PeregrinePrints not dot com ... Blog

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Even more (random) work related birding...

May 29th - Mattawa Poop Ponds... They're lined in plastic, and terrible. A male Gadwall was the only _light.

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S18619906

May 31st - Oh Ma God - we stopped at a landfill near Haileybury, ON and actually saw some gulls (no bears though) - Iceland Gull!

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S18638015

Late May Iceland!

June 9th - 2 Bonaparte's Gulls in Port Dover (that's all she wrote)...

June 9th - Townsend's Sewage Lagoons - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S18741630

- Highlights were Canvasback, Wilson's Phalarope and Least Sandpiper!

June 10th - Mosaic Ponds near Rock Point - 1 Greater Yellowlegs, 6 Green-winged Teal, 1 Blue-winged Teal

June 12th - Townsend Sewage Lagoons - 15 Semipalmated Sands, 1 Semipalm Plover, 1 White-rumped Sandpiper (I only checked the first pond).

June 12th - Great Black-backed Gull in Port Dover. The Lake Erie shoreline has huge numbers of summering gulls, but I didn't pick out much. Lack of concentration spots! Makes me wonder what would be at a place like Port Burwell or Port Stanley (or Pelee Island)

June 12th - 1 Common Merganser (male) at Nanticoke - with lots of gulls

June 16th - 1 Green winged Teal, 8 Ruddy Ducks, 1 ALBINO (ish) Mallard at the Seaforth Sewage Lagoons

June 16th - 4 Green-winged Teal at the West Perth Wetlands (not much else, great looking spot though)

Also had 2 adult Peregrine Falcons in the New Hamburg area while driving home (along the highway). Odd?!

Next batch may come from the north!

Monday, June 16, 2014

More minor website additions

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_BGGN.htm

Chimney Swift - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_CHSW.htm

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_STFL.htm

Saturday, June 14, 2014

The Long Point specimen of Carolina Chickadee!!!

I dun gone and dun it! - I went to the ROM and checked out the skins. One major highlight was checking out the Long Point Carolina Chickadee from 18 May 1983!!!! I'm sure you can figure out why...

Here it is! -

Looks like a Carolina Chickadee to me?! - I had recently been sent a copy of Parkes 1988 paper on the skin (Ontario Birds) and was surprised to see he changed to subspecies to the northerly one! (published as the southerly in the OBRC report). Made a HUGE difference in my books!

These skins always seem to be a bit of a mess, so one couldn't tell delicate features like the bib size/shape (proven to be remarkably variable within single individuals when using photos) - but overall it was awesome to see. I wanted to check the shade difference between the greater coverts (centres) between Carolina and Black-capped while I was there - listed as black in BCCH and gray in CACH in the new Crossley Guide. When using the skins, it proved to be useless.

Another major item on my "to-do" list was CACH tails! We identified it as a problem that our Pelee bird showed white edges to the outer rects. Online photo proved otherwise, and the skins reinforced this. Northerly CACH often show white edges - including the Long Point Bird (seen near the base of the tail here). It is NOT a problem with CACH!

In fact, this bird (all images of the Long Point bird) actually look considerably WORSE (in my opinion) for Carolina than the bird we photographed at Pelee... Don't get me wrong, I believe it's a Carolina - I just think its noteworthy that this bird looks "more" BCCH-ish than ours. Note the colourful sides in the above photo! Our bird had virtually no colour left (CACH is less colourful than BCCH).

Also (continued from the above note) - the greater coverts actually showed more pale edging than our Pelee bird as well (which is very low contrast and gray) - another feature that is more BCCH-ish...

Overall it was a great learning experience! You can bet your buttons that an OBRC report will appear (and who knows, maybe spit on) at some point ;)...

A few more photos:

Below - two Carolina Chickadee skins showing LOTS of white tail edging...

Below - the Long Point Carolina Chickadee (below) a very pale female Black-capped Chickadee (also from May at Long Point) -

The same Black-capped Chickadee (as above) - shown below, with the greater coverts revealed... They show bold white edging, showing the dramatic difference between the two species... All BCCH and CACH skins at the ROM showed this difference.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Flying bird photos (good quality @ low res) for the old'e website - from May

Common Tern - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_COTE.htm

Common Grackle - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_COGR.htm

Blue Jay - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_BLJA.htm

Red-bellied Woodpecker - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_RBWO.htm

Blackpoll Warbler - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_BLPW.htm

Thursday, June 12, 2014

BC waterbirds photographed, edited and published online!

Snow Geese! - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_SNGO.htm

Brandt's Cormorant - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_BRAC.htm

Common Murre - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_COMU.htm

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Sample OBRC report - a bird I didn't find

I always think that if you found said "OBRC report bird" that you (or I) should take the time to write a solid report. If I didn't find the bird, I tend to take it a lot easier. My own rule of thumb is - do I have anything to "add" to this sighting?

