teal

There were a couple Green Herons that were moving throughout.

Two Solitary Sandpipers came in at one point.

I continued onto my next spot, where I found a kettle of Broad-winged Hawks and a few Turkey Vultures. A single Red-tailed Hawk was also found.

There were a number of Great Blue Herons seen throughout the day.

I went to Greenway Park in the early afternoon looking for shorebirds. Although I didn't find as many as I would have liked, Lesser Yellowlegs was added to the day list.

Also found was an Eastern Wood-Pewee, Rock Pigeons, and a trio of Indigo Buntings.

The Wonderland Drainage Ponds didn't yield any new birds for the cumulative day list, but I did find a Black-crowned Night-Heron, uncommon in Middlesex, and a Caspian Tern, new for my Middlesex list.

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Caspian Tern

Dingman Creek was next, but it was pretty disappointing. The only thing of note was a Least Flycatcher.

I spent the next couple hours at Westminster Ponds ESA. While it was pretty quiet, I added a few new birds to the list, including Hairy Woodpecker and Pileated Woodpecker. There were a couple other notable birds as well, such as Eastern Phoebe, Green Heron, and Magnolia Warbler.

Eastern Phoebe

Magnolia Warbler

Also present were a few Painted Turtles.

My last stop of the day was Killaly Meadows ESA. While I only added one new bird to the cumulative list here, I did it in a big way. While hiking on of the trails I looked up, and imagine my surprise and awe when I saw 50+ Common Nighthawks at the same time!

I, of course, left my camera in the car, so I tried my best digiscoping.

I ended the day with a respectable 75 species, which is better than I thought I'd do. I deem it a successful day! I can't wait to read what Owen's got to say!

Cumulative day list. Bold means that it was recorded only on the London list:

1. Canada Goose
2. Mute Swan
3. Trumpeter Swan
4. Hooded Merganser
5. Wood Duck
6. Gadwall
7. Blue-winged Teal
8. Northern Shoveler  
9. Mallard  
10. Green-winged Teal  
11. Canvasback
12. Redhead
13. Common Merganser  
14. Pied-billed Grebe  
15. Double-crested Cormorant   
16. Great Blue Heron
17. Great Egret  
18. Green Heron
19. Black-crowned Night-Heron
20. Cooper’s Hawk
21. Northern Harrier  
22. Turkey Vulture  
23. Osprey
24. Bald Eagle  
25. Broad-winged Hawk  
26. Red-tailed Hawk
27. American Coot
28. Killdeer
29. Spotted Sandpiper
30. Solitary Sandpiper
31. Semipalmated Sandpiper  
32. Greater Yellowlegs   
33. Lesser Yellowlegs  
34. Ring-billed Gull   
35. Herring Gull  
36. Caspian Tern  
37. Rock Pigeon  
38. Mourning Dove  
39. Common Nighthawk  
40. Ruby-throated Hummingbird  
41. Belted Kingfisher
42. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
43. Red-bellied Woodpecker
44. Downy Woodpecker
45. Hairy Woodpecker  
46. Northern Flicker  
47. Pileated Woodpecker  
48. Olive-sided Flycatcher  
49. Eastern Wood-Pewee
50. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
51. Least Flycatcher
52. Eastern Phoebe
53. Philadelphia Vireo  
54. Warbling Vireo  
55. Red-eyed Vireo  
56. Blue Jay   
57. American Crow
58. Common Raven  
59. Barn Swallow  
60. Black-capped Chickadee  
61. Red-breasted Nuthatch  
62. House Wren
63. Winter Wren
64. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
65. Swainson's Thrush
66. American Robin
67. Gray Catbird
68. European Starling  
69. Cedar Waxwing  
70. Yellow-Rumped Warbler
71. Black-And-White Warbler
72. Nashville Warbler
73. Common Yellowthroat
74. American Redstart
75. Cape May Warbler
76. Northern Parula
77. Tennessee Warbler
78. Magnolia Warbler
79. Bay-Breasted Warbler
80. Blackburnian Warbler
81. Yellow Warbler
82. Chestnut-Sided Warbler
83. Blackpoll Warbler
84. Black-Throated Blue Warbler
85. Palm Warbler
86. Pine Warbler
87. Black-Throated Green Warbler
88. Canada Warbler
89. Wilson's Warbler
90. Clay-colored Sparrow
91. Lincoln’s Sparrow
92. Chipping Sparrow  
93. Song Sparrow  
94. Scarlet Tanager  
95. Northern Cardinal   
96. Rose-breasted Grosbeak  
97. Indigo Bunting
98. Red-winged Blackbird  
99. Brown-headed Cowbird
100. Common Grackle
101. House Finch
102. American Goldfinch  
103. House Sparrow  

Time for Tundras

Today, I spent part of the afternoon at Aylmer Wildlife Management Area, which is one of the best spots for viewing Tundra Swans in North America. I've been going here since I was in first grade, and I still look forward to going every year.

