Glen Major Forest and Other Goodies- Thursday, June 24

Doug, John and I headed off to Glen Major Forest on Thursday morning, as I was in need of a Daily Lifer fix, and also had yet to visit this rich area for the year.

We began the day on Westney Road in pursuit of a Hooded Warbler that John knew resided in the North Walker Woods area. We spent quite a while on the roadside hearing him sing, but it was Doug that finally spied him for us. Once I got him in my binos I was blinded by his yellow brilliance which was offset by his black hood, what a thrill, he was my first Lifer for the day.


A White Admiral was sunning itself by the roadside after a long and heavy rainfall a few hours earlier:

We continued over to the parking lot on the east side of Glen Major Forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of a Clay-coloured Sparrow:

We heard the Clay-coloured Sparrow but were unable to locate him for a visual, but found the usual Song and Field Sparrows in the meadows. Continuing on to the Westney Road parking lot entrance to the forest, we were greeted by a pair of Eastern Bluebirds:

A singing House Wren also greeted us, my first visual for the year. We headed off with Doug leading the way here:

Song Sparrows were everywhere:

A pair of Northern Flickers entertained us with their antics, this female graciously posed for us, showing off her red nape :

A pair of either Red-shouldered or Broad-winged Hawks (yet to be determined) soared overhead in the blustery winds, as well as Turkey Vultures, but for the most part it was a quiet day on the birding front. We had to be content with a European Skipper....

...as well as a glorious Red-spotted Purple on the path:

We stopped off for lunch and then arrived next at Corner Marsh in Pickering, a first for me but all was quiet on the birding front there as well, other than serious assorted Swallow action. 

Hall's Road/Cranberry Marsh in Whitby was also quiet, other than a few Cedar Waxwings, a Common Loon out on Lake Ontario, a family of Pied-bill Grebes, and an agressive Blue Jay that pursued  us for food, as well as a brazen Raccoon that rambled towards us at the south platform, leaving in disgust as we had nothing to offer it- in broad daylight, no less!

An added bonus, and unexpected LIFER presented itself at our final stop at the west side of the Whitby Marina, several Purple Martins flew into the birdhouse there, what a sight!

For the record, the "bird" on the roof of the birdhouse on the left-hand side is a fake. I was warned about that, but not about a matching one on the far side, which I was totally fooled by :-(

In any case, these others are the Real Deal, two in flight with a third on the upper balcony on the right-hand side:

The "fake" one is in the background:

So by the end of the day, two new species (Hooded Warbler and Purple Martin) had been added to my Life List, and three (Clay-coloured Sparrow, even if it was only audio) to my Year List!

Luvin' those Plovers, Caught the 'Catcher

Doug, John and I bravely battled the morning rush-hour traffic across the city today in pursuit of a reported Acadian Flycatcher and Hooded Warbler in The Happy Valley Forest in King Township:

It was a good thing that our agility training was up to par, as the trail we followed to where the Acadian Flycatcher had been seen was quite lovely in the warm, summer sunshine but at times extremely treacherous as we had to haul ourselves over and/or around fallen trees, branches, or logs, but it was worth it in the end. Along the trail we were serenaded by a wonderful Wood Thrush, Winter Wren, Ovenbirds, and a Hooded Warbler, but sadly no visuals on any of these were offered up to us. 

As a consolation prize we spotted a stunningly beautiful Red Eft on the trail, this is the terrestrial stage of the Red-spotted Newt (I just knew that some day that the Amphibian Identifier sheet from the Toronto Zoo would come in handy!!). It was bright orange in colour with black-bordered red spots- I just wish I could share what it looked like, but this is my punishment for leaving behind my toy camera in the car, as my other lens was too powerful to capture it, grrrrrrrrr. 

We weren't exactly sure how far along the trail we needed to go to locate the Acadian Flycatcher (Ontbirds indicated "five minutes" in, but we were unclear if that included a time allowance for our obstacle course activity), but we soon heard his "pee-tsup" call and observed it for about 20 minutes as it initially lingered on a tree skag (my photo Hell continued, not one shot was in focus, I was not at all happy in The Happy Valley Forest!) and then eventually he moved onto a tree branch further in the forest, merrily calling away. Mission accomplished though, we had found the bird, my first Lifer of the day.

We re-traced our steps back along the trail and as our other target bird, the Hooded Warbler had gone silent on us (at that very same moment a brutal hill stood in front of us), we returned to the car, and at last I can now offer up this Northern Pearly-Eye Butterfly, what a sophisticated beauty!

Are you not totally impressed with me providing the name now?? Hah, my flutterby books arrived in the mail this past week, but my eyes are still glazing over as I peruse them, so with John's help, I seem to have a positive ID!

We departed for Wasaga Beach on Georgian Bay next for the breeding Piping Plovers (with the mandatory Timmie's stopover first, of course):

As indicated below, the Piping Plover is endangered in Canada, yet only since 2007 have successfully nested along the shores of the Ontario Great Lakes at Wasaga, Sauble and Oliphant beaches:

They do not choose their nest sites wisely, as they do so in the sand right on the beach, leaving themselves wide open to any number of threats, including predators (gulls, dogs, cats), human disturbance, and adverse weather conditions (chicks were killed last year by a hailstorm), to name a few. As a result, the nesting area is fenced off, with wire enclosures put over the nest to protect the eggs from predation. The birds and their nest site(s) are monitored daily by volunteers, the Piping Plover Guardians:

We were greeted by friendly volunteers upon our arrival who indicated to us that the male was taking his turn on the nest, as the (slightly drabber) female was on a break. Admittedly it's tough to see him, he's lying on the sandy beach, just to the left of the centre of the "pen", he's white below with a dark ring around his neck:

Here he is on the move now, to the left of the "pen". They're incredibly well-camouflaged, even the field guides describe their colour as "dry sand", and they're not kidding, unless the Piping Plovers move they're virtually impossible to see:

There are two eggs, with an unconfirmed third one, the volunteers try to take advantage of the "changing of the guard" to count them.

Dad's dealing with an itch:

Meanwhile his Bride continues her incubation time-out on the shoreline, she's also tough to spot:

So this pair was my second Lifer for the day!

But time was now running out as we were on a deadline to return back home, but we squeezed in a brief stop at Minesing Wetlands. (BTW, we later heard that a 5.0 magnitude earthquake had hit Ontario and Quebec while we were in transit, drat!).

John and Doug are at a stand-off here as to who can do the higher keg-toss with that yellow can....  

We had no idea how massive these wetlands were, barely skimming the surface in our thirty minutes there, but recognized its great potential for a return visit. 

So I ended the day with two Lifers, and as well as another Year Bird (Wood Thrush). Not counting the Hooded Warbler, only a half tick Lifer, perhaps tomorrow at Glen Major/Bluebird Trail I can see one??? Hmmmmmmmmmm 

Our FIRST ever First-day-of-Summer- June 21, 2010

So here we are at our Base Camp in Scarborough when those two women photographers arrive yet again to see how we're progressing, especially now that all three of us have fledged, whoohooo, life is good! Only problem is that despite our fervent cries for a food-drop, mom is nowhere to be found, so in the meantime, we decide to amuse ourselves by stressing out those women that admire us so much! 

So one of us is hanging out on this lower branch on a tree right in front of them, one of the women even commented that this was the closest view ever she had had of a Red-tail, I felt honoured to give her one of my best come hither" poses to mark the occasion for her!

But it was time to have some fun with them, as we had discovered that whenever we took flight (as wobbly as we still were) these two idiots would be running all over the place trying to keep track of us...not sure why they freak out so much, but maybe they know something we don't re the pitfalls of life-outside-the-nest. So as I take off, just like clockwork they freak out, so to torture them, I land on this sloping roof of the big white building across from Base Camp:

I hang on for dear life here for a few minutes (mom did not tell me about this part of leaving the nest!), and then to totally mess with them, I drop down off the roof and they freak, probably assuming I've injured myself, but HAH, I'm now on this other flat roof below.

But these two are smart, the one called Ann, I think, finds me safe and sound, while across the way my brother's keeping the other idiot occupied as he perches on this light standard:

But hey, this flat area I've landed on may have some goodies for me, something here even reminds me of food (which, by the way, I'm still ticked at mom about, WHERE IS SHE???). So I check out this round, black thing to see if it's edible, I mean it IS the size of a mouse, right? I try grabbing it with my right foot and move it around to see if it's still alive or not, I like 'em fresh:

 

Nope, it's not edible, one of the women calls it "a chunk of tar"??? Ewwwwwww, this is boring me now...

So it's time to stress out these two again, I'm going to leave behind that black thing on the ledge and take off, so let's see if I can shake them, I'm going to aim for that tree next to my brother:

 

Yup, made it to that tree (almost missed it, shhhhhhhhhh), and they followed me too:

So I stay put here for a while, but then eventually head back to another tree closer to Base Camp, perching on a low branch- this time it took the two of them a while to find me, but perhaps my hunger cries blew my cover, DOH!

Time to take flight again, I'm so close to these two it'll be hard for them to get all of me in the photo- on your mark, get set....

I changed my mind just to mess with them again, and landed on a ledge next to that new condo building next door:

But I took off again so fast that the one woman couldn't really get me in focus, HAH!

...made that landing better than the last one, but those two screamers were shrieking out of fear that I'd either miss the ledge or hit the side of the building- oh ye of little faith, gimme a break!

...so off I go again, especially as we're now hearing that nasty KESTREL from last week flying around overhead, mom and dad were sooo stressed out before, it totally messed up our feeding schedule, grrrrrrrrrrrr

But these two women finally left us for the afternoon, probably because we decided to hunker down and chill. After all, I'm sure we had their heart rates going based on their shrill reactions to our moving around, it was great fun giving them a run for their money, we just wish they'd give us a bit more credit as we "get our wings"! If they give us a bit more time, we'll have new tricks for them at their next visit!

BTW, that ANN woman (the other one not so much, she was a late-comer to Base Camp) has done an awesome job of following our lives this year, we just love reading about ourselves in our spare time at http://redtailnest.blogspot.com/

Follow-up to Sandhill Crane Eggs- Reifel Bird Sanctuary- May 8, 2010

One of the highlights of my unexpected birding sessions in British Columbia was this Sandhill Crane on the nest with two eggs:

Over the past several weeks I have kept in touch with Bob, a fellow photographer that I met that day to see if the eggs survived. Sadly, only one made it but is alive-and-extremely-well! The area was cordoned off by the caring staff at Reifel to protect the baby as best they could, but Bob was fortunate to be there on the day that the Crane family wandered beyond the roped-off area, I can only imagine how nuts he went with this photo opp, he tells me that he even momentarily fried his camera by taking so many shots!!

So many thanks to Bob for letting me post the following photos with his permission. I present to you the Craneling (???). And trust me, this post will make up for that last, totally lame one :-(

Yes, that is a RASPBERRY, I think this is my favourite shot so far, as the colour matches the crown of the parent!

Bob says the parents can leap eight feet in the air!

Thanks again, Bob, for sharing your amazing photos with us!

Even as I write this, he's still sifting throught his shots and sending me more- Bob, I feel your pain!!