Early November Birding

Weather is an incredibly important factor for birding. A drop in temperature will hurry along southbound migrants, and an increase in temperature will sometimes slow them down. A slight shift in wind direction can mean the difference between tons of birds, and no birds at all. And that's what happened yesterday on Lake Ontario.

          Wind directions have been consistently coming from the West for a quite some time, except for a few odd days, but those days were fairly week East winds. Yesterday the wind shifted to the Northwest, and on the west shore of Lake Ontario wind speeds were going to be up to 50 kilometres an hour at times. This, combined with some good luck, was the perfect recipe for pelagic species and Jaegers. The strong easterly winds would sweep all the birds along the St. Lawrence River, into Lake Ontario, and then straight for Hamilton, where I would be waiting for them...

This map shows the wind direction and speed across Lake Ontario, I got this from WINDY, a great wind app

In the morning I decided to go bird banding at Ruthven Park, to tie up a loose end for my Ontario year list, Fox Sparrow. Sure enough, on the second net round a re-trap bird turned up! 

You can tell where Fox Sparrows get their name from, from this picture - the brilliant red tones!

Birding was fairly good, and there was lots of South bound migrants going over. Mostly Red-winged Blackbirds, and Robins, but there was also some Pipits and Bluebirds mixed in, and I also heard a Rusty Blackbird flyover! Feeling good so far, I hitched a ride with my friend Nathan to Van Wagner's, where we planned to spend the next four hours or so scanning the horizon for birds blown into the Hamilton end of the lake from the gale force winds.

          When we got there, they told us that they had already a juvenile Black-legged Kittiwake, and a few Jaegers. After about an hour of scanning, I noticed a dark gull like bird shooting across the water. Everyone got on it and it was determined to be a Parasitic Jaeger! My first Jaeger species ever! Nothing happened for a while, but then a lone Brant was spotted flying Northwards. After that, I decided to go back to the car and get some warmer clothes. On the way back, I noticed a small gull making it's way up the shoreline towards the barricade of scopes. I got my bins on it and found that it was the Kittiwake! I called to the group, and everyone got on it! It continued it's way of the shoreline and disappeared. Kittiwakes are a small species of gull from the far east and west coasts of Canada. These birds turn up several times a year in the province, normally around Lake Ontario and the Niagara Region. So not totally unexpected, but my first for the province! After that, a few more unidentified Jaegers showed up on the horizon for a few seconds, and this disappeared again, in true Jaeger fashion. 

          After another hour or so, things picked up again, and another Jaeger came in fairly close, at least close enough to identified as a Pomarine Jaeger! My second lifer of the day! It even came close enough for (poor) pictures!

Jaegers are known to always be far out on the horizon, but when winds are this strong, they can get pushed super close!

More Jaeger spuhs were seen way far out, but not close enough to be identified. Thankfully there was some ducks closer in, mostly Long-tailed Ducks and White-winged Scoters, but I also saw a few Black Scoters fly by, another year bird! A Red-throated Loon also made an appearance as it migrated South with some Common Loons.

White-winged Scoters

Long-tailed Duck

Some surfers were taking advantage of the super strong waves, and braved the cold waters in wetsuits!

Brrr!

A large flock of Snow Geese was spotted South over the lake, and I estimated 80 of them! A really high count for the Hamilton Area! The flock was comprised of about 70% white morphs and 30% blue morphs! Another Jaeger made an appearance quick appearance, and flew within 80 meters of the viewing area, and was originally identified as a Pomarine, then switched to Parasitic, then changed to Pomarine again, and then again back to Parasitic where it will stay! The white line next to the white primaries is normally a characteristic trait of Pomarines, but apparently a small portion of Parasitics also show it. The thinner body structure and warmer caramel tones are also good indicators of this bird being a Parasitic.

Parasitic Jaeger - Such cool birds!

This photo shows the bill size and shape fairly well, a Long-tailed Jaeger would have a much shorter and stubby bill, where the black covers about of it, and a Pomarine would have a slightly thicker bill. The bulge at the end of the bill, also called the Gonydeal Angle, isn't overly noticeable, but whereas on a Pomarine, it would be fairly conspicuous

The longer tail and tipping on the tail are also good field marks for Parasitic

The white bar is more noticeable in this picture. If you can see this feature, then you know that the bird is close to you!

And that wraps up my weekend, pretty successful! In total two lifers (Pomarine and Parasitic Jaeger), and seven Ontario yearbird, one being completely new to Ontario for me! They were Brant, Red-throated Loon, White-rumped Sandpiper, Snow Goose (almost missed it!) Fox Sparrow (whew, also a close one!), Black Scoter and the new Ontario bird was Kittiwake. My best November birding ever!

