HSA Big Year - Weekly Summary (February 13 - 21)

 This week we had a long weekend so I only went to school for four days this week which was nice. Over those 4 school days, I checked out a couple stormwater ponds around my school that I had never been to and made note of some of them which I thought might have good potential for rare birds in spring! 

I take the bus home from school occasionally, and its route goes right by this one good birding hotspot along Sixteen Mile Creek which captured the attention of a Prarie Warbler for 7 days in late fall last year. On Tuesday I visited that area, unsure what I was expecting but just went to check anyways. I was surprised to find a Common Goldeneye, a group of Buffleheads & a single Red-breasted Merganser swimming in a wide part of the creek. These are birds I would expect to see on the lake and not on a creek so I found that pretty cool.

Not long after that sighting I walked just a little upstream where I spotted a skulky sparrow. I never saw the entire bird in the open as it would be constantly moving and flying between grasses and reeds but I couldn't place an ID on it. The only thing I could think of it being is was Song/Lincoln's Sparrow. Song Sparrow would be much more common than Lincoln's Sparrow, especially now in the winter months but it wouldn't be impossible. After climbing down a small wall hoping to get closer to the bird, I lost it. I searched around for it for the next 25 minutes (I really thought it was Lincoln's Sparrow), but it seemed to have eluded me, I could not find it. The next 2 days were quite windy so I didn't go back to look for it. 

Friday was a PA Day for me so I went out by bike and cycled around the neighborhood. I eventually decided to bike down to the creek where I had seen that sparrow earlier in the week hoping I could get another look at it and maybe get a photo. One of the first birds I saw when I arrived was a Song Sparrow. Flushed from nearly the same place, but as soon as it took flight I knew it was a Song Sparrow; it was very brown. The bird I had seen earlier in the week was surely primarily gray and seemed larger in flight. I looked around for the next half hour and could not turn up any more sparrows. 

The next day, Saturday, my Dad and I drove out to Niagara hoping to see a Barrow's Goldeneye! This bird had been found a few days before but it was spotted just outside of the HSA boundary. I had some hope that the winds over the next few days would slowly push the bird inside the HSA and to my knowledge that's what happened on Friday evening to one lucky birder.

We arrived just after sunrise at the location where it was viewed from on Friday evening. The parking lot that we were parking in was basically the border of the HSA. One half of the parking lot was inside the HSA, the other out. Scanning for about an hour resulted in several species of waterfowl but not the duck we wanted to see. That morning, the wind was just brutal, very strong gusts up to 30 km/h that definetely would have blown the scope over if I wasn't holding onto it. 

We kept following the street running right along to the lake heading back toward Hamilton stopping every once in a while to see if the Barrow's Goldeneye had flown to a different location, made me feel like I was along the shores for Lake Erie some reason. One of the many places we stopped was Fifty Point CA where I saw the female King Eider again and got photos this time. I think I will make it a goal to photograph as many species I can this year within the HSA and try to get that number as close as I can to my final HSA Big Year count (ex. HSA Big Year = 275, Species photographed this year in HSA = 275). We checked the majority of the spots from Vineland all the way to the Burlington waterfront and still could not locate the goldeneye, oh well. 

King Eider

Sunday was a nice fairly warm sunny day so I checked some local spots around Oakville and Peel where I spotted an early migrant Red-necked Grebe and quite a lot of Gadwalls (57). We then drove over to the RBG Arboretum to try and find a pair of Tufted Titmice that had been reported at the George North Lookout for a few weeks now. I consider Tufted Titmouse a code 2 species in the HSA because they're not a bird that is commonly found throughout the HSA, but there are some reliable spots to hear them on breeding grounds in summer. I will not be here during the majority of summer so it was good to get this one out of the way, just in case.... The walk to the lookout was quite nice, cardinals singing, Horned Larks flying over, and just in general lots of birds were out and about. As soon as we got to the lookout, chickadees were hopping around in the shrubs and with them were two cute Tufted Titmice! They put on a nice show, calling and hopping on the ground for a while!

