Northern Cardinal

 

I know that Northern Cardinals are very common in our area however I absolutely love this image for it’s colouring, sharpness and texture. Because it was taken on an overcast dreary day I believe it really helped the image stand out.

Wood Thrush

The Wood Thrush has a pot-bellied body, short tail, straight bill, big head, and upright posture. Definitely one of my favourite calls in the forest early morning.

Wood Thrushes are warm reddish-brown above and white with bold black spots on their underparts. Juveniles show a somewhat muted version of the same pattern. All have a bold, white eyering.

I love this image as it shows the bold black spots, the pot belly, the straight bill and upright posture as well as the beautiful reddish brown colouring.

The reclusive Wood Thrush hops through leaf litter on the forest floor, probing for insects, bobbing upright between spurts of digging and leaf-turning. The male's clear, flute-like song echoes through the forest in spring and early summer, and both sexes make distinctive, machine-gun-like alarm notes.

The Wood Thrush breeds in deciduous and mixed forests in the eastern U.S. where there are large trees, moderate understory, shade, and abundant leaf litter for foraging. They winter in lowland tropical forests in Central America. Cornell All About Birds

Orchard Oriole

 

The Orchard Oriole swaps the typical flame-orange of other orioles for a deep, burnished russet. Hopping among riverine shrubs or scattered trees, male Orchard Orioles sing a whistled, chattering song to attract yellow-green females. The smallest of North America’s orioles, it gleans insects from foliage and builds hanging, pouchlike nests during its brief breeding season, and then heads back to Central America for the rest of the year. Orchard Orioles also feed on fruit and nectar in orchards, gardens, and elsewhere.

I was able to capture this image of an Orchard Oriole at Wawanosh Wetlands recently.

Orchard Orioles migrate north late in the spring and head southward early, with some returning to their wintering grounds as early as mid-July. Because of the short breeding season, researchers have trouble distinguishing between breeding orioles and migrating ones in any given location. Cornell All About Birds

Eastern Whip-poor-will

 

One of my absolute favourite bird calls is listening to the Eastern Whip-poor-will, early evening, on a quiet spring night. Eastern Whip-poor-wills are easy to hear but hard to see. Their plumage blends perfectly with the gray-brown leaf litter of the open forests where they breed and roost.

It’s also fun to watch them sally out from perches to sweep up insects in their cavernous mouths.

Eastern and Mexican Whip-poor-wills used to be considered one species, simply called the Whip-poor-will. But in 2010 they were split into two species based on differences in mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Eastern Whip-poor-wills give faster, higher-pitched whip-poor-will calls and have more colorful eggs than their western counterparts. Cornell All About Birds

Some Local Birds

 

Managed to observe my first local Green Heron of the year a couple days ago at Wawanosh Wetlands.

And a Long-billed Dowitcher at a local sewage lagoon.

A White-crowned Sparrow posing nicely.

Common Loons

 

A couple of shots of Common Loons that were gathered in our area. Pretty cool to observe a dozen loons migrating north. We have also been camping in Northern Ontario in the fall when the loons gather on a northern lake before migrating south and the symphony is quite astounding.

Spotted Turtle

 

I can not count the number of times through the years that we have checked this log on this lake in search of a Spotted Turtle. Well a couple of days ago our efforts paid off a we were able to observe this Spotted Turtle for a rather extended viewing.

The Spotted turtle is one of Ontario’s smallest turtles with a shell that is rarely more than 13 centimetres long and it is easily recognized by its smooth black shell, which is spattered with bright yellow-orange spots. The head and limbs are also black with yellow-orange markings. These turtles eat aquatic insects, crustaceans and worms.

The Spotted turtle is semi-aquatic and prefers ponds, marshes, bogs and even ditches with slow-moving, unpolluted water and an abundant supply of aquatic vegetation.

They are found in different types of wetlands throughout the province, depending on the types of habitats that are available. Females dig their nests in sunny locations where there is not a lot of woody vegetation.

This species usually hibernates in wetlands or seasonally wet areas associated with structures including overhanging banks, hummocks, tree roots, or aquatic animal burrows. From Ontario Nature

San Francisco

 

During the March break we were able to check out San Francisco for 5 days with my son and his family. It was almost 30 years ago, in 1997, when we had toured the American southwest for 7 weeks with our kids, a Suburban pulling a tent trailer, and camping at all the National Parks. We had started in Rocky Mountain National Park and Mesa Verde in Colorado, then Zion, Bryce and Arches in Utah, Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, across Death Valley to the Sierra Nevada, Yosemite and San Francisco, then all along the coast through the Redwoods to Olympic, and back through Glacier and Yellowstone. (18,000kms)

Interesting my log book totals are $965 for gas, $441 for camping, $969 for food, $88 for 2 oil changes, $102 for tolls/ferries, $38 for laundry, $15 for showers, $15 for a trailer tire, and $1337 for misc. (treats, rides, Go Karts, dune buggies, Alcatraz, cable car). So around $5,000 usd.

This trip for 5 days staying at a RIU Fisherman’s Wharf and airfare including all our tours and activities was probably pretty close in price but alas was filled with lots of great times and memories.

We made a day trip with a guide to Yosemite to show the grandkids El Cap and Half Dome and to see the giant sequoias.

Bird wise it was neat to see a family of Acorn Woodpeckers hard at work, some Brewer’s Blackbirds, Mountain Chickadees, lots of Stellar’s Jays, my first ever White-throated Swift, and Black Phoebe and Bushtit, also new lifers.

Another day was spent out to Alcatraz and a boat tour of the bay. Since I had previously toured the old prison, I spent my time birding the island and came away with some great birds.

