Pelee Warblers and other FOY birds

This afternoon I decided to head into Pelee for an  hour and a half after work.  Initially I wanted to go into the Woodland Nature Trail to look for one of the many Louisiana Waterthrushes there this week, however with storms rolling in I decided that the trail with some of the largest trees was not the place I wanted to be.

The winds were picking up out of the west around 4pm, so I decided to take a walk along one of my favourite trails whenever we get strong west winds, the little seasonal trail that starts at Blue Heron Picnic shelter.  Though the trail is short, I find myself spending lots of time there as the birding can be great!  This is one of my favourite spots to bird in May because there is hardly anyone birding there!..I know, I can be a recluse sometimes...

Often I will not only bird the seasonal trail, but walk the road up to Sanctuary and then down the west side. If the birding is really good, I sometimes walk to the front gates especially in the evening as birds slowly make their way north in the park.  This evening I only made it along the seasonal trail as it started to thunder. Though the winds were picking up and I could hear the waves on the west beach, the birds and myself were sheltered.  The little trail didn't disappoint with a few FOY birds.  Here is a short list of some highlights:

Blue-grey Gnatcatcher: 4
Yellow Warbler: 1
Red-eyed Vireo: 1
Black-and-white Warbler: 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet: 25
Red-breasted Nuthatch: 1
White-throated Sparrow: 10
American Tree Sparrow: 4
Eastern Towhee: 1
Brown Thrasher: 1
Hermit Thrush: 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler: 3
Pine Warbler: 1
Palm Warbler:1
Winter Wren: 3
Carolina Wren: 2
Dark-eyed Junco: 15
Song Sparrow: 5

Eventually it began to pour rain and I had to head back.  No camera this time.

SPRING!!!!!

Finally got out for some birding this past weekend.  I met up with Jeremy Hatt at Delaurier in Point Pelee National Park. We did a loop south to White Pine picnic area, across to Chinquapin Oak trail, and back north up Anders footpath to Delaurier again. 

The Delaurier parking lot had a few sparrows including Field, Song, Chipping, along with many Dark-eyed Juncos.  Other expected migrants included Brown Thrashers, Brown Creepers, Tree Swallows, Hermit Thrush, a single Barn Swallow, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers and Golden-crowned Kinglet. A pair of Wilson's Snipe and an American Kestrel was a nice highlight. At the beach we had an Eastern Phoebe. A lot of Golden-crowned Kinglets were feeding on the grass looking for insects. It has been barely above freezing right now so I'm guess they are having a rough go right now. The ice pellets we had didn't help either.

One of many Golden-crowned Kinglets looking for insects on the ground.

 

Camouflage!!

Not too much for warblers yet.  We hoped to find Pine Warbler at White Pine, but we only turned up a male singing Yellow-rumped Warbler, our first migrant warbler for the year.  Chinquapin Oak Trail had easily over 10 Fox Sparrows with a few singing.  A singing White-throated Sparrow was a nice highlight as well.  One bird I thought we would for sure see was Blue-grey Gnatcatcher!  I'm sure anytime now someone will see them.

After lunch at the "The Big Red Bus" (which is actually called Birdie's Perch) we quickly drove to Hillman Marsh. Pectoral Sandpiper, Dunlin, and both Yellowlegs were present.  We also had a Black-bellied Plover which we later found out was close to being record early.  A pair of Forster's Terns was also a nice highlight.  The shorebird cell had the regular waterfowl.

Monday was the first day we had gorgeous weather that neared 20 degrees celcius with a south wind.  Jeremy and I decided to walk the whole Hillman Marsh trail after work. We had our first Mourning Cloak for the year, along with our FOY Marsh Wren, Painted Turtle, Blanding's Turtle, Midland Painted Turtle, Spring Peepers and Leopard Frog. Yay spring!

"What are YOU looking at?"

I'm hoping something super rare will show up in the next couple of weeks. Green-tailed Towhee would be great!

Lifer! Gray Partridge near the Brantford Airport

I chatted with Jeremy Hatt Friday after work, and stated that it was too bad there are no chaseable  birds around right now.  That night, the Hamilton Naturalists Club report came in on Ontbirds stating that the the "ever elusive Brantford Airport GRAY PARTRIDGE reared their heads" for the past couple of days.

