teacher! #149

Ok, I'll admit I'm getting fully distracted and have been consistently adding non-bird photos. I guess that's what happens when you are curious about pretty much everything.

learning my dragonflies - dot-tailed whiteface

Ok, Sunday, I decided I was goin' a lookin' for a coot. I still don't have one, and I thought if I hunkered down in a swamp long enough I would inevitably get one. 

not a coot. juvenile grebe. first I've seen in the west end!

I checked my Ontbirds for the first time in a long time, but there wasn't really anything at all of note. Where to go? Jack Pine was the place on Sunday. After a relatively quiet walk through, I spotted a bird poking its head up and hopping around on the ground. I'm so glad I didn't just pass it off as another LBJ (*everything* is worth investigating). It was an ovenbird! Not making a spot of noise, so it's a wonder I spotted it. These birds are often easy to hear but so hard to get a clear view of.
#149: Ovenbird; Jack Pine Trail, Ottawa, Ontario; June 26, 2011.

Ovenbird! The lighting was tricky.



Lifting its crest...cute

Ovenbirds are called such because they build nests that resemble ovens (domed with a door).

South American ovenbirds build really crazy nests---really, google it!

Photo by Bill Leaman Photography: http://www.leamanphoto.com/11/lg/Ovenbird_at_Nest_-_Ohio__BOV0001_.htm

We all know the Road Not Taken. Do you know this one?

The Oven Bird by Robert Frost

There is a singer everyone has heard,

Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,

Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.

He says that leaves are old and that for flowers

Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.

He says the early petal-fall is past

When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers

On sunny days a moment overcast;

And comes that other fall we name the fall.

He says the highway dust is over all.

The bird would cease and be as other birds

But that he knows in singing not to sing.

The question that he frames in all but words

Is what to make of a diminished thing.

I'm one off 150! The search for the coot continues....maybe that will be it?

take 'em when you can get 'em

TGITD (Thank goodness it's teleworking day). I'm sitting in my living room and this little finch flies right up the window in front of me and perches there. Guess he just wanted to say hello? I don't even have the feeder out there..I've been so bad about filling it (ran out of seed)...

what are you doing there?

Unfortunately this post is going to be consistent with my last few posts in making excuses for not birding. Basically I'm a huge keener and get involved in a ton of stuff. I have been insanely busy...so I pretty much have to catch the birds whenever I can. Luckily my schedule is going to open up and I'm going to have lots of spare time as of tomorrow. 

This girl was enjoying the weather and hanging out with the geese on the river. The goslings are now at the terribly cute teenager stage, taking on the shape of adult geese, but still fluffy like babies :)

This is what was keeping me busy this weekend: Ottawa Dragonboat Festival. Here I am racing with the women's team "Something's on Fire." I'm first paddler on the right!

I will leave this on a positive note...I should have some time to get back in the saddle soon! (and finally fill my feeders!)

lost girl (#148)

I recently started volunteering with a Pathfinders unit and went to their camp this weekend in Fitzroy. We had tons of fun but it was sort of killing me to hear birds all over and not be able to just take off chasing after them like I normally do. We did see this fella from our site. It seemed totally oblivious to us. CUTE.

On Sunday afternoon on the way back I stopped at Bill Mason centre, which I hadn't been to yet this year. I met a woman on the boardwalk who was looking for virginia rails. Just after talking about bitterns, and me mentioning to her that I still had not seen one, one flew out right in front of us. Luck would have it that everything came together and I got a shot!

#148: American Bittern; Bill Mason Centre, Ottawa, Ontario; June 12, 2011.

One way to differentiate American Bittern from similar looking juvenile black-crowned night herons is that the top of the wing is distinctly two-toned in flight.

A few other things in the area...

look at those milky eyes...creepy!

not up on my dragonflies. workin' on it.

I thought I would try my luck in the woods and go for a geocache while I was at it. I ended up getting helplessly lost in the woods with a useless (dead) cell phone. I guess there's an app for everything but instant battery rejuvenation. Well, I made it out alive about an hour later, much worse for wear and nowhere near my car. Seriously...I should not be left to wander on my own...I don't know how my sense of direction is so terrible!

Despite the fact that I am covered in bites, bruises and scratches, I'm just loving summer.

Just noticed there is a new location feature for each post. Interesting...

buntings abound (#147)

I went to Kingston on the weekend for a wedding on Saturday. I was hoping to hit the island in the morning, but didn't end up having time.

We did have time, though, on the way back to Ottawa to wind our way via Opinicon Road and Chaffey's Lock. This area is known to have golden- and blue-winged warblers, yellow- and black-billed cuckoos, and indigo buntings. Well, I got one of my target birds!

I've been dying to see an indigo bunting, and there were more there than I could shake a stick at. Unfortunately, none wanted to get too close, so it was hard getting a good shot. They were much smaller than I thought they would be! Of all the birds there, they seemed to be the most vocal. Otherwise there were quite a few other great birds that we saw (though none of the other four targets), and by afternoon it got really hot and things started to quite down, so we moved on towards home.

#147: Indigo bunting; Opinicon Road; June 5, 2011

So I just got to tick another bird off my "birds I'm dying to see list." Only it's a bittersweet lifer because I just didn't get the look I was hoping for.

The Queen's University Biological Station is in the area. You can't access it without permission, but you can easily call to get permission. I hadn't called, but next time I will, once I saw the interesting stuff that they were working on.

Nesting boxes on Queen's property. There were some people going around and checking on them.

