2023 Summer and Fall Update (don’t worry, it’s a short one)

Believe it or not, I actually had a majority of the blog written up to cover what happened in 2023, but by the time I was going to finish it up 2024 was already in full swing. So I think it’s about time to do a little catching up with 2023, before we get side-tracked by Summer, and then the Fall on the Tower, and just think, Christmas is just over 6 months away.

We had a majority of the usual suspects running through town over 2023, but then we also had a few rarities that had us chasing through Essex County for a chance to see them.

In June we learned that there was a very special migrant that was spending time down towards Point Pelee, so we hopped in the car and headed out that way. Once we saw all the cars parked at the side of the road, and our friends wandering over, we knew we were in the right place. This poor Cassin’s Kingbird is usually found in the far south US and Mexico, but it may have been blown up in some of the storms around that time.

In July My Lady and I took a trip up to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan via the Mackinac Bridge before going for a visit to Mackinac Island. This place is really pretty but also really pretty touristy. It is a car free island and the only way to get around is by foot, by bike, or by horse and carriage.

Getting off the ferry from the mainland you are almost immediately hit with the tourist shops of fudge, t-shirts, popcorn and candy, restaurants and so on. After walking around for a little bit, and waiting over 20 minutes at Starbucks, we hopped onto one of the Horse Drawn Carriage tours and enjoyed a slow paced trek around the hotspots and made a stop to see the butterfly conservatory, where a couple of butterflies took a real liking to My Lady.

After returning to the mainland we drove further north to Tahquamenon Falls. The upper falls is one of the largest east of the Mississippi River (nowhere near as tall as Niagara though), and further downriver is another set of cascading falls that make this a very worthwhile drive.

One evening we had an alert stating that there was an immature Little Blue Heron hanging out with a number of Great Egrets at the Egret Roost just down the road from our house. Zoom, out we go and meet up with our friends to see this rarity, and then we find that there were 2 of them. Fortunately they stayed for a few days giving us some nice opportunities to get photos.

A few days after that we had a Swallowtail Kite giving a real show in Lasalle, just a half hour up the road, and although we couldn’t make it the first day, we finally had a chance to go see it, and boy are we happy that we did. It gave everyone there a fantastic show as it went back and forth across the fields and over the road, just looking for some grasshoppers to eat. Many times it simply flew nice and low over all the photographers as if telling us to get the best pictures that you can. It even made it on the local TV news. After a few days it disappeared and was briefly seen at Point Pelee, before heading out to who knows where.

In 2023 My Lady and I had a chance to be on the Holiday Beach Hawk Tower a lot more than ever before and we truly enjoyed every moment.

We were entertained by feeding Ospreys and stealing Eagles, Hummingbirds, Sapsuckers, Deer and Sandhills. We even had Peregrine Falcons strafe the tower before inviting a Blue Jay out for lunch. Then there were the Broad Wing Hawks. OMG the middle of September is the best time to observe the Broad Wing migration where THOUSANDS of these raptors were on the move through the area in massive flocks that enthrall everyone who looks up.

Young Osprey happy about catching a fish

October, the smell of autumn permeates the air. The outbound migration makes a change and now different birds are going by. The last of the warblers slowly peter out and the Broad Wings get replaced by Turkey Vultures. Shorebirds visit the marsh looking for mudflats to feed on and Pelicans swarm in to rest and feed on the numerous fish that inhabit the marsh. Starlings murmur as they harass the raptors that are just trying to pass by. Waterfowl start to congregate in larger and larger numbers only to be stirred up whenever the Eagles swoop in.

Finally we arrive at November, the time of the Golden Eagles. As far as I am concerned 2023 was the best one for seeing Golden Eagles since we have been helping out on the tower. One day we had a couple of Goldens fly by and I was pointing them out to some visitors, when I looked back to the East and saw 5 more flying in towards us. I freaked out a bit and got everyone excited as we saw 4 of them fly in and pass over the marsh. Shortly after that a couple of the gentlemen who do the raptor banding pulled up to the tower and brought out the 5^th Golden, who apparently was tempted by the bait bird and got trapped in the netting. They did all the scientific measuring and banding, and brought it over for everyone to get a close up of it, before releasing it to carry on with its migration.

Finally in December we had a couple of new birds hit our area. A Limpkin spent a short time at Wheatly Provincial Park, and allowed quite a few people a chance to see it, and a Townsend’s Solitaire visited Point Pelee for an extended stay, often being stubbornly difficult to find, but other times just showing up and sitting in a tree for everyone to see. The Limpkin is usually found anywhere from Florida south to much of South America, and the Townsend’s is a Western North American bird.

The end of December hit all of a sudden and then BAM, 2024 came along. Is it just me, or is time moving a little quicker these days?

How about a few more photos for now

Maybe I can get our trip to Texas up before I get side tracked again for the rest of this year???

Thanks for staying with me, and if you like what you see, tell your friends about the site. Trust me, I certainly don’t think I’ll be spamming anyone’s inbox at the rate I am putting these posts up.

Till next time.

Well this is going to be interesting.

Sorry if I am making your head explode. Who could have thought that I would be able to put out 3 blogs in such a short time?

Welcome to July. My work contract ended at the end of June and I am re-retired, which has actually freed up a bit of time.

Considering that the birds are; A) not in the area right now, B) trying to not move around too much in this summer heat, C) hiding in the trees and keeping quiet, or D) any other reason, we haven’t been seeing too many things.

Sure we could try to figure out moths and butterflies, but that particular “bug” hasn’t really hit us yet.

So as it is, if something gets put out on our birding group that we want to see, we’ll go, but in the meantime it’s pretty slim pickings.

One bird that did show up on our radar and was being seen just around the corner from us, was a Neotropic Cormorant. We went out to try to find it and hope that I got a picture of it. The problem is trying to identify special markings on a black bird, from a good distance away. Binoculars couldn’t figure it out, but a heavy crop on a long lens does show what we hope is the differentiator. In the photo you can barely see a white line on its cheek, and the yellow patch under the eye stops there. In the Double Crested Cormorant which is the most common seen around here, they don’t have the white line that goes up the same way, and the yellow on the face goes further back.

There is a small airport on one of the US islands just west of here and we often get different planes flying by. We were lucky to hear this one as it flew overhead and straight towards the moon. Then one day I was sitting by the river and saw the Goodyear Blimp making its way downriver and watched as it went below the treeline for a landing.

In the middle of the month My Lady and I went to Point Pelee, and as soon as we started walking on the trail I heard a distinctive call of a Cuckoo. Unfortunately it stopped before My Lady could recognize it. As we continued on the trail I heard it again, but again it stopped before she heard it. She thought I was hearing things and complained that I can hear a bird but I can’t always hear her. Sorry, I must be a typical male. As we finished the trail and was about to get back in the car, I saw a bird fly into a nearby tree. Of course I had to check it, and wouldn’t you know, it was a Yellow Billed Cuckoo. Fortunately My Lady was eventually able to see it and we watched it as it hunted for butterflies before moving deeper into the shadows. It poked out for the briefest of moments into the sunshine so I was able to get a picture. Let it be known that My Lady apologized for doubting me.

Yellow Billed Cuckoo on the DeLaurier Trail at Point Pelee

We finally made it over to Pelee Island for a day. We got down to the most Southern point of populated Canada (Middle Island is the furthest island, but is not populated). Wandered down to Fish Point and got as close to the tip as we dared without disturbing the wildlife there. Fish Point tip is similar to Point Pelee tip and is constantly changing with the waves and the sand. As it turned out there were a couple other small sand points beyond, but we couldn’t get there. The furthest one was well populated with Gulls, Cormorants and a very large number of Pelicans.

There are times when the Detroit River is very busy with freighters, and we happened to be at the Navy Yard one evening when 3 freighters made their way up, one after another. Then a few days later I watched as a Tall Ship worked its way up river.

Wildlife is often very close by our little town. We have a local Beaver spending time just on the south edge of town, and has been seen as far up as the Navy Yard. We got to see a little Mink swim in the river and run onto the rocks right in front of us. Deer and Coyote have been hanging around just a few fields away from our house, while Rabbits, Raccoons and Possum often give up their life on the main road just beyond our little subdivision.

As we are entering the Dog Days of Summer, we expect the birding to be a bit slow until September so we will continue to find things to go out and see, and if possible, to photograph.

One thing that I have been trying out lately is photographing the Sun. I figure it doesn’t move as quickly as birds, and you can see it almost every day.

ALERT ALERT ALERT – Do NOT just take a camera, point it at the sun and look through the viewfinder. You can cause blindness. There are special filters that you can put on your lens that will block a ton of the light and radiation that will not only burn out portions of your camera sensor, but can also burn out portions of your optical sensor (aka your eyes).

The sun is currently coming into a high sunspot period over the next couple of years, and I am trying to learn how to get the best photos before the next big eclipse in 2024. Maybe I can eventually even learn how to get some of the coronal ejections on camera.

Other than that we’ll keep our fingers crossed for anything new through August.

Thanks for hanging on through all these starts and stops. With any luck I can be a bit more consistent.

Keep cool, stay safe and we will talk again soon.

Till next time.

June was a little different this year

Sometime life has plans that suddenly change things up. I ended up spending a few days in the hospital due to a reaction to the fumes from the stain we were using on our deck. All is good, but they wanted to keep me under observation for a little bit. Now I am not allowed to do anything that involves painting or staining. Some would consider that a good thing, but I hate to think that My Lady will end up having to do all that in the future.

So as it goes, we ended up missing out on a few days of birding and we pretty well spent our time at the Amherstburg Navy Yard, or Holiday Beach, with a couple of trips to Hillman Marsh and Point Pelee.

We actually started off by going to Hillman Marsh when we heard of a rare Ruff stirring up the birders in the area. Of course it turned out that it wanted to stay well out of good viewing range and made it difficult to get proper photos. Without knowing where to look, we would have missed it and thought that it was another sandpiper. Sadly it wasn’t a breeding male which would have been gorgeous, but a less flamboyant female. Thanks to our friends we were able to at least see it. This is another bird that comes from Europe and somehow made it to our little piece of heaven.

Female Ruff just left of center. Not much to look at but not something you see every day, or even year.

I was wandering around Holiday Beach early June and found the Blue Grey Gnatcatchers nest was populated with hungry little mouths, and surprisingly nearby was a Yellow Warbler nest also showing little ones requiring feeding.

While I was enjoying this I happened to look over and saw 6 Pelicans flying toward the marsh nearby. They were beautiful to watch as they took up formation and circled the trout pond, perhaps looking for food. I kept telling them it was alright to land there, but they circled off and wandered further over the marsh.

One evening we were enjoying a picnic dinner at the Navy Yard looking out over the Detroit River, and I observed what I originally thought was a flock of Swans a little up river. I usually have my binoculars so I checked out the flock and was very happy to see that it was actually another flock of Pelicans! I only had my smaller lens with me so I started firing off photos and got a few shots. We let a few people know what we were looking at and surprised them with the information. Many people had not seen them here before.

Pelicans flying over the Detroit River near Amherstburg Navy Yard

Through the month we wandered out when we could and finally found a Meadowlark singing in the trees, Dickcissels calling out their territory, and out on the marsh at Point Pelee we watched the Black Terns looking after their babies.

Then it was time to take our Son and Daughter In Law out to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for our holidays. The trip was fun and we were able to do some of the stuff that we had wanted, but the weather didn’t always work with us.

A couple of hard day’s drive and we arrived in Moncton, with a short stop at the Hartland Wooden Bridge along the way. Moncton served as a base to visit areas around, such as seeing the Tidal Bore, head to Magnetic Hill, and scooting down to Hopewell Rocks.

Unfortunately, the Tidal Bore was just that, but interesting to understand what is going on. Just think of it this way, a river is flowing into the ocean, but as the tide is coming in the ocean water wants to take over the river so a steady wave of ocean water begins flowing into the river and creates a small wave as it moves further upstream.

Tidal Bore from the Viewing Stand. The Bore is the wave at the top, flowing towards us.

Now add to the excitement of the Bore, we visited the Magnetic Hill. Our son remembers it from when we visited as a child and the water beside the road was going uphill. This time, the trees and bushes have filled in the gully and for some reason the whole illusion gets lost. Pull ahead to the White Post, put the car in neutral and let the car run uphill. Although it works physically, the visuals are not what they used to be. But at least they have a Zoo, Amusement Park and Winery built up around an optical illusion.

From Moncton our next stop was Halifax, where we checked out Peggy’s Cove and down to Lunenburg for a trip out into the ocean.

You should be able to click on the photos for the full view

Sadly the whales that we were hoping to see had not arrived in the area yet, so we had to settle for Seals, Black Backed Gulls, Razorbills, Kittiwake and the best bird of the trip… The PUFFINS! The weather was grey, the waves were unpleasant, the lighting sucked, but I was able to squeeze out a few photos of these lovely little birds with big bills.

One afternoon when we were walking along the Halifax shoreline, we saw a cruise ship docked at the wharf. I noticed the colours and felt that it could have been a Holland America ship so I mentioned to the others that it would be funny if it was the same ship that My Lady and I took in Alaska where we renewed our vows for our 20^th wedding anniversary. The ship we were on was the Zaandam. Imagine the feeling we had when I got home and was able to crop in and sharpen the photo and found out…

This actually is the Zaandam, the same ship we were on.

We ended up leaving the Maritimes a day early when we heard that we would be smacked with a major storm and a ton of rain during our intended drive back. As we were getting into Quebec the sky certainly had a very sinister look to it.

That pretty well wraps up June. Don’t worry, the July Blog is probably going to be about this short and will be out very very soon.

As always, thanks for following along and if you know of anyone interested in anything you read here, send them a link, you never know where it might lead them.

Till next time.

Time Flies (then again butterflies and fruit flies too).

Somehow winter has moved into spring and we are getting close to summer too. That doesn’t mean we didn’t see any birdies, it just means that I let time get away from me without keeping this bloggy thing updated.

So, even though this should be a long one…, well maybe it will be.

This year the winter was actually pretty cold and we had the lakes and rivers freeze over. When this happens the best place to see any life is at the Lakeview Marina in Windsor. This is where we usually hang out because there is a water treatment area just up the Little River Corridor, and the water stays warm as it enters the Detroit River. All the waterfowl congregate here because the food also gathers here.

The Glaucous and Icelandic Gulls were still here, the Black Backed Gull continued enjoying itself, along with the Canvasbacks, Buffleheads, the odd Hooded Merganser, and at one point I watched a couple of Mallard ducks chatting it up as if they were hanging around talking about all the people with cameras (Birds watching people perhaps?). The Eagles returned in larger numbers to Peche Island and kept harassing the ducks throughout the days. But noticeably missing was our little Wood Duck and his Lady Mallard.

In early February we observed a pair of Horned Owls occupying the Osprey nest on top of the cell tower that they squatted in for the past couple of years. Couldn’t get any photos because they always hunkered down low in the nest. Then about halfway through February we saw a Peregrine Falcon perched on one of the spires of the tower before eventually flying off. Sadly we never saw the Horned Owls there afterwards.

Peregrine Falcon Possibly Looking Over A Crime Scene

Slowly the days began to warm up, not by much but enough to melt the snow a bit.

There was an alert about a Short Eared Owl being active in the north east area of our county and we had an opportunity to wander over and patiently wait, until suddenly it appeared on top of a shrub alongside the road and fly almost directly at us. Got some great photos before the light quickly fell.

So we get quite a few Turkey Vultures coming in, as you may recall from our outbound observations from the last few years. This year there has been a Black Vulture staying in the area recently. My Lady saw one sitting in a tree a couple weeks ago, but I couldn’t see it since we were driving on the highway at the time. Then one day I was at the boardwalk in Pelee and looked up at a few vultures passing when I noticed one on the far side that looked different. Up go the binoculars and sure enough the tail was short and the wingtips are white. Excitedly I fired off a bunch of shots and got a couple for Identification. Not something to put on the wall, but glad to get a look at it anyway.

Black Vulture. Notice the Missing Feather On The Wing

One of the noisy little guys that entertains us at Holiday Beach almost never stays still long enough to get photos, and doesn’t like being near people. But one morning my Lady and I were at the park and had a visit from the Belted Kingfisher who laughed at us before taking off and getting his breakfast. He beat the poor little fish a couple times on the branch before quickly throwing it down his throat whole.

Going to tell you a little secret, but you have to promise not to tell anyone. We found out where the Horned Owls moved to after the Peregrine Falcon incident. They have taken over a ratty old nest at the top of a tree at Holiday Beach, and are raising a pair of little ones.

Oh Oh Oh , can’t let this one get away… we had to drop our car off for a service and were on our way to Hillman Marsh to check out the shorebirds when we got an alert that a Tufted Duck was spotted in Point Pelee. Initially we didn’t think much of it until a couple of other birders suddenly were extremely interested. The choice was made to go to check it out and when we got there it was difficult to find because it was in a group of other ducks that look so much like it. I finally got a photo of it and learned just how rare it is. Apparently it has only been recorded 3 times in the Pelee area. This bird is usually found in Eurasia, but can be found along the east and west coasts of Canada. This one has really drifted inland.

Along with the Tufted Duck we were happy to get some really nice views of a funny little bird called the Surf Scoter. This is also something that is harder to find close to shore, and is generally rare inland.

Surf Scoter Looks Like He’s Trying To Surf

Ok, so here comes May and we are kicking into Warbler season. Already the Yellows are coming in, Blue Gray Gnatcatchers, Black Throated Green, Common Yellowthroat, Hooded Warblers, the special little Prothonotary Warbler and so many that are being reported but we haven’t seen yet. Hopefully this year will be so much better than last year’s slow showing.

Wouldn’t it be nice if I can actually put out a few of these blogs over the next month or so. I can dream can’t I?

Once again, thanks for making it this far and I really hope you are enjoying everything as much as I am enjoying telling you about it.

Till next time.

A Story of Snowy Owls and Sandhill Cranes

December actually found us doing a heck of a lot less birding than we wanted to. Pretty much due to the standard stuff – working, weather, not many birds around, Christmas preparations and so on.

However, we had a few Snowy Owls hanging out near Point Pelee for the past few weeks, and we made the attempt to get over there when we could. Many times it was too late and the lighting wasn’t any good, so it was pretty hard to get any worthwhile photos. One afternoon we were fortunate to have decent lighting and the Snowy’s actually participated with us by putting on a show. We had one land on a sign just down the road from where we were sitting and I was able to get a few photos before it flew off into the fields.

Another day we had THREE in the same field, but they were so far out you could only identify them through a scope.

Once we had Two close enough together in a corn field, but not close enough to get both in the same photo.

Finally we had a chance to get one that flew up into a tree close to the road. I noticed that it wasn’t afraid of the cars that drove by so I was able to pull up and get a handful of shots from my windows and as I pulled away I saw it fly off in my rear view mirror.

We had a few Ross’ Goose (Geese?) sticking around at Jack Miners for a short time, and we were happy that the day we went to check it out they weren’t too far in the field and one even let me get a nice photo of it.

Back in October My Lady and I went to the Long Point area and found out that through December a large number of Sandhill Cranes visit the area, and we thought it would be a great idea to check them out. So around the middle of December we got up nice and early and took a few hour’s drive to see if any were around. We got there early enough to be able to see a few thousand Sandhills in the fields. We were in our glory as the sun eventually came out and provided enough light to be able to see some proper colouring on these beautiful birds.

It should be noted that with this many Sandhill Cranes, it was an amazing sight and the sound was incredible. These birds are approximately 3.5 feet high and when they call they almost sound like turkeys gobbling. They are constantly calling and you can hear them from a large distance away.

We were so excited to see them that we decided to go again over the Christmas and Boxing Day period. By the time we got out on Christmas night they were heading out to their roosting spot, but we saw a good number of them flying out.

Back again on Boxing Day morning we arrived as they were coming back to the fields. We were just parking when suddenly the sky over the field across the road was full of inbound Cranes. I jumped out of the car and just started photographing like a mad man. I almost wish I had the wider lens on to get them all in the frame together. We both were in awe at this amazing sight. They landed far out in the field and stayed out there most of the day.

Be sure to click the photo for a better view

Other than that, it’s been quiet and we are hopeful that 2022 will bring us more opportunities and more birds, and of course better lighting to get the best photos ever.

Happy New Year everyone, thanks for keeping up with us. Stay Safe

Till next time.

What happened to all the birds?

June 12, 2021

Wow, what an interesting migration this May.

It seemed to take quite a while for the Baltimore Oriole and Hummingbirds to return to our yard, but they were few and far between. By the end of May we didn’t see the male Hummingbird anymore, but the female must be looking after some babies as she is the only one that comes by. Hopefully the little ones will be showing up soon at our feeders.

The Orioles were only around for a couple of weeks, and they didn’t even want the oranges that we put out for them. They sucked up their nectar, then came to steal from the Hummy feeder, and soon they were gone too.

The Yellow Warblers and Tree Swallows really showed up in abundance this year, which made it difficult to tell if any of the “special” ones were around.

The Purple Martins set up in their homes all around the county and were often seen buzzing around the wetlands. These birds are like the swallows, but are a bit bigger. The males are a deep colour, almost a royal purple/blue in the sunlight.

I happened upon an Egret at Holiday Beach close to the edge of the water, in the shade with sunlight in behind. It was a male, preening his breeding plumage. I sat at the edge of the marsh and made myself comfortable. I didn’t have long to wait. Within 2 minutes he stretched himself out and the magic happened. After a few seconds, it was all finished. I chimped the camera and felt elated! This time I got decent photos of the feathers being spread in the sunlight.

The shorebirds started their annual march northwards, so it was time to visit Hillman Marsh. Although it was busy enough, there just seemed to be fewer species coming through, and those that visited didn’t stay around very long. We did get a chance to see the Black Throated Stilts, a Western Sandpiper, Golden Plovers, Black Bellied Plovers, Yellowlegs, Dunlins and a pair of Trumpeter Swans. One special visitor was a Leucistic Canada Goose.

Slowly, the warblers began to show up. A few came in early, but this year it seemed that the majority got the Stay at Home order from the Ontario Government, and decided not to migrate. It was either that or the weather. It’s no fun to fly when it’s just too cold and the winds like to blow from the North too often. The warblers need winds from the South to help push them across Lake Erie, but those winds were as scarce as the warblers themselves.

This is not to say that nobody arrived, but if we were looking for the big push, it just didn’t happen. And by the time it warmed up enough for anything to come through, the trees had already popped out their leaves and the groundcover was too deep to see anything.

I know, I sound like a whining child.

Alright, what were some of the highlights;
Warblers – Black Throated Blue, Black Throated Green, Yellow, Palm, we got to see a very rare Kirtland’s way up at the top of a tree (not the best place to get photos), Prothonotary (endangered), Common Yellowthroat, Hooded, Ovenbird, Black and White, Blackburnian, Chestnut Sided, Magnolia, Yellow-Rumped, Parula, Canada, and a few other ones. Have I lost you yet?
Others include – Orchard Orioles, Rose Breasted Grosbeak, various Thrush, a quick glimpse of a flying Woodcock, a Sedge Wren, Sora, a few Red Headed Woodpeckers, various Flycatchers, Terns, Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, Titmouse, Blue Grey Gnatcatcher, a really cute bunch of baby Wood Ducks, a few kinds of Sparrows, Cedar Waxwing, maybe I am dragging this on too long. Skipping to the end of the month brought us a pair of Glossy Ibis, way out on the other side of a flooded field, but at least we can say that we saw them.

My Lady had been pushing me for some time to make a major purchase of something that would help us both see some of the birds that were too far away for our binoculars. I kept putting it off complaining that it would just be another thing that I would have to carry around to go along with the camera and binoculars (and tea, and snacks, and backpack with warmer clothes, and other various stuff). Little did I know she was biding her time for the right moment.

We were able to go out birding with a couple of our friends, and they had a nice scope that brought the distant birds in close enough to identify. When my Lady was able to see one of the rare birds so clearly, she really began pushing in earnest. “You should get one of these” she said, pointing to the scope. From there, they ganged up on me and it became the running line for the rest of the day, even popping up a few times in the following days. It wasn’t just my Lady and our friends pushing me, but also a few members of our birding group got into the act. They were efficient in knocking down my defenses, and after a couple of days I made a stop at the best place in the area to buy optics, and after some humming and hawing, I ended up spending more than a few bucks on some really good equipment. It wasn’t so much that the store saw a sucker, but it was the opportunity to compare products, and select the best product for what my Lady and I would do with it. Of course I am secretly happy about getting a scope and have used it many times over the past couple of weeks, I was just in that “I couldn’t justify it” stage for too long.

Yup I’m one step closer to moving up a stage in the old Birding 101 blog from June 2019. Heck, I’m even starting to learn some of their habits and calls.

Anyway, even though it looks like we saw a lot of different birds, this year’s migration really was very soft. We didn’t get the normal number of birds coming through, even trying multiple locations. Everyone said the same thing, almost becoming a mantra – Slow year eh?

Makes me worry about the future, especially if the warblers couldn’t make it to their breeding grounds this year.

Wow, you actually stayed with me to get to the end?

Thanks so much. See you next time.

Is that the sound of Crickets?

Wow, I really didn’t take a lot of photos in April. We went out a few times, but not much seemed to be happening

As mentioned last month, we had some Pelicans fly in and eventually land in Holiday Beach marsh.

Early April my Lady and I went over to the Hawk Tower, and as soon as we arrived 40 Pelicans performed their landing routines, before splitting into 2 groups and giving us a great show.

We saw them 1 more time after that and then poof, they were gone and haven’t been seen around here recently (but we have heard of some near Pelee)

We happened to see a juvenile Bald Eagle catch a fish and get chased by a handful of Gulls. They wanted the fish, but really had no chance.

The Horned Owls had at least 1 baby, but they always stayed on the wrong side of the tower to get any worthwhile photos.

As of the end of the month the nest appears to be empty, and the Ospreys have returned but are building a nest on one of the light stands in the baseball field across from their original home. Maybe they don’t like the smell of Owl.

The Egrets have also made a comeback, and are showing off their breeding outfits. I have been waiting to get photos of them ruffling all their feathers, but they continue to elude me.

We heard of an Evening Grosbeak at Point Pelee, and made our way over as quickly as possible. Although we had seen a few last year way up in a tree, this one gave us a really nice show.

We would like to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers for Saint Vincent. La Soufriere has been explosively erupting on and off for the past number of weeks, with lots of rock and ash debris, pyroclastic flows, over 20,000 people evacuated, and we are hearing that the 2 old craters have become 1. The north part of the island, considered as the best growing area, is wiped out and may take a very long time to show any signs of regrowth.

Family is safe right now, but we are still concerned for them. None of them live in the Red zone, but all are being affected in one way or another, some worse than others.

With May comes the real big push of incoming birds on their inbound Spring Migration. We will be trying to be out every day possible, looking for anything that moves, hoping it’s something that is new or special for us, and praying that we get a decent photo.

I will try to get another post out early next month, fingers crossed.

Till then, stay safe.

Thanks for reading.

Is Easter Cancelled?

The weather is starting to warm up and the ice is finally off the lake. As it broke up we found a few lake icebergs floating a little off shore.

It’s really nice to see some of the early birds working back into Essex County. We had a few Sandhill Cranes visiting our little area again, unfortunately they seem to be staying pretty far out in the fields, or higher up in the sky. They like to give a loud call similar to a turkey gobble, and as soon as we hear them our heads are up and swiveling all over.

All over the place we are seeing the Turkey Vultures, Killdeer (they tell you who they are when they fly), Redwing Blackbirds, Dark-Eyed Junko, Phoebe, Kinglets, and Robins. Herons and Egrets are finally showing up in small numbers. We’ve even had a flock of American Pelicans resting on the Detroit River just a 3 minute drive from our house. All kinds of ducks are starting to show up. We missed the Long Tailed Duck in Windsor, but Pintails are enjoying themselves at Hillman Marsh.

So last month we were chasing the Snow Buntings, but early March was all about the Redpolls. This time we got a message that they were at a park that we often visit for waterfowl and shorebirds. The initial post was about over 100 redpoll, so we hopped in our car and off we went. By the time we got there, they had either moved away, or were hiding from us.

We went back a couple days later and as we got to a small brush at the edge of the trail, we noticed the bushes almost seemed alive. We had struck Redpoll gold! In all we counted almost 70 in a couple of trees, and they were giving us quite a show. Although we couldn’t find a Hoary, we were giddy just seeing so many Common Redpolls so close.

My Lady and I were walking through Holiday Beach a couple days ago and spotted a strange bird. I took a photo, and was quite surprised to see a White Headed Robin! Right away I put it onto our birding group and went on taking far too many photos. After getting home and putting them onto the computer, it turns out I took just under 600 pics of this poor bird. After getting rid of the obvious bad ones, I am still left with about 90. I really should get rid of some more. We have found out that this is a pretty rare bird so it’s nice to see it again a few days later, and this time we showed it to a few other birder friends who were able to get their own photos.

And guess who’s back on the Osprey nest? Yup, those Horned Owl squatters. They are making it harder to see them this time, and we haven’t seen any babies yet, but we are keeping an eye out for them.

We had a Common Loon spending time in the Colchester Harbour for a few days. We stopped there a couple days and tried getting that perfect photo of it rising up with the wings out, head up and bill open in a call. Unfortunately it chose not to do that for us. We did show up one afternoon when the sun was shining nicely and got some close ups of it. Very happy with that.

On one of our many drives, we spotted 4 female Pheasants near the side of the road. We went back a few days later and found the male trying to hide, before it went running down the side of the field.

So I teased about the Pelicans earlier.