Brandt’s Cormorants, California Gull, Western Gull, Heerman’s Gull, Black Phoebe and Clark’s Grebe, all lifers. Also observed Anna’s Hummingbird, Western Grebe, Black Oystercatcher, Pigeon Guillemot, Common Murre, and Brown Pelicans.

It was also a great time riding the cable cars. I can’t believe they still let people hang out the side. It was way cooler hanging out the traffic side of the car, especially at night. A little scary but certainly fun.

Probably my favourite day was renting ebikes and pedaling over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and back. What a great time hanging out in the middle of the bridge as freighters passed underneath. This is an absolutely must do if you are ever in San Francisco.

On the way back I stopped to bird at Chrissy Field Lagoon. And although not a new lifer, as we had previously seen them in the Great Salt Lake Utah, finding a Long-billed Curlew was pretty cool. When I met up with a couple of local birders and exclaimed that there was a LBC in the lagoon, they were just like oh ya they hang out here.

And since The Big Lebowski is one of my absolute favourite movies, a stop at In-N-Out Burger was mandatory on my pedal back into San Francisco.

A whale watching tour produced 12 Gray Whales. These were a lifer for us and our 10th species of whale. We also seen Harbour Porpoise, California Sea Lions and Harbour Seals. As well as an abundance of sea birds. Our tour company was San Francisco Whale Tours and our naturalist was Mandy and I would highly recommend them.

Gray whales and humpbacks may both be baleen whales, but they come from different families and genera. Humpback whales weigh more than gray whales and are generally longer. Gray whales are bottom feeders, while humpbacks are not. Furthermore, humpbacks have a wider range than gray whales.

Just like their name indicates, gray whales are gray. They are large and measure up to 49 feet in length and 90,000 pounds in weight. Although gray whales don’t have dorsal fins, they have wide and short pad-like pectoral flippers. In place of their dorsal fins are humps and right below them are tiny bumps that travel all the way down to their fluke. They are easily differentiated from humpbacks because they have flatter throat grooves than humpbacks. They have 130 to 180 baleen plates that help them filter food while feeding.

Humpbacks are easily distinguished from gray whales by their white underbellies. And Humpbacks measure up to 48 feet to 62 feet in length and weigh between 80,000 and 200,000 pounds.

Although not a birding trip per say, I managed to observe over 60 species and picked up 10 new lifers.

I still can’t get over the driverless Waymo Jaguars driving passengers all over the place. Seems pretty futuristic to me.

Fisherman’s Wharf, and Pier 39 with all the California Sea lions were also a major attraction. In fact, we had a rare special treat as a Steller Sea Lion from Alaska showed up the day before we arrived and hung around for a couple of days. It was big news.

I went down to the marina early our first morning to observe it and all the employees from the aquarium kept arriving to check it out. Apparently one Steller Sea Lion visits the bay every 2-3 years. We had observed Steller Sea Lions previously in Alaska but it was really cool to see him mingling with all the California Sea Lions.

And a trip to San Francisco wouldn’t be complete without dinners in Little Italy and Chinatown.

All in all, a great trip, lots of great food and good times with family.

Birding in Antigua

Antigua was another island that we birded on our cruise. We had been to Bird Island 20 years ago but decided to visit again to see the Red-billed Tropicbirds.

It was cool seeing the birds nesting in tiny caves on the cliffs and climbing to the top of the island gave us views of a couple in flight.

Our tour guide for this trip was The Birds Nest Tour, however I certainly can’t recommend them. They did a great job at getting us good looks at Sea Turtles.

However upon viewing a Green-throated Carib hummingbird were told it was a Bullfinch.

The last straw came when a Kestrel became a Caribbean Marten.

Not many other birds inhabit the island. We did manage to find some Bananaquit, Bullfinches, a Mangrove Cuckoo and some Turnstones on our own. Still, a day on Bird Island was better than a day at Diamonds International.

Birding in Sint Maarten

 

Near the end of February Marilyn and I took a break from hockey and went on a 10 day Eastern Caribbean cruise to the Leeward Islands. Most of you know that whenever and where ever we travel I always set up birding guides ahead of time to take us birding.

It’s a great way to learn about the area on a way more personal level and to see a lot of the island’s habitats that the vast majority of tourists never get to.

Sint Maarten, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is a country on the southern part of a Caribbean island shared with Saint Martin, a French overseas collectivity. The population is around 60,000 and the 13 square miles features lagoons, beaches and salt pans.

The capital, Philipsburg, has cobblestone streets and colorful, colonial-style buildings. There is no border between Sint Maarten in the south and Saint Martin in the north and our trip spanned both countries.

Just to add some context, we have previously birded on many of the Caribbean Islands, 13 of the Lesser Antilles, and 6 of the Greater Antilles, plus numerous trips to Costa Rica, Panama, and Cuba, so when researching about Sint Maarten I knew that discovering a lifer was probably not going to happen. It was certainly interesting observing all the birds however the best bird was perhaps the Green-Throated Carib.

On our last visit to Sint Maarten, we went sailing for the day on America Stars and Stripes, where I actually got to helm the ship, so this time I arranged a birding tour through Seagrape Birding Tours and our guide was Nascha.

During our trip we visited salt water ponds, fresh water ponds plus some coastal habitats.

All in we only observed 33 species on our trip but it was a great relaxed way to see and learn about the island.

Nascha is a very good tour guide and I would recommend her as a birding guide, especially if you are newer to birding or are looking for a tour of the island on a more personal relaxed trip.            https://seagrapetours.com        Email: Seagrapetours@gmail.com