HSA Big Year - Weekly Summary (March 19 - 27)

On Sunday, March 19, I went to Beamer where I met up with Lauren Booker and we counted raptors for the day. We had a decent day for March totaling just under 100 raptors. Most of the birds were Turkey Vultures but we had had some Sharp-shinned Hawks, Cooper's Hawks, and a few Red-tailed Hawks. I think the best bird I saw that day at Beamer was not in fact a raptor, it was a few groups of Sandhill Cranes! These birds circled the tower a few times and called a little bit which was cool to witness. 

Sandhill Cranes

On Tuesday my mom and I went to Hamilton to attend our first in person Monthly Bird Study Meeting run by the Hamilton Naturalists' Club. It was great! 

Occasionally after school my mom and I would go out birding together and we decided to go to the Burlington/Hamilton area for the evening. We drove around Burlington first listening for Fish Crows and scanning the lake for ducks. After that we spent the last hour of daylight at the High Level bridge in Hamilton with Matt Mills. There we spotted a small group of Tree Swallows flying quickly just above Cootes Paradise and a couple hundred of blackbirds flying by. Didn't hear any Fish Crows that day but saw lots of ducks.

The next day after school, we went to Windermere Basin to look for some early shorebirds like Lesser/Greater Yellowlegs. I was able to do one scan of the basin before I received a message on Discord. A Glaucous-winged Gull (incredibly rare gull for Ontario; found on the west coast) had just been spotted by Bill Lamond near Brantford, roughly 50 minutes from us at the time. If we left immediately, we probably could have gotten there just before 6:30pm but we decided to stay in Hamilton to wait for the gull to come to us. In the winter, gulls in Brantford fly to Hamilton Harbour in the evening to roost. The majority of them seem to go to the Yacht Club so that's where we went. 

It was cold, sitting on a bench panning through a few hundred gulls didn't help. As the sun slowly set, more gulls were streaming in from the west. Searching basically till dusk did not reveal the rare gull. It was still neat to see 6 Iceland Gulls and a female Common Goldeneye x Hooded Merganser (hybrid) swimming around with some Common Goldeneyes. I wasn't too upset to miss this gull because they usually stick around for a few days in that general area but that didn't seem to be the case with this one. 

Iceland Gull

Common Goldeneye x Hooded Merganser (hybrid)

The next day was really bad weather and even with a few determined birders out looking, the Glaucous-winged Gull could not be found. Hopefully it's still somewhere out there.... in the HSA. 

Since the winds were so brutally strong that day (reaching 50km/h winds, stronger gusts) I went out to Oakville Harbour in the evening and did a short lakewatch. This reminded me of lakewatching at Van Wagner's Beach in fall during terrible weather and when the winds were so strong. The only thing missing was the people and jaegers. I was still pretty surprised to see a few Killdeer on the move flying against the wind right along the shoreline. A squirrel nearby was taking advantage of all the leaves being blown around and using those to build his nest high in a tree being swung around in the wind. 

Oakville Harbour during high winds

The rest of my weekend was spent with my dad around Hamilton and Niagara. We drove up and down the roads on the escarpment near Stoney Creek looking for dabbling ducks in the flooded fields. There wasn't a whole bunch of waterfoul around but we still managed to see a few Green-winged Teal, a pair of Northern Pintail and a pair of Blue-winged Teal! 

My dad dropped me off at Beamer and here's what I saw! eBird Checklist - Beamer CA

The Short-eared Owl was so unexpected!

I seem to always have a great time at Beamer; even if there's very little raptor movement, there's always great birders present to share stories with and listen to some of the experiences they've had. Even after 6 hours, I didn't want to leave. 

Hawkwatching at Beamer CA

HSA Year List: 114

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Whats new/arriving to the HSA?

- Already staring to see Tree Swallow's around large bodies of water (Cootes Paradise)

- Dabbling ducks like Blue-winged Teal have arrived this week (mainly seen in flooded fields up near Saltfleet, but could be anywhere where there is water)

- Red-necked Grebes will soon be appearing in the hundreds on Lake Ontario. 