Tufted Titmouse

White-breasted Nuthatch 

Later that evening my Dad and I went out to Bronte Provincial Park to listen for American Woodcocks. It would still be very early for these guys to be calling but with the recent winds, it would be possible for one to get a little boost into Ontario. We stayed until dark and did not end up hearing any, but in Essex and Norfolk, Ontario, the next day at least two were heard peenting. Only a matter of time before were hearing them in the HSA!

Sunset while listening for Woodcocks

Monday was a more relaxing, spending the morning driving around the Brant/Flamborough area looking for basically anything that would be new for the year for me (COGR, RSHA, BOWA, LEOW, BADO, stuff like that). As we were driving around, in the fields I spotted a large group of swans! We quickly pulled over and started to look through them. I was expecting for them to be all Tundra Swans but majority of them actaully turned out to be Trumpeter Swans (22:18).  We also managed to check out some places I had never visited before like Mohawk Lake and Scarfe Ave. in Brantford, some of the best gull congregation sites in the HSA. In only the last couple of years those places have had quite the luck with rare gulls including, Glaucous-winged, Slaty-backed, Common, California, Laughing Gull, and some other cool hybrids. 

Tundra Swans

Trumpeter Swan

At around 10:30am, while driving to Glen Morris, I got a notification on my phone of a Black Vulture in Hamilton! The comments of the observation on eBird stated that it was in flight with 2 Turkey Vultures and the description seemed pretty good for a Black Vulture. Wasting no time, we turned around and headed straight for Dundas approximately where it had been seen. These past warm days have certainly brought up some Turkey Vultures from the south and seems like some Black Vultures with them as a few are in Ontario at the moment (Essex, Hamilton, Simcoe/Muskoka (maybe the same bird?). Anyways, 25 minutes later we arrived in Hamilton at the Sydenham Lookout on the escartment providing an execllent vantage point of almost all of Dundas. There were a few Turkey Vultures in flight and some sitting on the usual apartment buildings but we could not find the Black Vulture. A few others were also on the lookout for this bird but could not find it. 

Turkey Vultures soaring over Dundas

HSA Year List: 99 

Recent Rare Bird Sightings:

Black Vulture - One observer wonder in Dundas (Carolyn Southward; Feb 20)

Snow Goose - Flyover a private yard just north of Brantford with Tundra Swans (James Lees; Feb 20)

King Eider - Female continues off Fifty Point CA

Barrow's Goldeneye - (Craig Corconan; Feb 15 - outside of HSA). Later seen in the HSA by (William Heikoop; Feb 17)

HSA Big Year - Weekly Summary (February 7 - 12)

This week has felt almost like spring with temperatures averaging around 3 degrees, feeling like 5 degrees with sunshine on the majority of the days. Surprisingly, these warm temperatures will continue into next week as well, making for quite a warm February. 

Next week we'll start to experience winds from the S/SW, hopefully blowing up some goodies from the states like a Ross's Goose. In the coming days/weeks, short distance migrants like Killdeer, American Woodcock and dabbling ducks (hopefully a Eurasian Wigeon) will start appearing and before we know it, hawkwatching season will be in full swing! Really looking forward to it!

During this past school week (Feb 7-10) I've mainly just been walking the local trails and checking the ponds for different geese and ducks. Almost all the times I go out, I will see the same things I see everyday, but when checking constantly, you're bound to see something that will surprise you (a rare or interesting bird). 

If I could describe my weekend with two words, I would use productive & eventful; it was honestly a blast! 

My Saturday started with participating in the West End Lake Ontario waterfowl count (WELO), counting all the ducks I could see in an assigned area. Conditions on the lake were absolutely perfect for today as I could see incredibly far out with next to no heat shimmer. This allowed me to spot several Horned Grebes and a single Red-necked Grebe swimming within their own groups. 

After that, I walked around Bronte Creek Provincial Park (the campground side) looking for winter finches, owls, and sparrows. While walking through the tall grasses in the fields north of the park, I stumbled upon a freshly dead White-tailed Deer carcass. This freaked me out so I tried to leave that area as fast as I could.