Lists: Ruthven List, Van Wagner's List

          Next week I won't be doing much birding, because I have a kung-fu black-belt grading, but the weekend after I'm going up to North to do some patch birding!

Until next time... Good birding!

Hawks!

So because yesterday was my birthday, my mom drove me to Hawk Cliff. My targets were Red-shouldered Hawk (a long, long long overdue lifer) and Golden Eagle (a fairly long overdue lifer). When we arrived around 9, lots of birders were already set up in Sharpie Alley. There wasn't much (anything) going over, so I wandered around, finding Kinglets and Creepers galore! The Kinglets were all quite tame, but quick and erratic as they are.

This Golden-crowned Kinglet sat still just long enough to get it's picture taken

After getting over the cuteness of the Kinglets, I looked up just in time to see a Sharp-shinned Hawk shoot overhead - the first of many. I slowly walked back to Sharpie Alley as 3 more birds went over. For the next few hours, Sharpies came fairly steady, with a good number of Cooper's Hawks mixed in.

Sharp-shinned Hawk

After we'd been there for about an hour, I noticed a larger, bulkier bird coming towards us, at treetop level. Someone called it out as a Cooper's, I got my camera up, and fired away as it flew over us, just as I did so, someone called out a Red-shouldered Hawk, but I was too interested in the bird that had just flown over. I looked at my pictures and shared them around. Everyone who has seen the bird seemed to agree that it was much to big for a Cooper's, and Goshawk was eventually decided on. But when I got back and downloaded the photos, it is clear that the streaking is way too fine for Goshawk, so it was disputed again as being an incredibly rare hybrid between the two, also known as a 'Gooper's Hawk'. But as hybrids can almost never be confirmed, I decided to leave it as Cooper's/Goshawk on my eBird checklist.

Juvenile Hawk sp.

After that, variety began to pick up. Red-shouldereds began coming through, my first lifer! Most were too high to photograph, but eventually one bird was low enough.

The crescent windows didn't come out to well in this picture, but that is one of the best ways to ID Red-shouldereds

The crescents on the wing tips are more visible in this photo - Red-shouldereds are such pretty birds!

Birds kept coming at a steady pace, and diversity began picking up. Two light morphs Rough-legged hawk went through, a few Harriers went over, and then Turkey Vultures started passing by in big numbers. 

Rough-legged Hawk - the Crows also seemed to like the number of hawks, and would chase the odd one.

The influx of Turkey Vultures brought new Raptors, and soon the dominant bird in the sky was Red-tails, with a few Red-shouldereds mixed in. After about an hour of counting Turkey Vultures, someone called out a large Eagle way out. I got my scope on it, and it was soon identified as a Golden. It didn't seem to come any closer for a while, but then eventually it came out of no where a little bit above tree height! 

It wasn't the best lighting, but it was good enough for me!

Small amount of white in the tail and the characteristic white 'windows' on each wing means that this bird is either in its 3rd or 4th year

But just as it was there, it was gone - but with more to come. From then until when I left, Eagles continued to go over every few minutes. Most were Bald, but there was a good mix of both species! 

At one point both species were in one picture. The size difference is obvious in this picture, with two Balds on the left and a Golden on the right.

The Golden nape is kinda visible on this photo.

After a few more Eagles went over, we decided to pack up, and head to Long Point for ducks. On the way there, we saw plenty more Turkey Vultures on the way, and a juvenile Bald Eagle in a tree.

          The Inner Bay was filled with waterfowl, most were too far out to ID, but the vast majority were Redhead. There was also really good numbers of American Coots, and lesser numbers of American Wigeon, Pied-billed Grebe and Gadwall. I was looking for Canvasback, and most of the ducks were too far away to be certain, so we drove around to the BSC headquarters on the other side. I only had 20 minutes so I speed walked out to the platform and set up my scope. There was a small flock of ducks close to shore and I scanned through them, finding multiple Canvasback, Redhead, Teal and Black-duck. But as I scanned to the right, I noticed some duck hunters sitting in a boat behind the reeds. At first I thought they were going to shoot the ducks, but then I realized that the Duck variety seemed a little too good, and too close to shore. And my suspicion was confirmed when the guys started their boat and roared right past they decoys, on their way to another spot I guess. I didn't know that hunting was aloud on the BSC property... Interesting. I scanned through the real flock of ducks farther out on the bay, and found one female Canvasback in with the countless Redheads. There was likely many more, but I was almost out of time.