- Loons are on the move; especially Common's. 

- Geese of all kinds are migrating (check out the rare birds below), good time to find a Ross's Goose with a Snow Goose. 

- Hawk migration is ramping up quickly! Anywhere along the escarpment can be good. Keep your eyes to the sky on south winds or even on calm days.

- A good time to get your FOY American Woodcock. Listen on calm nights around large grassy fields. 

- Some of the first shorebirds are showing up. Killdeer are practically everywhere but some shorebirds like Yellowlegs, Dunlin, and Pectoral Sandpiper are soon to arrive.  

- Fish Crows have arrived in small numbers around Peel and Burlington. 

- Migrants like Eastern Pheobe and Osprey have already been seen in the area and in about a month guess what we'll be starting to see & hear?! Warblers!!

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Recent Rare Bird Sightings: (birds in bold red means I have yet to see that species in the HSA this year)

Snow Goose - One landed on Lake Ontario off Fifty Point in Hamilton with a large flock of Canada Geese (Matt Mills & Rob Dobos; March 21)

One observed feeding in a field with many Canada Geese in Brant County on 5th Concession Rd W (Bill & Sarah Lamond; March 21) -- Blue morph found at same location (Nathan Hood; March 27)

A pair (blue & white morph) found in a pond on St. George Rd in Brant, just North of St George (Josh Nieuwenhuis; March 22)

White morph at Scotch Block reservoir in Halton (Yves Scholten; March 23)

Greater White-fronted Goose - The ones found by Dean Hughes in Haldimand were seen again on Sunday; roughly 80 individuals. 

One found around Christie Lake CA (Middletown Rd) in Hamilton (Sarah Sharp; March 19). This bird was present at that location for 2 days then it moved over to the fields around Flamboro Downs (Rowan Keunen; March 21)

One observed flying over Preservation Park, just south of Guelph (Erik Van Den Kieboom; March 21)

2 at Hespeler Mill Pond in Waterloo on one fine evening (Tim Kuntz; March 22)

2 in a pond near the town of Grassie, in Grimsby (Shannon Hingston; March 26)

Black Vulture - One flying east over Beamer CA in Niagara (Not sure who spotted this bird but the official counter at Beamer that day was Tom Thomas; March 21). For birds to be counted as migrants at Beamer, they have to be heading from East to West. This bird was said to be going east so perhaps it was one of those birds from New York that hang out along the Niagara River?

King Eider - Continuing female seen off Fifty Point. Been present since at least January 1st. 

Bohemian Waxing - A single individual found mixed in with a group of Cedar Waxwings in Wellington, near St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic School (Dana Latour; March 22)

GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL - Possibly one of the two from Ohio earlier this year; found in a flooded farm field on Cockshutt Rd, a kilometer south of Burtch Rd (Bill Lamond; March 24)

HSA Big Year - Weekly Summary (March 13 - 18)

As the year slowly progresses into spring, I wanted to do a little recap of the year and recognize what's been seen in the HSA, so far this year. Looking at year lists for individual counties on eBird, a total of 138 species have been observed, and of those 138, I've seen/heard 111, that's 80%. Not bad! 

Some of these birds that I'm still missing should be easy birds to get in spring but not during the winter. Birds like finches have been very sparse this year. To see certain species like owls, hawks and ducks are just things you need to get lucky for. 

Some of the best/rare things that I've seen in the HSA have been Short-eared Owl, Pacific Loon, Snow Goose, American Woodcock, Red-shouldered Hawk, King Eider, Greater White-fronted Goose, Great Cormorant, Evening Grosbeak, and Black-legged Kittiwake!

Below I've attached the species I have yet to see in the HSA, but have already been observed by others in the HSA this year.