I estimated there were over 900 swans, which is a fairly large number, however is quite small compared to what I've seen in previous years.

As soon as I stepped into the blind, the first birds I noticed other than Tundra Swans were a pair of Cackling Geese. While not rare, they are still quite uncommon here is southern Ontario.

Compared to the nearby Canada Geese, the Cacklers were quite small and had stubby bills.

I also managed to find the immature Snow Goose that has been hanging around.

I was quite excited to find this one, as I missed it last year.

Ducks included Green-winged Teals, Mallards, Black Ducks, Common Merganser, American Wigeon, and the elegant Northern Pintail.

American Wigeon

Green-winged Teal and Mallards

Northern Pintail

There were a few blackbirds feeding on the corn.

It was fairly quiet woodland bird wise, but I still managed to find robins, starlings, Horned Larks, and a Downy Woodpecker.

I also found a few Killdeer today as well. There was also a Merlin on the way in.

It was a successful outing, and I managed to get my "Weekend Big Year" list up to 70. You can keep track of my total underneath the "About Me" section at the side of the blog.

Things should really start picking up soon!

Sarnia and the St. Clair

Today was the annual Nature London field trip to the St. Clair River.  We met this morning at 7:30, and started the day by heading to the traditional Snowy Owl spot. I spotted one on top of a hill on the way, however only the cars behind us got to see the bird as the rest of the group didn’t notice us stop, so they kept on driving.

20 minutes later we came back with everyone else, but the owl was nowhere to be seen.

The drive to Sarnia was quite uneventful in the beginning, but as we neared our first destination, things picked up. One of the channels held hundreds of waterfowl, and we managed to pick-out such birds as American Black Duck,  Northern Pintail,  and a Black Duck x Mallard hybrid among the geese and Mallards.

European Starlings

Canada Geese

Wawanosh Wetlands didn’t yield the Northern Shrike we were hoping for, but Downy Woodpeckers kept us entertained.

Upon leaving the wetlands, we picked out a Green-winged Teal in one of the channels leading out of the Conservation Area. It’s a great bird for this time of year.

We couldn’t find much in the way of birds in Canatara Park. We were counting on seeing the Eastern Screech Owl that usually overwinters in the petting zoo, but it wasn’t to be.

Long-tailed Ducks and Mergansers could be found on the lake and under Bluewater Bridge.

Long-tailed Ducks

The marina is usually the best bet to finding something good, and it didn’t let us down today. Despite us only finding 3 species of gulls (and one HERG x GBBG hybrid), we found most of our waterfowl here, and a couple other goodies such as two American Coots, and eight Cackling Geese swimming in a line, a lifer for many of those present.

American Coot

Cackling Geese

After lunch, we headed back to the marina where we found a small raft of Redheads close to shore with Canvasback, Greater Scaup, and a Ring-necked Duck mixed in.

Ring-necked Duck

American Black Ducks provided better views than earlier in the day.

Heading down river, we were awarded with decent looks at various ducks. The only new waterfowl species we added were White-winged Scoter and Mute Swan.

Redheads and Scaup

Common Goldeneye and Herring Gull

Mute Swan

Sombra wasn't as spectacular as we thought it would be, probably due to the snow moving in. I didn't take any photos here as it was pretty boring.

We bid farewell to half the group, then some of us went down Bentpath Line. Instead of a Short-eared Owl at the solar farm, we found a nice female Northern Harrier.

46 (give or take) Wild Turkeys were a nice surprise. Sure beats the groups of 3 or 4 we see around London! There was a group about this size along the road last year was well.

Our first Rough-legged Hawk of the trip was spotted about 20 minutes later.

Our first and only Bald Eagle soon followed. The trip leader was pleased.

Snow Buntings are always a joy to come across, and we observed a large group on Nauvoo Rd.

The group tried the Snowy Owl spot one last time before calling it quits. We quickly located one on a telephone pole.

"I'm Outta Here!"

All in all, it was a "slow" day, but it was filled with great birds.

Trip List:

Cackling Goose

Canada Goose

Mute Swan

American Black Duck

Mallard

Northern Pintail

Green-winged Teal

Canvasback

Redhead

Ring-necked Duck

Greater Scaup

White-winged Scoter

Long-tailed Duck

Bufflehead

Common Goldeneye

Common Merganser

Red-breasted Merganser

Wild Turkey

Northern Harrier

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Cooper's Hawk

Bald Eagle

Red-tailed Hawk

Rough-legged Hawk

American Coot

Ring-billed Gull

Herring Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Rock Pigeon

Mourning Dove

Snowy Owl

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

American Kestrel

Merlin

Blue Jay

American Crow

Horned Lark

Black-capped Chickadee

Red-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

European Starling

Snow Bunting

American Tree Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Northern Cardinal

Common Grackle

House Finch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

Total: 51 species