We were lying in bed one morning and our phone beeped with a bird group message. Someone had 40 Pelicans just off his back yard. Back and forth messages followed finding out where, and it was 3 minutes from our house. After receiving permission to go visit his back yard, we flew out of bed, threw on our clothes, grabbed a cup of tea to go and zipped over. We missed the large group but were quite entertained by the dozen or so that were left. The next day, they were there again, and off we went again. Sadly most had left by that time, but we managed to find a small group out on the lake just a short walk away. Later we heard they were in the marsh at Holiday Beach. We zoomed over there and found 4 of them close to the Hawk Tower where we spent so much time in the fall.

Quite a different experience than we had last year, when we had seen a few in flight, but couldn’t get any photos until the very end with only 1 directly overhead at Pelee.

BREAKING NEWS…

EASTER IS CANCELLED…?

Due to a hungry Eagle spotted by local photographers (My Lady and I), it has been confirmed that the Easter Bunny has met a sad demise.

Initially spotted in a farmer’s field, the young Eagle quickly flew into the trees in a guilty attempt to hide from prying eyes, but was soon again found enjoying a satisfying lunch of pulled rabbit. A basket of coloured eggs magically disappeared as the photographers tried to focus on them.

Considering that they breed like rabbits, we can only hope that at least one of his multiple offspring is willing to take up where this poor bunny’s place ended.

WARNING – GRAPHIC PHOTOS FOLLOW

So, that’s pretty well it for March, we are trying to see whatever we can, and hopefully April will start to bring in some of the warblers.

In the meantime, I am still trying to figure out how to take a few shots of the stars, and since Orion is the most prominent constellation in the sky from my back yard right now, the Orion Nebula has been my target of choice. One day I’ll be able to post something really cool, but for now, here’s Orion.

Thanks for reading. Glad you are still with me.

Till next time.

What’s with this SNOW?

Welcome to my new readers. Always nice to see you here. Hope you continue to enjoy.

Well, originally we didn’t expect February to be anything interesting, but I guess in a way, it turned out to be alright.

The past few months have been pretty grey with a lot of cloud cover, but for some reason we actually got to see the sun a number of times in February. With this though came the colder weather. The ice on the river built up quickly so Lake Erie and Lake St Clair both froze over as far as the eye could see. A lot of the waterfowl moved in a bit closer so we visited the Lakeview Marina a few times to see what we could get photos of. Sadly we missed a couple of the different visitors, but we were always entertained by the good old regulars.

Early in the month we heard about a Mockingbird being seen in Ojibway Park in Windsor. So my Lady and I packed up our lunch and set off to see if we could find it. Thankfully it wasn’t too hard to find as it was just along the trail leading to the popular bird feeding bridge, and it was willing to give us a show. At one point it was chasing some Eastern Bluebirds out of the area while we were trying to photograph them as well.

And SNOW, geez did we get snow this year. Some of the residents in our area said they hadn’t seen this much in almost 10 years. We actually had to go out and shovel a few times, and when the plows came along we had to work hard to clear the end of the driveway. Thankfully, we have a great group of neighbours who are all willing to work together to help everyone out.

Sure, some people living in more traditional Snow Belts would laugh at us complaining of a “little bit of snow”, but we live in a Banana Belt down here at the bottom of Canada. I guess if Texas can get slammed by old man Winter, then it’s fitting that we get a bit here too in the Great White North, even if we don’t like it so much. Kids on the other hand were having a blast. With the marshes frozen over we saw a good number of skating and hockey rinks popping up, and even had a few parents out scooting over the fields in their snowmobiles.

One really nice thing about the snow was the arrival of thousands of Snow Buntings being seen all over the county. A few concessions over from us had the largest flock of Buntings that I have ever seen. Sure, I really haven’t seen a lot, but this one was really big. They hung around a couple of silos that must have had enough food scattered about to keep them satisfied, but they would be so far away from the road where I couldn’t really photograph them. I did manage to find other flocks that would kinda let me be close enough and have added a few photos below. A large number of Horned Larks and a very, very small number of Lapland Longspur would join in with the Snow Bunting feasts.

Just down the road is Big Creek which also was almost completely frozen over, except for a small area close to the road, about 50 feet across, where the ducks, geese, swans, a couple of herons, and the local Eagle family would all congregate and feed. One day we stopped to watch an eagle harass the other visitors, and eventually it caught a small fish and then flew off to a tree to enjoy it. It was snowing a fair bit at the time, as you can see in the photos.

Oddly, we had a few Virginia Rails that were trying to overwinter at the Point Pelee Marsh this year. We were fortunate to be able to get out to see them on a good day when at least one was feeding along the boardwalk. With the cold weather there was a lot of concern about whether or not they would survive and we aren’t sure if they made it, as we went back a few days after the heavy snowfalls and we couldn’t find any new tracks and nobody has seen them since. They nest in the marsh so we can always hope that they were able to find a new area to hunker down in and stay safe. It’s a big marsh after all.

While at Pelee, I climbed the tower at the tip to see how much ice had been building on the lake.