Bronte Provincial Park field habitat

Sunday was warm & sunny with a very subtle breeze. Because of this nice weather, my dad and I decided to head out to Burloak Woods to find an Eastern Screech-Owl that prefers to sit outside of its tree hole on these nice and sunny days. We arrived and there it was, just chilling there gaining some Vitamin D!

Eastern Screech Owl - Bronte 

Then we drove over to LaSalle Park to look at ducks and maybe find the Pacific Loon or Great Cormorant again. There wasn't much activity going on but that's probably because I stayed put in one spot for an hour. Looking back at it now, I definitely should have tried for the Pileated Woodpecker that has been somewhere in those woods for at least a week now. Pileated Woodpecker certainly isn't a rare bird in the HSA (Code 2), but it is always good to get it out of the way and it would help me reach my goal of seeing 100 species by the end of February.

Having time to kill around noon, we drove though Dundas looking for Turkey Vultures and then up the escarpment to check the Dyment's Farm area for Lapland Longspur. The very first bird we saw on the escarpment was a pair of Turkey Vultures soaring in circles! These are likely residents from Dundas rather than early migrants. Last year I visited Dyment's Farm in the winter when there was snow on the ground and saw a Lapland Longspur with many Snow Buntings and Horned Lark. This time was much different, all the snow on the fields had melted and we could only locate a few Horned Larks. We even had some sort of wasp/buzzing bee whiz by us, strange. 

Turkey Vulture - Dyment's Farm

Horned Lark - Dyment's Farm

In the evening, after putting it off for two weeks, my mom and I finally made the journey to Haldimand to search for Short-eared Owls. Finding time wasn't the only reason we were putting it off, it was also being there with the right weather. This evening was calm with little to no clouds, perfect conditions for owls being out and about. Short-eared Owls like hunting on these nice sunny and calm days where they can freely glide and fly around without being pushed around by the wind. Also along this stretch of road, a few Rough-legged Hawks had been reported. 

Arriving just before sunset along the road where the owls were reported earlier, we found a couple of Red-tailed Hawks perched in trees but that seemed to be it. We thought to try our luck on the road running parallel to this one, just a few hundred yards south. Not long after, I spot a raptor loafing just above the ground, lift my binoculars to my eyes and see a nice "Gray Ghost" male Northern Harrier! We find a safe place to put off on the side of the road and wait for it to pop back up from the field it had just flown down into. Just behind me is a little stream with some shrubs that contained some sparrows, cardinals, and chickadees. That group kept me occupied for a while. 

Looking for some raptors!

Not long after, a female Northern Harrier flies right over our car, then a Rough-legged Hawk from the treeline, then a Short-eared Owl materializes from the grassy field! Before we know it, five Short-eared Owls, four Northern Harriers, two Red-tailed Hawks, and the Rough-legged Hawk are all flying in the same field. What a spectacle that was, it was like a raptor snowglobe. That evening was just magical watching all the raptors flying around the vast fields during golden hour and running into some great local HSA birders. That was actually my first time 'fully' seeing a Short-eared Owl. Two years ago, I observed just the wing of one fly into the headlights. Thankfully the Short-eared Owls showed themselves quite early in the evening as sometimes they only come out at dusk because we arrived home in Oakville with just two minutes to spare until the Superbowl started! That brings things to a wrap, adding 4 new species to the HSA big year.

Rough-legged Hawk

Short-eared Owl in flight

Short-eared Owl perched

Short-eared Owls perched (left) while watching a Northern Harrier in flight (right)

HSA Year List: 98

Recent Rare Bird Sightings: (Bold text represents species that I have yet to add to the HSA Big Year)

Snow Goose - One near Christie Lake CA (Jackson Hudecki; Feb 11)

Bohiemian Waxwing - A group of 16 in a private yard in Flamborough (Rowan Keunen; Feb 8)

King Eider - Female continuing off Fifty Point

Great Cormorant - Recently seen again on the wave tower

HSA Big Year - Weekly Summary (January 30 - February 6)

After I finished my last exam for my first semester on the 30th, my sister drove me out to Burlington to find some birds. We scoped out Hamilton Harbor for the Pacific Loon that had been seen in the following days, but couldn't seem to find it, but did see a nice group of Common Loons. On our way back home we decided to stop at "Swan Lake" the ponds that had a Snow Goose the day before. To our surprise, it was still present taking a nice long nap on the ice with its buddies. 