Year Needs (no specific order)

- Barrow's Goldeneye 

- Fish Crow

- Sandhill Crane

- Ruffed Grouse

- American Pipit

- Northern Flicker

- Common Redpoll

- Ross's Goose 

- Black Vulture

- Bohemian Waxwing

- Long-eared Owl

- Purple Finch

- Swamp Sparrow

- Fox Sparrow

- Hermit Thursh

- Ruby-crowned Kinglet

- Pine Siskin

- Golden Eagle

- Eastern Towhee

- Rusty Blackbird

- Gray Catbird

- Lapland Longspur

- Chipping Sparrow

- Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

- Lesser Black-backed Gull

- Wilson's Snipe

- Tree Swallow

Also, a total of $1,130 has been raised for the Hamilton Naturalist Club! When I first had the idea of doing this, I thought maybe if I was lucky we could raise $200, so thank you to everyone who has sponsored me and supported me during my HSA Big Year and I will continue to do my best. Chasing these rare birds and just getting out to farther places would not have been possible without the support and dedication of my family, thanks! I'd also like to thank all of the birders throughout the HSA reporting the birds they see because without people birding and getting out daily, there would be no rare birds to chase. 

On Monday I added my first species of plover to the year list, a Killdeer! This was at Valens CA in Flamborough while searching for Ruffed Grouse. We started Monday driving around the Wellington area looking for Bohemian Waxwings that had been reported two days earlier. We could not find them at the location so we drove around the surrounding area to see if they had found another spot to feed. Bohemian Waxwings are known for being very tough to chase unless there is a substantial amount of berries or something for them to eat at that location. 

We then found ourselves at Valens CA where not far away a larger flock of Bohemian Waxwings were reported some weeks ago, and could have stayed in the area. This conservation area has also been good for Ruffed Grouse in the past so we decided to give it a shot and walk some of the trails to see what we could see. 5km of walking did not turn up a Ruffed Grouse, but we very likely found somewhat fresh tracks of one but seemingly they ended going each way :/

The next day I took it fairly easy just birding at some of the parks along the lake. Saw two nice Iceland Gulls that day and a pair of Black Scoters in Bronte.

One of the Iceland Gulls in flight

Common Goldeneye

From Wednesday to Friday my mom and I drove up to Algonquin Provincial Park to visit my sister doing Canada Jay research. I got to see a few of the jays and a nest of one! This year has been an exceptional year for Boreal Chickadees in the park as at least 12 are around the Highway 60 corridor, compared to the previous years where 1 or 2 are seen, just need one to wonder down this way. I met some great people on this trip and saw some great birds!

This Sunday I am at Beamer CA helping count migrating raptors! Hoping for a Black Vulture or a Northern Goshawk🤞

HSA Year List: 111

Recent Rare Bird Sightings:

Greater White-fronted Goose - 2 individuals observed in a pond in Wellington (Tim K; March 16) 

A group of approximately 30 in Haldimand on Dry Lake Rd (Dean Hughes; March 18)

Snow Goose - One high over Beamer CA (Phil Waggett, Karen Ross, Paul Nelson; March 18)

HSA Big Year - Weekly Summary (March 6 - 12)

 On Tuesday I saw my first of the year Brown-headed Cowbird briefly visit the feeders at my house. The following days after that we had some light flurries of snow which brought even more birds to feeders, expecially blackbirds! At times it seemed like there were at least 100 individual blackbirds in the trees and at the feeder, it was quite neat to see. These blackbirds consisted of Common Grackles, Red-winged Blackbirds, and a small group of Brown-headed Cowbirds; was hoping for a Rusty Blackbird with them. 

Brown-headed Cowbird

On Thursday, my mom and I drove over to Oakville Harbour to check out the gulls for rare things as places like Ohio, New York & Michigan have had quite the luck with them (GWGU, SBAG, COGU, CAGU). There was a few hundred Ring-billed Gulls with a few Herring Gulls peppered in. 

