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)