After meeting Jeremy at the Tip parking lot in Point Pelee Saturday morning, we walked down to the tip where all we saw were distant Bald Eagles, Common Mergansers, Common Goldeneyes, and gulls that looked like blurs along the horizon, I turned to Jeremy and said:

"Want to go to Brandford for Gray Partridge?"

Thus began a road trip as we bid Blake Mann and Richard Carr farewell at the Tip parking lot, dumped Jeremy's car at my house, and hit the 401 which was abuzz with people out for the long Family Day weekend.

Luckily, there were a few people out looking for the Partridge, and after about a couple of hours we were looking at 13 of these footballs huddled in a field near the airport. We also had a great look at a Savannah Sparrow, while Common Redpoll flew over a few times as well.

Gray Partridge near the Brantford Airport. Photo i-scoped by Jeremy Hatt

This is my first time ever looking for Gray Partridge at Brantford Airport.  By the sounds of things, there are many people who have made repeated trips before finally having the partridge through their binoculars.

After a celebratory lunch in Burford, and celebratory purchase of beer at the local LCBO, we headed home down highway 3 with me driving through two snow squalls, while Jeremy obsessively made eBird lists for every county we drove through.

Also in birding news, the ABA added Purple Swamphen to the ABA checklist this week.  All the more reason for me to return to Florida for another birding trip :)
http://blog.aba.org/2013/02/977-purple-swamphen.html

Tufted Duck Hybrid: Has Common Pochard X Tufted Duck been considered?

Not sure if this winter is going to be the winter of hybrids or not, but once again I got a look at another hybrid bird this week.

Alan Wormington posted to Ontbirds on Thursday about a Tufted Duck on Lake Erie north of Hillman Marsh.  30 seconds before my smartphone got the email I received a text from Jeremy Hatt:

"Ahhhhh Tufted Duck!!!!!"

"What?!?!?!?!?!? Where???!!

"Hillman Marsh. I'm leaving ASAP.  Alan found it"

"Oh God I see!! (referring to the ontbirds post that just came in) Sh*t I'm not done until 4pm.  If you see it stay on it until 4 pm and I will come out there"

"For sure.  Probably there in 20-30 mins! Exciting!"

"Stay on it until I get there I'm begging you.  I'm coming without bins!"

"Oh my! It will be through my fogged scope but any look will be better than none"

"Screw this I'm leaving at 3pm.  It's a Tufted Duck, so that will be my excuse.  I will run home and grab my optics."

"LOL be safe.  I'll see you there"

.............sounds like a normal conversation doesn't it?

So I bailed out of work at 3pm.  Just when I'm pulling into my driveway another post comes onto ontbirds from Alan stated that the bird may be in fact a hybrid. Bummer.

Driving to the location I meet Jeremy and Richard Carr and we see the bird clearly.  It was with all the scaup and diving constantly.  Superficially to us, it looked like a pure Tufted Duck (uniform dark back with no vermiculations, a lot of black on the tip of the bill, a nice s-curve along the side with the slightest note of a spur towards the front, but a "bulb" instead of a defining crest so high up on the head was, well, disturbing. A first year male Tufted Duck was placed on the table for possible identification, but in the end it seems like the experts suggest it is a Tufted Duck x Lesser Scaup hybrid. Myself, I was leaning towards it being a hybrid with Greater Scaup.

See Bruce MacTavish's blog here for a couple of Alan's photos and more on the subject:
http://brucemactavish1.blogspot.ca/2013/01/tufted-duck-hybrid-in-ontario.html

After doing more research today I thought has Common Pochard been considered in this scenario?

Let me explain from what I observed from my own observation, what I see in Alan's photos, along with looking through tons of images, and a few field guides.

Alan explained an interesting point made by Bruce on an Ontbirds post:  "It is possible your bird could be an adult male [Tufted] that hasn't completely moulted out of eclipse plumage.  The well-developed sturdy tuft sort of suggests that." 

If you own a copy of the Princeton Field Guides to Birds of Europe, there is a page that shows Wildfowl Hybrids.  Here we see a Common Pochard male x Tufted Duck female hybrid.  It explains that it "can be deceptivley similar to a Tufted Duck male moulting out of eclipse plumage."  This hybrid has a darker eye than the typical lemen yellow of scaups, a short "stand-off" crest like some adult female tufted ducks. This hybrid does "not have entirely black upperparts, being very finely vermiculated on some (visible at closest range only) and the flanks are rather darker towards belly, sometimes finely vermiculated."

Here is a link that displays some photos of this hybrid:
http://www.gobirding.eu/Photos/PochardxTuftedDuck.php

http://www.netfugl.dk/pictures.php?id=listpictures&species_id=1003&page_nr=1

Mind you I saw the duck in low light conditions so no colour in the head was visible at all, and being a cloudy day and looking through a scope, if the vermiculations are as fine as they say (or as you see in some of the photos) there is no way we would've seen them at all. Looking at hybrids in these online photos the colour of the birds head varies from reddish to the the colour you would normally see in a Tufted Duck or Lesser Scaup. The colour of the head in the Princeton Guide shows that this hybrid can be the exact same colour as a Tufted Duck and Lesser Scaup.

Looking at some of Alan's photos, the hybrid may in fact have a slightly goldener eye than the surrounding scaup. Though this is too hard to tell, and I must admit that I don't remember if it was or not.  Looking at online photos, this eye colour seems to vary.  Hopefully someone will see this bird again.

Another feature to the hybrid we saw was that the black tip on the bill was extremely extensive, more so than any hybrid Tufted Duck x Scaup I have seen online, but matches perfectly to a Common Pochard x Tufted Duck hybrid. The bird that we all saw looked like it dipped the whole tip of its bill in ink. This is also visible in some of Alan's photos. Lastly, the size of the bird and the shape of the head (at least from profile view) seem to match....sort of...

One thing that I would like to point out as well is that the chances of this bird being a hybrid with a Pochard seems more likely then a Lesser Scaup based on their ranges, but anything is possible with ducks right? Maybe this bird is a second generation Pochard x Tufted Duck having backcrossed with Tufted Duck? It could also be the same with either Scaup species. One thing we can all agree with I think is that this bird is definitely not a true Tufted Duck, so it is back to looking through raft after raft of rolling Scaup on Lake Erie this spring in hopes that I see a full adult male!

Just my two cents. :D

Mystery Gull Time!!

My first real day (half day) of birding for the year was a the Tip of Point Pelee this morning with Jeremy.  Needless to say, even though it was slightly above freezing it was very damp (85% humidity) that just went right through you no matter how many layers you wear.  Of course standing in one spot for hours doesn't help.

As always, the tip had a few goodies.  A single Killdeer, and 3 American Pipits greeted us right away and we got around 220 White-winged Scoters by the end of the morning, along with 5 Redhead, and 1 Common Loon, among the many other regular waterfowl present. 

In the gull department, all the 4 regular gulls were accounted for (HEGU,RBGU,GBBG,BOGU), along with a juvenile Glaucous Gull that flew in later.

Juvenile Glaucous Gull.  Photo by Marianne Reid-Balkwill

The highlight of the morning was an apparent Great Black-backed X Glaucous Gull, or perhaps a Great Black-backed X Herring Gull hybrid that Jeremy picked out.  The bird was the same size as a Great Black-backed, with a grey mantle that was slightly a darker grey than the surrounding Herring and Ring-bills. It also had a shorter primary projection than the Great Black-backed Gull.  A neat bird to say the least. Any thoughts anyone?

 Hybrid with Ring-billed Gull.  Photo by Marianne Reid-Balkwill

 

Hybrid gull with adult Great Black-backed Gull.  Photo by Marianne Reid-Balkwill

Hybrid Gull and Adult Great Black-backed Gull.  Photo by Marianne Reid-Balkwill

Hybrid Gull leaving the scene.  Photo by Marianne Reid-Balkwill.