We then scanned the lake where I was surprised to count eight Red-necked Grebes! These were recently arrived migrants and a good number of them too. Soon (April) we'll start to see them in the hundreds, looking for a Western Grebe mixed in. 

After that stop, my mom had the idea to check Bronte Provincial Park for American Woodcocks. It would be a little early for them to show up now, but there have already been a few heard throughout the province. Also, forecasted for the next day was a bunch of snow so if we were to try, this would be the day. Just as we stepped out of the car at Bronte PP, the very first bird we heard was a woodcock! We heard the fluttering sound of its wings as it quickly flew over the parking lot into a grassy field. It was dark so we could just make out the shape and long bill in flight. As this bird was in the sky, we heard the PEENT! of another one! 

Friday was pretty terrible weather, snowing almost all day but that didn't stop the birds from being out. There was again a large number of blackbirds visiting the feeder. 

On Saturday, I took part in the West End Lake Ontario (WELO) IBA Survey with my mom and Sarah Richer. This was basically going out and counting waterfoul on the lake between 8am-12pm in an assigned area. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary there, just the usuals. 

Herring Gull

After finishing up the count, we drove over to Windermere Basin to see if there was anything cool there. We spent an hour and a half there, tallying up 42 species (quite decent for March). Some of the highlights included 2 Peregrine Falcons, a Northern Harrier, 209 Northern Shovelers, an Iceland Gull, and 14 Double-crested Cormorants. 

Northern Harrier

On the way back home, we stopped in Bronte to track down an American Woodcock that had just been found by Mark Jennings. It was an opportunity to photograph a woodcock as they are very rarely ever seen during the day. If a few arrive early and a snowstorm occurs, they will try to find open water to stay warm and to use it as a source of food. When we got there, he was just sitting in a little puddle of water surrounded by deep snow. My mom ended up finding a second one just a few feet away from the original one and I accidentally flushed one while looking for small puddles of open water in the forest. There were a total of at least 3 there that day, pretty neat!

American Woodcock

My Sunday was very exciting as I added 5 new species to the HSA Big Year list that day. From 8am-4pm, I was hawkwatching with the president of the Niagara Peninsula Hawkwatch, Keith Dieroff at Beamer CA in Grimsby! My mom also watched with us for a few hours. From 8am-12pm raptor migrants were few and far between, had something like 3 raptors. Luckily there were other birds who kept us company including a Pileated Woodpecker flying by and several cheerful Northern Cardinals singing! At 1pm things started to pick up and soon we had a few small groups of Turkey Vultures migrating over as well as a very nice adult Red-shouldered Hawk. It's still a bit early to see hundreds of raptors migrating in a single day, but it's nice to get out and experience the randomness of raptors flying over you. By 4pm we had seen 15 Turkey Vultures, 1 Red-shouldered Hawk, 6 Red-tailed Hawks, and a Bald Eagle migrating north. 

Red-shouldered Hawk

Keith & I then drove around Stoney Creek looking for puddle ducks and sparrows. Keith spotted a nice White-crowned Sparrow along the side of the road with many American Tree Sparrows and Horned Larks. Down the road from there we saw a Sharp-shinned Hawk zip quickly over the car, which we could not relocate.

White-crowned Sparrow

HSA Year List: 110

Recent Rare Bird Sightings:

Great Cormorant - Continuing; seen on the wave tower in the evening

Bohemian Waxwing - A group of 4 found just south of Guelph. Birders were unable to relocate them the next day (Fred Urie; March 11)

Snow Goose - One seen flying along Lake Ontario (Grace Pitman, Gwyneth Govers; March 11)

HSA Big Year - 2 Week Summary (Feburary 22 - March 5)

I'll be covering the past 2 weeks in this blog post because I missed last week's post.

Last Week of February

A goal I set near the start of the year was to record at least 100 species by the end of February, on the 23rd I accomplished just that! The 100th bird species for the HSA Big Year was a Common Grackle; two of them actually! My mom and I saw these with a whole bunch of Red-winged Blackbirds along Sixteen Mile Creek while driving down to Oakville Harbour. 