Some examples may be -

-- Photos

-- Behaviour observations

-- Notes on occurrence (eg,/ weather, patterns of arrival etc)

-- Lack of documentation (eg,/ the finder won't submit)

For some birds at Pelee this spring, the criteria were met! To start, here's a sample of the female Blue Grosbeak that flew around the tip of Pelee back in May:

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Blue Grosbeak (female)

Point Pelee National Park

May 8, 2014

I had just arrived at the tip of Point Pelee when several of us
(Ken/Mike Burrell, Ross Wood, and I - that I can remember) - spotted
this female Blue Grosbeak flying south off the tip of Point Pelee. The
bird did this at least 5-6 more times while I was present.

Description - see photo.

Notes: I believe the bird was first seen by my father (Eric Holden)
perched high in a tree - when he got others on the bird to help ID it
(Burrells et al).

Brandon

-------------------------------------

It's not much, but I believe I've added to the record quite a bit. I provided some notes on my perspective, as well as the photo of the bird in flight!

Hopefully if you've got "something to add" - (any photos of those nice Smith's Longspurs?) - you'll send it along (obrc@ofo.ca) !!!

The OBRC will never turn down something you'd like to send for an OBRC bird!

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Condo Landscape Updates - Sunrises and sunsets!

Sunrise on the 6th

Sunset on the 6th

Sunset on the 7th

Sundown on the 7th

Sunrise on the 8th

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Some funny boat scenes (now that it's warm out) -

Getting towed by a tiny zodiac. ha!

My dream boat...

Why are there so many sailboats out there, that don't have their sails up!?

Monday, June 9, 2014

Condo Birding UP date - June 1st to 8th

Condo birds! - and flying fish? Ahhh!!!!!

June 1st - my ladyfriend and I had one brief evening to enjoy on my balcony. Watching the sunset, I was pretty darn excited to see a COMMON NIGHTHAWK migrate west along the lakeshore. 2nd record for the condo! (first was last year in late May)

June 5th - another dusk watch late. 1 Black-crowned Night-Heron. Lots of Chimney Swifts around.

From the balcony on the 5th

June 6th - 4-5 Bank Swallows and 4-5 Cedar Waxwings may have been migrants (?). 1 Common Loon on the water. A ratty flyby MERLIN was/is maybe summering(?)... 45-ish Scoters waay out on the lake were either Surf or White-wings... 10 Red-breasted Mergansers were chillin at dusk.

Odd lookin N Rough-wing, no?

June 7th - I heard a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher from my balcony early. They seem to be nesting nearby at Edgelake (very close), but it's probably my first for the condo proper.

- Cedar Waxwings still seem to be moving in very low numbers. 1 Cliff Swallow is a species I hadn't seen much of recently. Are they migrating? Wandering? Lost?

- 1 Common Loon offshore

- 1 Black-crowned Night-Heron flew by (out over the lake) mid-morning.. Odd!

- 40ish White-winged Scoters offshore are probably the scoter sp's from yesterday!

- for the past two days, there have been some decent feeding groups of cormorants/gulls... Nothing of note though. It's June...

- what's with the hawks? 1 American Kestrel and 1 Cooper's Hawk make sense - but where did the OSPREY come from? Is it a migrant? Local? Non-breeder?

The Os! - Just booked it west along the lakeshore...

1 MONARCH at dusk (up high, flying north) - may have been the highlight of the day... I thought I had this thing all signed and sealed (writing about the day, before it is over, never works) - when a SWAMP DARNER arrived and was feeding on midges around my balcony:

(Well after sundown)

Then things couldn't have been better when this adult PEREGRINE Falcon flew past, heading west (fast!)... Is this a local bird? Or?

My favourite!

A fine day indeed (especially for June 7th!)...

June 8th - I was up early, and it stunk! Around 10:30am I started to see waterbirds on the NE wind (flybys):

3 Loon Sp (flyby in a group, probably Commons?)
6 Red-breasted Mergansers
1 - 2nd alternate LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL
7 different Great Black-backed Gulls
1 White-winged Scoter
1 Sharp-shinned Hawk (once again, where are these raptors coming from?)
4 Black-crowned Night-Herons
1 Common/Arctic Tern (see photo below)

Well, what is it? Flying along the lakeshore, 200ft in the air with an adult Common Tern. I thought this bird was going to lay chase to the Common (due to its faster flaps) but it was not the case - it just had a faster flap. I took ~20 photos, the best of which are put into the composite above. Seems to have very little black on the primaries. Better match for Arctic (first summer)! But is it? What do you think?

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Quiz answers - ramblings

Answer to the warbler in flight quiz -

1. Yellow Warbler
2. Palm Warbler
3. Yellow-rumped Warbler
4. Bay-breasted Warbler
5. Nashville Warbler
6. Blackburnian Warbler
7. Black-throated Green Warbler
8. Northern Parula
9. Tennessee Warbler
10. Wilson's Warbler

Thanks to those who played along! I hope it was fun... There may be 1 or 2 more in the next few weeks...

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No mo rarity weather? - Things look pretty dull for the next several days... That last little pluse I blogged about brough a few Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks to Michigan (Tawas Point) - and a Least Tern to northern Illinois:

http://www.ilbirds.com/index.php?topic=54996.0

zzzz

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Another cool blog post about our upcoming el nino:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2694

If you're wondering what it means for us, we could have a much "easier" winter in 2014-2015 because of this!

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