Holiday birding and onward to 2013

I did the nontraditional for the first time in my life.  I was not in Essex County for the holidays.  I ran away from the epic family meals and the hectic going to and from work to house to church to house to work to house.  I aborted the whole thing to spend a few days with my sister in Barrie for Christmas.  Of course, I made a couple of pit stops along the way.

Leaving at 5:30 am on the 23rd, I drove straight through Toronto and stopped off at Durham Park in Oshawa to see if the Western Tanager would be as reliable as the Ontbirds posts preceding it.  When I arrived there were already a few birders present, but no Western Tanager.  After about 20 minutes of searching, the Tanager revealed herself, and began feeding. I managed a few mediocre photos.

Western Tanager at Durham Park in Oshawa.  Photo by Marianne Reid-Balkwill

From there I hoped on the 401 again and then made a beeline north towards the Peterborough area to see if I could find the Northern Hawk Owl.  I wasn't sure if this bird would still be around as there wasn't any Ontbirds posts in a few days, nor was there any recent reports on Ebird. As posted in the directions on Ontbirds, I pulled over along the highway just north of an old rail line, and then walked under the rail line heading west.  Surprisingly, I was the only one out there.  I thought for sure being the weekend there would at least be someone else. After walking down the trail for about 15 minutes I looked up and in came the owl and alighted in the tree about 20 feet in front of me. That'll do!

 

Northern Hawk Owl just west of Peterborough.  Photo by Marianne Reid-Balkwill

After grabbing a few photos, I returned to my car with a celebratory "whoo-hoo" of two lifers in a day.

My sister is by no means a birder, but we did go for walks around her subdivision, and I was pleasantly surprised when a Pine Grosbeak landed in a tree just across the street from her house.  We also went into the Barrie Arboretum and saw just over 60 Bohemian Waxwings in a tree, as well as a flock of White-winged Crossbills. Not a bad holiday break, and seeing my sister was a nice change from the usual routine I've participated in for the last 31 years.

I hope everyone out there that reads this little blog had a nice holiday season, whether you spent it with friends and family, or somewhere abroad, I wish you all a prosperous 2013!

Updated ABA Checklist..Did I just get a freebee?

Added to the ABA checklist this year is the Nanday Conure.  This is not a Nanday, but my Green Cheeked Conure named Mac.

I stopped getting Birding, the publication by the ABA this year mainly because it is filled with too many ads, there is a lot of fluff, and it is so American (not North American).  I do however still subscribe to North American Birds because it is more scientific, and of course, it has North American records.  So only today did I find out that the November issue of Birding published the updated ABA checklist with 5 new species, plus a split added.  This brings the ABA list up to 976!  I wonder if I will still be alive when it hits 1,000?

The species added are Providence Petrel, Double-toothed Kite, Rosy-faced Lovebird, Nanday Parakeet, Asian Rosy-Finch, while Xantus' Murrelet gets split into two species, Guadalupe and Scripps's murrelets.

Now this is where it gets interesting....for me.  Back on April 11th, 2009 I was in Clearwater, Florida and saw a Nanday Parakeet.  Other names for this species includes Nanday Conure and Black-hooded Parakeet  (Nandayus nenday). At this point in time the Nanday was not on the ABA list but it was on the Florida Ornithological Society Records Committee list for Florida (in 2004).  It fell one vote short of becoming part of the ABA checklist in 2006.  So I guess if I was playing by "the rules" I could count it on my Florida list, but not my ABA list.

This is where it gets interesting.  The population in that area of Florida already met the requirements of an established exotic according to the ABA (see link below) which is why I'm sure the FOSRC added it to the Florida species list.  However in 2006, the ABA's CLC (Checklist Committee) still rejected it (by 2 votes) because there were concerns that its range in the central gulf of Florida (around 150 square miles) may not be large enough to confirm establishment of this species.  So in other words, the CLC twisted the rules a bit, and Nenday was put on the back burner until now when it is finally on the ABA list. 

One question remains.  Can I count it today, right now, as a lifer?  Or do I have to go down to Florida to see one again?  I think given the circumstances here I should be able to count it as it already met the ABA's established exotic species requirements to begin with years ago. 

Interesting to think about...


More info on ABA established exotics requirements:
http://aba.org/checklist/exotics.html