Common Grackle

The next day George, Luke and I took a trip outside the HSA to Peterborough & Hastings county. We chased a Boreal Chickadee coming to a feeder and a Barrow's Goldeneye on the Trent River; we saw both of our targets. As a bonus, I spotted a Common Goldeneye x Hooded Merganser (hybrid) swimming in the river with a few Common Mergansers. 

That same day, while on the way back to Guelph, my mom met up with us in Milton and together we went to Kelso CA in Halton. Awaiting geese to come back from the fields to roost at the reservoir, we spotted a Belted Kingfisher flying right by us! It eventually landed and perched on a small log sticking out of the water. 

Belted Kingfisher in flight

Sunday morning, my mom and I got out to Sedgewick Forest in search of overwintering species like Hermit Thrush, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and Yellow-rumped Warbler which had been reported previously in the last month. We were able to locate the Yellow-rumped Warbler foraging by the open stream near some green vegetation. Places like Sedgewick with some sort of water treatment plant and a small woodlot nearby are great places to check regularly during the winter months as they provided warmth and food like bugs which can be tough to find when its cold.

Yellow-rumped Warber

The rest of the week I spent birding the stormwater pond near my highschool during part of my lunch break. 

March

It's March, 2 out of the 12 months have already passed! Blackbirds of all kinds have flooded Southern Ontario, plants are beginning to emerge from under the snow, and some early migrants like Killdeer & American Woodcock are back, it almost feels like spring! I feel good entering March with 102 species, leaving 178 more to go until the record. So far to my knowledge, $556.5 (will update if I'm wrong) has already been raised toward the Hamilton Naturalists Club during my HSA Big Year! If you're interested in making a pledge, here's the link to the Google Form (2023 HSA Big Year Pledge Form)

On Saturday I found a very distant Red-throated Loon at LaSalle Park and then in the afternoon I went to YES Alliance. We cleaned out a few nest boxes on the RBG property so that they could be ready for this summer! On a piece of paper we would write down where the box was located using GPS and list the species that nested in the box previously. We found that the majority of the birds that nested in the boxes were Tree Swallows and House Wrens. The hope/purpose of these boxes was to get Eastern Bluebirds to nest in these. What surprised me was that most of the House Wren nests were built over top of the Tree Swallows'. The second last box we checked had something inside that we did not expect; a nest built 100% out of moss with 4 tiny marble sized white eggs with tiny red speckles. As a group we later determined this to be from a Black-capped Chickadee, not unheard of to nest in boxes but still cool!

Today I was out with George, driving around Halton, Hamilton, and Brant. We began the morning following up on a report of two Meadowlark sp. up Walkers Line in Burlington from a good friend of mine, Ben Oldfield! Last year in May, Ben and I found a Hepatic Tanager together in Oakville! 

We got to the spot Ben has described, and saw a nice bright yellow bird foraging right along the road. It was a meadowlark, an Eastern Meadowlark! We might have heard the other individual singing over a hill but couldn't eliminate the possibility that it was a starling. The Eastern Meadowlark that was on the road later flew up on a post right by some horses, and got this photo with the horse in the background! 

Eastern Meadowlark

After that we drove around Hamilton and Brant County in search of Lapland Longspurs where they had been reported a few days ago. Almost along every road we would see a couple of Horned Larks, they were quite neat to watch. Next week brings March Break! That week, I'll spend a day or two at Beamer CA counting migrating raptors. It's a little early for seeing raptors in the hundreds but some early migrants like Turkey Vulture, Red-shouldered Hawk and some accipiters are on the move. 

HSA Year List: 103

Recent Rare Bird Sightings:

Harlequin Duck - Continuing female in the Fifty Point marina 

Snow Goose - Stayed in the Desjardins Canal in Dundas for a day (Franny Bois; Feb 27)