The next morning on Tuesday, a flock of Bohemian Waxwings showed up at the University of Guelph Arboretum (Michelle Beltran; Jan 31), but they were feeding in a tree located 150 yards outside of the HSA boundary. Knowing that Bohemian Waxwings are would be a very difficult bird to get in the HSA, my sister and I quickly geared up and drove over, arriving at 11:40am, an hour and a half after the initial sighting. Not even a minute walk from the parking lot and we could already see the group of BOWAs feeding in a juniper tree with a few Cedar Waxwings mixed in. We viewed these birds for about 5 minutes before we headed over to the HSA boundary line. Earlier, I thought the 150 yard walk from the tree to the boundary line would be short, but when I walked it, it seemed very far. Since the distance seemed so far, I didn't have much hope that these birds would fly over to the HSA, so we only waited a short time at the boundary line before heading back to see if they were still there. A small group of people were gathered at the juniper tree and informed us that the waxwings had gotten flushed by a Sharp-shinned Hawk and flew north, the opposite direction we would have liked for them to go. We searched the whole arboretum for the next hour and could only turn up two small groups of Cedar Waxwings. So to our knowledge, these Bohemian Waxwings never were/entered the HSA, therefore not making it a "miss" for the HSA Big Year & not making it on the recent rare bird sightings list. I've still got some hope that at least one group will show up in the HSA this year as in previous years some were seen at the end of March. 

Bohemian Waxwing (Guelph Arboretum - birds not in HSA)

On the first of February, my sister and I went out to search for a Red-shouldered Hawk that had been seen on the East edge of Oakville in a residential neighborhood near "The Parkway". This had been my third time looking for this bird this year, but again, we came up empty. After that we decided to check out this snowy grassy development field on the edge of Halton, bordering Peel, which hosted a Dickcissle for a day last year in the fall. We spent an hour scouring the field for sparrows and actually turned up a Field Sparrow and a super skulky Savannah Sparrow, quite a nice start to February!

Savannah Sparrow

On Saturday, I attended YES (Young Environmental Science) Alliance, run by the Royal Botanical Gardens and led by Jackson Hudecki. That day out of all the times I've attended YES Alliance was one of my most favorite because we had some special guests visit from the University of Guelph, Wild Ontario! Wild Ontario educates youth and the public about Ontario raptors, and they even brought some fluffy raptor friends for us to see up close, it was truly an amazing experience! That evening I headed out to Pier 8 Park hoping to see a Glaucous Gull and maybe some other rare gulls (Slaty-backed Gull). Over the hour and a half I was there, saw many Herring Gulls, had the Great Cormorant flyby, saw an Iceland Gull and an adult Glaucous Gull at close range. 

American Kestrel (Apollo) - Wild Ontario

The next evening while coming back from a northern birding adventure outside the HSA with Luke Raso and George Preiksaitis, we stopped by the Mattamy National Cycling Center where we found hundreds of Canada Geese feeding in the adjacent field. We scanned this massive group for Greater White-fronted Geese, Snow Geese, and Ross's Geese, the last goose species somewhat expected in the HSA that I still haven't seen this year (oh, and also Brant). We also saw a female Northern Harrier hunting in the fields at dusk, then landing on a brush pile going to roost.

I try my best to write and post a new blog each Sunday night, but got carried away with some other stuff that night so that's why I am posting tonight : ) 

I think next week we'll try to see some Short-eared Owls in Haldimand! 

HSA Year List: 94

Recent rare bird sightings:

Snow Goose - One in Canal Park (Mourad Jabra; Feb 4)

Great Cormorant - Still occasionally being seen flying in Hamilton Harbor and roosting on the wave tower in the evenings

King Eider & Harlequin Duck - Both still being seen at Fifty Point, last report from February 2