Overall it was a pretty great birthday present!

Owls and Ducks!

Birding wise, when I think of late October, I think of three things. Ducks, Raptors and Saw-whets. So last weekend I went to Ruthven Park National Historic Site, a great natural area along the Grand River near Cayuga. There is a fantastic banding station there that runs their own blog. I woke up early Saturday and drove down with my mom and sister. We banded all morning, there wasn't much of interest besides a late House Wren, and a Fox Sparrow that I missed while doing census (happens everytime).
          Later that night I went back to do some Saw-whet banding, where we caught three! I had previously banded about 10 birds, so I was at the back of the line in terms of priority, which was fine by me.

Of all the owls, I'm told that Saw-whets are the nicest to band, in that they won't tear your hand apart if given the chance!

The Owl seemed to have noticed that I'd been awake for nearly 20 hours straight, and wouldn't stop staring at me... In fear?

An interesting thing about aging Owls, is that you use a blacklight on the underwing, and the colour pattern determines the age! The bird below was an adult, due to the solid pink hue of the feathers:

Relative to their body, Owls have massive wings!

After banding, we place the owl in a small juniper bush outside the lab, so the Owls can let their eyes adjust, and will sit there for ten minutes or more!

Waiting for the paparazzi to go away

Unfortunately, I eventually had to go back to Kitchener, but that brings me to my next topic... Ducks! Every fall, ducks make the long trek back South through the Mississippi Flyway, and lots pass through central Ontario! So I decided to check out the Laurel Creek Reservoir on Wednesday. I was astounded by the number of waterfowl! The most that I have ever seen in Waterloo region by far! There was about 2000 birds on the very little water that was left, with amazing variety! There was 14 species of waterfowl, and also a handful of Pied-billed Grebes and Coots. 

If you look closely, you can see a lot of small dots - mainly Geese, Mallards and Ruddy Ducks.

A little bit more of a closeup

Also present was a high count of Greater Yellowlegs and Great Egrets.

 5 came up as a high count, I believe that these same birds have been seen on and off here over the past week or so

One of eight, getting late for Yellowlegs I guess.

And as for hawks... next weekend!

First Post!

Ah, my first blog post. I had so many great posts that I could've done if I'd started doing this earlier, but, alas, I didn't. So I figured that instead of putting off making a blog forever, that I'd just start one, and see how it goes. I joked around with names, trying to find trends in other people's blogs, and came up with this alliteration: "Ethan's Ecological Excursions", but I figured most wouldn't get the joke and would think I just picked a bad name. So I came up with Ontario Urban Naturalist. Not particularly exciting, but you know what, it fits. So here it goes:
          Welcome to my blog! I'm a birder from Kitchener, Ontario and I started birding when I was about 10 years old (I'm 14 now, soon to be 15). My mom owned/worked for an environmental consulting company, so naturally (ha, get the joke) she, and pretty much all of her colleagues were birders. Every year we went to Pelee Island for spring migration, and I tagged along but was more interested in herps at the time. I think on the first trip, everyone was watching a brilliantly plumaged male Scarlet Tanager, hopping around in the bushes in plain view just a few meters away from us. Everyone oohed and ahed, while I struggled to see the bird. No one understood why I couldn't see it, and it frustrated me at the time. So a year later, also on the Island, we were slowly driving down McCormick road, looking for Prothonotaries. All of a sudden my mom slammed on the brakes as a golden blur whizzed in front of the car. I quickly sat up in my seat, looked out my window and to my amazement, came face to face, with the brightest golden and blue bird I have ever seen. I was made a hardcore birder on the spot. The Prothonotary sat there for no more than 3 seconds before flitting off. We jumped out of the car and yelled down the road "we saw it! we saw it!" The next thing we saw was almost equally amazing as what we had just witnessed. Old people, running. And lots of them. They were almost instantly at our side, and searching the area in an almost military fashion. but after almost half an hour of searching, we gave up and left.
          Shortly after I'd seen the Prothonotary, I realized that there was way more birds out there, and a lot more rarer. I discovered eBird, Flickr, ONTBirds, OFO, KWFN and much more. I learned about twitching and chasing, mega's and vagrants, listing and patches. I learned that the reason I couldn't pick out the Tanager was because I had deuteranomaly, a form of colourblindness. I purchased binoculars, a scope, a tripod, camera lenses and many guides. I traveled to Puerto Rico, all over Canada, and a bunch of places in the US. And that basically brought me to where I am today.
Here's a Tufted Duck to end off: