Let me bird off Cape St. Mary's - i.e. the most amazing birding experience of my life! (#228)

Cape St. Mary's was such an incredible experience that I had to dedicate a full post to it. In the car Matt and I were discussing our "Top 5" and "Top 3" lists of the trip and we both agreed that, over everything else, Cape St. Mary's was probably #1. Toward the end of our trip we heard a woman from San Francisco inquiring about birding spots at the visitor centre in Bonavista, so I approached her. I asked her if she'd already been to Cape St. Mary's (not in Bonavista)--she tried, but went to St. Mary's instead by mistake (easy enough to confuse, I suppose...actually I almost did it too...), and ran out of time. And I literally told her to turn around and drive the 3 hours back and go see it. She didn't (oh noooo, we have a "schedule" and "reservations"--her loss).

After a fun little incident of nearly running out of gas on a long stretch of road with no gas stations, no towns, no people, and apparently no other traffic in either direction, we arrived at Cape St. Mary's. But before that, just as we were crossing a bridge in the quaint little town of Branch, we spotted some odd ducks. And I'm not talking about awkward people, but really, odd ducks.

look ma, I can do it too!

Bewildered, I had taken lots of pics but could find nothing even close in my book. So, we continued on to the intended destination of the day, Cape St. Mary's, which was surrounded with a heavy fog. We are told that this is the case an average of 26 of all days of July. I asked the guy in the visitor centre if we'd be able to see anything, and he assured me that yes, we would. So off we ventured, into the fog, and not seeing much of anything, when Matt tells me to look up and there are these things gliding overhead--a steady stream of Northern Gannets cruising, silently, just above me...and I mean just above me...maybe 10 ft. It's as if they don't even take notice that I'm there, they are so casual about it. Because the fog was so thick you'd sort of just start to see them once they were already almost right over you--it's hard to describe but was totally surreal.

We continue along this incredibly beautiful path--beautiful is a weird word to use, since I could barely see a thing--really just a hint of things through the fog, but I think I'm referring to just begin surrounding by grass and sea and nothing else, and a small picturesque trampled path in front of me. There is something to be said for the dense, salty sea air...just makes you feel so good and alive and healthy...makes you wonder if we were really ever meant to live inland. so we get a little farther along the trail and then it just drops into this spectacular cliff (well, at least the fog wasn't so dense we could see that!) and there are thousands of gannets, some above us, some gliding in front, more circling below and yet more way down below in the water. It's a sight I'm not sure I could do justice in describing.

Totally in awe, we had no idea that it would get even better, and we took lots of videos and pictures before the going got...incredible. Eventually we made it to the main "bird rock," and there was another young couple already posted there (neat people, actually, but that's another story). Then, the fog just magically lifted and the couple turned to us and said "you've got good timing!" They'd been waiting there for 2 days waiting for the fog to clear! Turns out that's the story most of the time--people are always saying how great our timing is, or how we bring the good weather--what they don't know that I'm secretly stockpiling karma points.
 
So what did we see? Literally, thousands and thousands of gannets, nesting right in front of, flying all around us. I think I ended up sitting there for at least a few hours, just watching them, mesmerized. I was quite happy not to go anywhere, quite happy that we had dedicated an entire day to this. Their behaviour is very peculiar and fascinating, and the longer I watched, the more I noticed. It took me a little while to notice the little chicks that were under their bodies, or the way the came in to land on each other, or the way they smack their beaks together, or how the male bites the females neck when he comes into land, or how aggressive they get for territory and how they would fight, and literally, push each other off the edge of the cliff.


Honestly, I was quite happy to just watch them. It's not often that you get to just watch birds do their thing, and there is so much going on that no pictures would ever communicate (that's why I took videos!). They could be elegant and brutal at the same time--when they fence and preen each other it seems so delicate and almost affectionate, but then they can go to stabbing at each other, landing on each other, biting each other and fighting each other.

some of the murres I mention in the video--imagine this picture x 100

got some nest material

Eventually the fog rolled back in and the party was over--we headed back to the visitor centre and I had a good chat with one of the park staff about the birds, asking him lots of questions about what I had seen and what I had thought about.

• Like how they smack their beaks together--"Are they just getting to know each other?"--"oh no, they already know each other all right. They're bonding" (took me a minute to realize he was saying "bonding" and not "banding," which is sounded like to me...gotta love that accent). Watch the video and I think you'll agree to where the term "necking" came from. Yeah they are totally making out!

fencing gannets.

• He took the time to explain the one with its mouth open and moving its throat (looked like it was calling out or something) was panting, since birds don't have sweat glands like we do---that's the same reason the crows all sit around with their mouths open on hot days. 

bleating gannet with chick underfoot

• I asked him if there was some kind of hierarchy as to the locations of the nests, and noted how they seemed aggressive and would push each other right off the cliff--and some had cozy spots while others were rather precariously perched on the tiniest of precipices. And he explained how they not only return to the colony but return to the exact nesting location--as if it had a postal address 131 Bird Rock. They won't reproduce until they are about 5, at which point they have to find their own spot, and that's why the colony is expanding outwards from the sea stack to  neighbouring cliffs, which are less sheltered because they are on the mainland (and when I say mainland, it's not really the mainland, because we are still in Newfoundland, after all). If one tries to take another's spot, they will, literally kill or be killed--these birds don't mess around! 

arranging the nest - pulling up dirt

• I also asked him about the neck biting I had seen and he explained that the males will land and bite the female's neck (Or, "honey, I'm home!"--don't think I would take too kindly to that!) and then they proceed with the bill-whacking (or "fencing," it's called), and then they can finally settle in, or the other can take a turn heading out. I get the submission thing, but I think he might be taking it a little far here. 


• Mr. Park Officer also explained that they are mates for life...but he is quick to clarify--paired for life, but certainly not monogamous. 
• Finally I also asked him about the odd ducks and showed him the pictures on my camera. He chuckled a bit and asked if I'd seen them down in Branch. He said there's a farm that had Pekin ducks (yes, as in Peking Duck for dinner) and that they had interbred with the wild ducks and hang out at the inlet. So, mystery solved!

Pretty fascinating stuff, and an awesome visit to Bird Rock. On the way out to the parking lot, we saw that there was a lighthouse there, which we couldn't see 20 metres away from us on the way in. And that is how thick the fog is in Newfoundland. And I asked myself for the first of many times--what is the point of a lighthouse if you can never see it? And I became familiar with the blaring of the foghorn--far more effective in the given conditions. It's funny how quickly it comes and goes--in a matter of 5 minutes you can go from sunny and bright to....can I count all the fingers on my hand in front of me?

I took this picture when the fog was actually not the bad

I'm sure you appreciate accuracy but I think you'd rather see it like this :)

Our first hosts, whom we stayed with for 3 nights in St. John's, had given us a whole disc holder full of Newfie music CDs they burned for us (did I mention how awesome Newfoundlanders are?). Actually we spent most of the trip listening to them and by the end of it were singing along and had picked our favourites. One of the traditional Newfoundland songs that we heard a few times was "Let me fish off Cape St. Mary's." Of course we got pretty excited and were like...."we are going there!" or eventually..."we went there!"

Newfoundland (and new-found-birds) (#224-227)

Ruby Wednesday
I'm outside tonight, tending my little garden and hear a little motor above my head. I look up, and it's my good friend Ruby, whom I've been a little out of touch with. He/she hovers for a moment and takes off in a huff, reminding me of the things I have been neglecting: 1) replacing the sugar water in the feeder and 2) keeping up to date on my bird blog. I hang my head in shame at the ants that have collected in the feeder and take it down, set it inside meaning to fill it and start back in the garden. Not long after, he/she (or another friend Ruby) returns and I feel like an ass for not having done it right away. Clearly the stuff is in high demand, and they love my garden as much as I do. So I head in, clean it out, hang it up, and sit and wait. No action until the mosquitoes found their own nectar, and now I'll have to wait until another day to catch up with old friends. If you can't wait that long, you can get your fix now:

In other (sort of) local news, I found myself lawn bowling in the middle of Toronto last week, and looked up, and wouldn't you know, there was a whole whack of chimney swifts above my head! I was distracted enough that I had someone sub in for me, but didn't go to the get the camera. But I have been wanting to see one for a long time! It's too bad I can't share pics here. 

Newfoundland
On a whim Edge and I decided to hop, skip and jump (er...fly) over to Canada's beautiful east coast. We've been interested in visiting Newfoundland for a while now...for one because we loved Ireland so much and heard it was similar (sort of...) and for two because the commercials are so damn convincing!

A lot of the birds in Newfoundland are much like the ones at home--it's not like you are headed into the tropics or anything, but out there you get lots of sea birds that don't come anywhere near landlocked Ottawa, and that was a special treat!

Our first day we drove a good part of the east side of the "Irish Loop," stopping at one point to hike a little section of the Beaches Path, where we got our first views of ATLANTIC PUFFINS (heart is screaming!!) right from the shore. They were still a bit out for good seeing but they are kind of...unmistakeable. In a matter of a few minutes we had our first two lifers of the trip--the puffins, and also BOREAL CHICKADEES. CUTE! I'm sure any Newfoundlander would laugh at how excited I was too see this so-apparently-common bird (not the only "common" bird there that was a lifer). They look just like the black-capped, but something about the colouring just makes them seem oh-so sweet...and soft. It was a little odd to get a few lifers on our trip of birds that we do have in Ontario--I just haven't found them (In the end, I think by the end of the trip there were at least three that would meet that criteria)

#224: Boreal Chickadee; June 30, 2012; Beaches Path, Newfoundland

We also got our first views of the trip of Greater Black-backed and other gulls. This path is close to Witless Bay, where a humpback was hanging around, and which where there are four islands that are ecological reserves and bird colonies. While the birds nest out on the island in high concentrations, the odd few venture closer to the mainland area.

Herring Gull by the sea

 Matt decided the following day that he really wanted to go out to see the whales in the bay, and this meant we'd get to get closer to the ecological reserve islands, so we readily forked over our cash to Ecotours, a company that runs a small zodiac out into the bay and to the islands. The zodiac was great because it was fast and manoeuvrable and we were weren't with a hundred other people on a huge boat. We had to wear these huge full-body orange life suits that were kind of ridiculous--felt like we were preparing for disaster in Antarctic waters or something! It just happened to be Canada Day and I was feeling particularly patriotic being able to take in the stunning richness of this little corner of our country.

nothing short of spectacular

The first 45 minutes were spent admiring a magnificent humpback whale and a few Minkes in Bay Bulls, and the second half we spent cruising around the big island. As we approached we got a good strong whiff that tells you...you know you are approaching a sea bird colony. It's home to the largest North American colony of Atlantic puffins, but there were also Common Murres in abundance, Black-legged kittiwakes, herring and black-backed gulls, and razorbills. The island is also home to a significant number of Leach's storm petrels, which we unfortunately did not see, as we learned that they are nocturnal and hide in burrows all day.

Now of course we saw puffins in Alaska, but not Atlantics! Actually, I think I did see puffins as teeny tiny specks in Ireland in 2009 (?) at the Cliffs of Moher, but it was too windy to take a boat out (I was still in love with puffins back then, even before the birding thing happened). It's worth noting that puffins are called "sea parrots" or "clowns of the sea." I'm more inclined to call them the "cuties of the sea."

#225: Atlantic Puffin; July 1, 2012; Witless Bay Ecological Preserve, Newfoundland

check gull in the back for scale. they're tiny!

Thought we had seen razorbills in Alaska (a lot of the birds were similar to Newfoundland), but nope!

#226: Razorbill; July 1, 2012; Witless Bay Ecological Preserve, Newfoundland

There was also an unbelievable number of common murres (common there, anyway). The murres were one of the more abundant birds we saw there. Not great fliers, they would jump off the rocks and sort of splash and sputter over the water if they didn't get a good take-off. Great swimmers though!

Some of them have a neat white line around their eyes. Those ones are "bridled," and are also adults

murres lined up

Both of the murres and the razorbills look so unreal--their markings are so perfect--that they look like they are painted.

I wanted to add some videos so that you could get the feeling of the scale out there. I'll admit that the camera handling is absolutely horrendous (you try shooting a video with a point and shoot on a zodiac in the ocean!) but you get the idea :)

Murres below, puffins on top

So many murres......

Black-legged kittiwake nesting

Us with our captain

The next day we had plans to hike the Spout Path from Bay Bulls. The Spout Path is a section of the East Coast Trail, a 540-km coastal trail. Having already done the West Coast Trail, this only seemed appropriate. Well we set out at noon for a 9-hour hike with only 2 bottles of water between us in 30 degree C weather--we ran into a trail custodian who urged us to turn around and we refused, with dehydration and darkness imminent, but anyways, what I'm really trying to say is that I finally spotted my first pine grosbeak on that hike, perched silently on some low heather (I always thought they'd be higher up in the trees? Although I suppose we had some altitude on our side) and not particularly concerned about us. One more lifer, and one more lifer to add to the list of birds we have at home but I haven't seen. Thank ye for obliging, Mr. Grosbeak!

#227: Pine Grosbeak; July 2, 2012; Spout Path (Bay Bulls end), Newfoundland

Well I'm feeling a little bit like I did after I did after that hike so I'm calling it quits. I can't promise when the next post will be, but I promise it will be good!

Pelee! #221-223

A pretty exciting post for me--my first trip ever to Pelee! I had been waiting for this since it's quite the trek from Ottawa...9+ non-stop hours (yeah...I know other birders go a lot farther than that...) It's hard to justify it by itself, for me anyway, especially when it's hard to forecast the optimal weekend. Should you go early or late in migration? Plus you never know what kind of weather you are going to get. So when we had to go to Toronto for a funeral, it didn't seem so bad to just keep on driving afterward the extra 4ish hours.

We saw this along the way on the side of the road. I don't know why I feel compelled to take pictures of (and then post) dead birds. Call me crazy but I think it's important to take a minute for them, and also to reflect on our impact on the environment. This sighting is particularly unsettling...I love all birds, but to see a pileated, an absolutely majestic bird, is extremely sad. Of course lots of birds we find have died of natural causes, but this one, along the roadside, was more than likely on a collision course with a vehicle :(

We figured it would be a good idea to sign up for one of the guided hikes since it's a new area and this would be a good starting point for us. That meant getting up super bright and early since we were staying with one of my uni room mates in Windsor, over an hour from the park.

Sightings board in the visitor centre

Alvan was our tour leader, whose blog I just found. He was pretty young guy, so it was pretty inspiring to see another younger person so knowledgeable and passionate about birdies. In fact, I saw lots of other young people birding, which was nice, since I don't see much of that around here. (*sigh of relief; I'm not alone*) The highlight of the walk for me was seeing an eastern screech owl that I would not have found otherwise. Our leader set the scope on it (a nice Swarovski...if I didn't have scope envy before, I sure do now!). I recalled the birdchick's digiscoping skills so I tried getting a shot through the eyepiece with my iphone. Not the best shot, but at least documentary, and it has kind of a neat effect.

#221: Eastern Screech Owl (Rufous morph); Point Pelee National Park; May 20, 2012

Then I remembered I could do this with my point and shoot and tried again...a little better! What a beauty. What a beauty. What a beauty. Neither of these pictures communicate how gorgeous this bird is, nor could any words I could write.

Then I joked that I was going to wear my owl earrings in honour of this sighting. And I will!

After our walk we headed down to check out the tip. It's definitely a cool spot. A scissor-tailed flycatcher had been reported earlier in the morning but we didn't see it. There was an interesting combination of die-hard birders and very-obviously-not-birders. I even heard some people say, "Yeah, it must be like, Birdwatcher's Day or something," LOL.

nice catch!

Around noon we decided to take a break and headed to Kingsville for lunch at Jack's (yum!!) and a little winery visit. A little refreshed (but let's be honest...still exhausted!), we headed back for the afternoon. It was a lot quieter than I had expected it to be...I was expecting a lot more warblers. The majority of warblers were yellow warblers, but some others were spotted as well. There were more Baltimore orioles than I've ever seen before, along with orchard orioles, which was nice, since we don't have those in Ottawa.

Pretty good looks at an Eastern Towhee

Since it was a little quieter on the bird front, we did get to enjoy some of the wildflowers and other living things of the park. There was a wildflower walk happening that I was really interested in, but we thought our time was maybe better spent birding...wildflowers could wait until migration is over. 

Canadian columbine

The quiet afternoon was more than compensated for when we arrived at the part of the trail that is known to be home to a pair of prothonotary warblers, which are endangered in Canada (although they are found in the U.S. as well). We got lucky--it was present and visible as we arrived--nonchalantly preening on a branch in front of us, offering great looks. Another birder from Ottawa just happened to be there as well.

#222: Prothonotary Warbler; Point Pelee National Park; May 20, 2012

showing off those undertail coverts!

As we made our way back to the visitor centre from the prothonotary area, we heard a crying coming from leafy green overgrowth...then this to-die-for little head pops out. Seems as though someone had lost momma. poor little thing; I felt bad but Matt assured me that things would most likely sort themselves out.

cuteness overload!

I think it was somewhere around this point that we both started feeling that extreme fatigue that every birder knows--the kind of fatigue that comes from getting up at the crack of down, being on your feet since then in the relentless sun, lugging around heavy equipment, craning your neck all day. I'm starting to think that when I request a referral from my doctor for massages I should just tell her it's because I'm a birder--I won't even bother mentioning the sitting at a desk every day part. Then something, just a little something perked me up enough to get me going again...a sweet little red admiral. Of course we'd seen tons of them all day but this one was feeling particularly sociable.

Three things going on here--a butterfly on my boob, the birding festival lapel pin on my bag which Matt felt compelled to buy from the gift shop for $10 for "good luck"  because it had a prothonotary warbler on it (hey, it worked!) and the bird necklace from Nadia (cuz I'm so bird-crazy my buds have started buying me bird gifts) :)

Matt taking a picture of me taking a picture of the red admiral

Fairly exhausted, we decided to call it a day. We pondered the thought of coming back for park opening the next morning on the way home, as we felt we had missed a few key birds, and hoped it might be a more productive day. However, I doubted it would be much different without any change in the weather. As we headed out of the park, I wanted to stop and get a shot of how lush a lot of the park is, with vines growing up all the trees in a way that it just doesn't do around here in Ottawa.

Matt wandered off down a little path and called me over to check out the beach. I don't know how but I did notice some birds....and...DANG....they were cuckoos!! I felt an immense sense of joy and the thought of coming back first thing in the morning the next day was long gone!

#223: Black-billed cuckoo; Point Pelee National Park; May 20, 2012

nice beach at Pelee--calm and quiet at the end of the day

It was a short trip...next time I would really like to have more time, but given the various limitations we couldn't stay any longer. I'd like to have a least a few days in the park, and also visit the island, and generally just take my time. Sigh, I always get sucked into these whirlwind trips! Anyways, I still consider myself lucky to have been able to go :)

headin' home

#220: Gotcha! (magpie-crow)

I realize that everyone else is going warbler-wild right now, but I have a couple of other birds of personal note this week. I haven't had much time to dedicate solely to birding in the last few weeks but I did spot my first rose-breasted grosbeak and American redstart of the year (I'm probably a little behind!). On the way home from my Pathfinders' camp, Matt spotted this beautiful hawk on the roadside wire. It let us get pretty close! I'm sure I've posted sharp-shinned hawks before, but it looks like I never counted one. This one seems to be a juvenile, and while the legs look pretty thick, I think it's pretty clear by the barring that it's a sharp-shinned.

UPDATE: What would I do without my readers? Robert @ Field of View kindly corrected my mistake. Now it makes sense why the legs are so thick!

#120: Sharp-shinned hawk Broad-Winged Hawk; near Christie Lake, Ontario; May 13, 2012

 

buh-bye!

Some helpful sharp-shinned/cooper identification tips:

• Sharpie and Cooper side-by-side comparisons from Cornell
• More tips from Cornell
• Hawk Guide
• Sharp-shinned and cooper's together (great pics!) 
 

(I'm silly)

Now, here's something I'm pretty excited about. I've had this guy on my radar for a while now, and have been out looking for him a few times this week. The first time I saw it was quite a while ago while out geocaching on lunch...I saw a bird that looked a heck of a lot like a magpie. Of course this makes no sense, since we don't have magpies here, but the white on the wings so clearly looked like a magpie that I was confused.

Then my IT guy at work who knows I'm into birds mentioned a bird he saw that looked like a magpie too, in the same area that I had seen it, so this was getting pretty interesting. The plot thickens...

Then, a few weeks ago I was waiting for someone to pick me up in that area, and I was standing on the corner (haha ok stop laughing), and what do you know, I look up and that bird is sitting about 10 feet away from me, and I can clearly see that it's a crow! It just happens to be partially leucistic symmetrically on both wings in the same spots that magpies have white. Mystery solved! As it turns out (and as I learned recently, here), it's quite common for birds in the blackbird family to have leucism or partial leucism, i.e. feathers with no pigment. It's funny, I also saw a grackle last weekend with one white tail feather.

Now, as you can guess, up to this point, I hadn't had a camera with me to shoot this unique bird (go figure), and so the search began for this clever crow that disguised itself as a magpie.

WANTED: American crow masquerading as a magpie!

This meant carting in The Beast to work, hoping that I would spot it. And we all know what that means--the more effort I go to spotting a bird and the more prepared I am, the less likely I am to see it. Let's add that, for maybe the first time, I wasn't just looking for a kind of bird, but one specific individual. Now that's upping the ante. Lucky for me, this bird is pretty well established at a pretty specific location! Yay for creatures of habit and predictable beahaviour!

My first attempt was after work earlier this week. I got off the bus on the way home and checked the spots I had seen it before--nada. Then I stopped by again today after another coworker mentioned that she had seen it recently too at another nearby location, so I started there today. I got off the bus, heard crows, and followed. Never before have I been so tuned into the sounds of crows! I watched the Nature of Things episode on crows (fascinating! check it out...there's lots of interesting stuff on how they communicate, and it's David Suzuki and how can you not love him?) and I really tuned in, not just to where the sound was coming from, but listening for others that might be responding. Within only a minute or two I found my target! It was flying right in front of me but...drats...my camera was still in the bag. Quickly and clumsily I put the book I was carrying away and got the camera out--the bird flew off nearby and I followed. It perched up on a lamp post and I got some good looks while it sat there, but you can't really see the full effect of the white wings. 

 So lucky for me it spread them out, and then took off. I followed. (repeat x 3).

  Oh, come on, how could I not?....interlude!!

I still didn't get the flight shot I was hoping for, but this pic gives you a good idea:

crow, not magpie!

Here's a magpie in flight for comparison. Obviously it has the epaulettes in white (and also white on its stomach), but strikingly similar right?

Magpie, not crow. (also not my shot)

Funny thing is a young couple saw me beside the road with my camera and did a u-turn and got out with their camera too to come check it out. The girl asked me what it was, and they thought it was pretty cool too. Then, I'm pretty sure one of the peregrines flew over being mobbed, and a heron flew over too. Downtown birding not so bad eh? If anyone is interested in having a look, it is usually in the Lebreton Flats bus stop area--either in the sort of abandoned parking lot by the empress, or by the one-story building by the condos on the way to the bridge.

In other news, I'm happy to say that I'll be making my first pilgrimage to Pelee this weekend, which is kind of a big deal for me. Stay tuned...I have a feeling there will be some meaty posts coming up!