And here we have a few more of the Pelee residents

We went to the marina a couple days ago when it was getting warmer, and all the eagles were gone from Peche Island. Often there are over a dozen or more hanging out in the trees, but with the ice breaking up, and the lakes and rivers running again, they have either moved on, or found somewhere else to find food for now.

There were still a small number of the regulars close by, and I was really lucky to find a Hooded Merganser in the mix. At one point it was cleaning itself up, and I just sat there waiting for the inevitable rise up and flap wings motion. Finally, up it goes and my finger hits the button and click click click, and then it’s over in about 1 second. Fortunately, I got the shot I was waiting for.

So that’s about it for the February roundup. Hopefully March will begin to bring some of the early birds in. On the 28th we had some Killdeer flying around our heads as my Lady and I went for a walk in the neighbourhood. Maybe some of the other shore birds will start showing up too.

Remember, if you like the stories or photos, enter your email and click the Follow button to get notifications of any updates. Looks like I may have actually settled into a routine of doing a monthly roundup, so I think I will try to keep it that way, unless something really special happens.

Thanks for reading.

Till next time.

Boy did we get lucky again …

Well, we tried to stay awake long enough to help kick last year out the door and down to the curb, but for some reason, we just couldn’t do it. Must be getting older. We are just thankful that it is gone.

New Year’s day found us walking around the Navy Yard park in beautiful downtown Amherstburg, and I took a few photos of the Christmas lights, just because I thought they looked nice. My lady suggested that I send a couple of photos into our town newspaper to see if they would get published. As it turned out, the photos didn’t make their way into the paper, but I had also written a Letter to the Editor based on one of the photos, and it Did get printed. YeeHaw, I’m a published writer now! I will include the letter at the end of this (yup, you’re going to have to read all the way through before you get there).

Birding has slowed right down this month, with just a few things worth noting.

We had another visit from a Grey Ghost (male Northern Harrier), and we found a Merlin sitting comfortably on top of a hydro pole.

The Eagles have returned to various locations around the county, and just a week ago we saw almost a dozen flying around the Windsor Marina at Peche Island.

Immature Bald Eagle. Almost has the full white head.

Holiday Beach marsh has begun to freeze over, but there are still some open areas for the various waterfowl to hang out in.

Sparrows are often visible clustered together in the bushes, and occasionally we can find one out on its own away from the maddening crowd.

Redpolls at Pelee showed up in much smaller numbers than before, and after Pelee closed for a week for the deer cull, we haven’t heard of any others around.

It looks like fishing is going on out in Lake Erie and the gulls are just too happy to see what they can get.

Coyotes are still showing up, often where people don’t want them. One morning we were out for a drive, and found one a little close to the road, but well enough out in the country.

Got close to a Screech Owl that didn’t seem to mind me taking its picture.

Hmmm, I feel like I’m missing something. Let’s see…, Oh yeah, getting lucky again (mind out of the gutter please).

Remember last month we had a female Snowy Owl come to visit us? Well, early in January we received an alert on our birding group about a Snowy Owl in a field, just outside of our county. We couldn’t make it there the same day, but the following day we hurried out to where it was seen, and sure enough, there it was way out in a corn field, like most of the ones we end up seeing. The road we were on had almost no traffic, so we hung around for a little while just in case it moved. After about 30 minutes it seemed startled by something and suddenly took flight. It landed on a road sign just a ways down the road from us, so I gently pulled forward and stopped to take a few more photos. It seemed like it had settled down, so I moved the car about another 50 feet or so and just watched it. We got a few more photos, but then another vehicle came down the other road and flushed it up again, and back further into the corn field.

I have edited out the names on the sign so that the focus is on the male Snowy Owl, not the location.

For us to be able to have seen both a female and a male Snowy within just a couple of weeks totally blows my mind.

Thanks for reading. Now for my little Letter to the Editor.

My wife and I wandered through the Navy Yard early New Year’s Day and admired the light displays.
One in particular caught us, as it simply said Believe.
Many of us struggled with so many difficulties through 2020, and we are beginning to find it hard to simply Believe.
Children Believe in The Tooth Fairy, Fairy Tales, The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Why? Because parents and society pronounce them to be true.
As we grow up, we believe that we will fall in love, marry, have children of our own, and live happily ever after. Why? Because for the most part, that is the way of life.
Throughout our lives, and for generations before us, we have Believed in God, no matter what name it goes by. Why? Because in times of stress, we need to turn to something that is greater than ourselves. Something or Someone who can guide us, or save us, or simply to hear our prayers.
As we head into 2021, we as a society are still struggling with the past, be it Covid-19, racial divide, homelessness, poverty, or any of the 7 deadly sins. But one thing that we can hold onto is the ability to Believe.
Believe in our health system, that they will defeat not only Covid, but whatever might come along afterwards.
Believe in our elected officials, that they will make the proper decisions that will guide us all towards a better life for everyone, not just the chosen few.
Believe in ourselves, that we can see the things we need to change in ourselves, and be willing to make those changes.
But above all, let’s Believe as a child Believes, and we will find the joy and wonder of living again.

Happy 2021 everyone.