While driving along the road, we saw someone crouching in the woods and we asked what was up. Matt noticed that there was a bag hanging from a tree with something moving in it. I was a little horrified. So it turns out it was a Queen's student doing a PhD on redstart migration. And the birds were for release, not some bizarre collection. Sigh of relief!

I wish I'd had some more time. I really like the area and think I could easily spend a weekend camping, birding, hiking/biking on the Rideau Trail, geocaching, paddling the many many lakes and waterways, eating ice cream in Westport. Maybe later on in the summer!

How can you not love it here?

Another week goes by....

Hey everyone,

Hope you all enjoyed great birding this weekend!

Sorry, no birds again for me. I feel like I'm really slipping off my game! I think I should have been out scouting for shorebirds...but I ran in Ottawa Race Weekend on Saturday and wasn't up for anything except pacing around my house nervously. The race was great...I completed the 10k in just over 56 minutes...a PB!

Sunday turned out to be a nice day later on, but I got out on my bike instead of birding. Now that it's nice out, there is just so much to do out there!

However, I do have big birding plans for next weekend, so stay tuned!

Jenna

In the absence of bird photos, here's a shot of me whizzing by on my run. Maybe there are some birds in those trees in the background?

Matt didn't see me till I was past him...

resemblance?

and, now for a bit of bird content, some art featuring seasonal birds from the wonderful Charley Harper (love his work..I'm so saving my pennies to buy one):

 

Birdwatching + Geocaching = Just got more awesome

Long weekend, and what have I got to show for myself? Nuttin.  I only went out birding for about an hour over the course of the whole long weekend. Mud Lake was super quiet and the only new bird around that I saw was a great-crested flycatcher.

ANYWAYS, I do have something to write about, a little different than my usual posts. It's kind of about birding, but mostly about something else. Wait! Where are you going? Don't give up on me yet. There's something here for you bird nuts! So hang in there. But warning: You might pick up a new hobby. It's ok though, because you can do it at the same time as birdwatching. Just when you thought you couldn't get any more nerdy...you can.

What is it?

Geocaching

Well I don't quite remember how I got into it, but last year I learned about geocaching. I went out and found my first cache. Actually, come to think of it...I think I mentioned it in passing at the time on this very blog.

If you haven't heard of it, geocaching is like high-tech treasure hunting for adults (and kids). People hide "caches" (a container of some sort with a log that you sign, and sometimes there's other stuff in it). They post the coordinates online and you go find it. Anyone can hide a cache, and anyone can find it. They can be as big as a coffee tin (or bigger) and as small as a film canister (or even smaller).

I hadn't done any caching since last year, but I was out hiking with some friends on Monday and I offered to introduce them to geocaching, since they had heard me talk about it before, and they were curious. The iPhone has an app and a built-in GPS, so I shelled out the $10 for the geocaching app (you don't need it, because geocaching is totally free,but it's useful for logging and searching while you're out) and we used that. Apparently the phone GPS triangulates based on cell phone towers, so it is a lot more accurate in the city than in the woods. So I still need to buy a "real" outdoor GPS.

What does this have to do with birds, you ask?? Hang on...I'm getting to it!

My friends found their first cache, and last night I was on the Geocaching website to see if there are any around Mud Lake (there are lots), and I happened to click on one called "The Bird Brain Challenge." It's really random that I clicked on it because the coordinates posted were not the true ones; you have to solve a puzzle to find it. And then I got excited!

Because I realized that there is Group A, birdwatchers, and Group B, geocachers, and in a little spot where these two intersect, there are birdwatcher-geocachers. And in an even smaller segment there are birdwatcher-geocachers-photographers. Allow me to draw you a nice diagram!

So there are 3 kinds of caches that I can think of that might be of interest to birders. Let me describe them to you.

• The traditional cache hidden at a birding hotspot.
• This one is simple. Basically there are caches hidden all over the place, and I *bet* you that there is at least one at or near your favourite birding location. I bet there is even one not far from your front door. It adds a little something to your walk. Hey, why not find a cache while you're there? It gives you a little more direction and purpose. And if you didn't find the bird you were looking for, at least you found something else.  I would note that there are few geocaches in Ontario Provincial Parks because they are really sticky about it, but you can often find them nearby. A few examples. of many:
• One of the great Ottawa birding spots: Mud Lake Ramble
• Here's one for my Windsor readers: Ojibway Pond (it's a multi cache)
• Upper Canada Bird Sanctuary. This is where I saw my first redstart (looking for this cache!) Knot in the Bird Sanctuary
• Presqu'ile Provincial Park (this one's for you Ronners): Coot's Lookout
• Long Point: Get to the Point! (requires a boat)

• The bird-themed cache
• Sometimes cachers leave little "treasures" in the cache. If you see one you like and want to take it, you have to leave something of equal or greater value. So there are caches out there that have birds as their theme, and the trinkets inside somehow relate to birds. Then there are some people who make "fake" birdhouses and hide the cache in there.
• This one in Washington has bird-related items in it (of course, they have most likely been swapped out, hopefully replaced by other bird items!) GCGC1Q It's a bird thing.

• Finally, the BEST kind, the bird puzzle cache. You have to use your superior birding knowledge to figure out the coordinates of the cache and THEN find it. The puzzles of these caches are based completely on birds. The posted coordinates are FALSE. Ok, these I am really excited about. Because it appeals to so much of the things I like...discovering and figuring stuff out. Seriously, have a look! Even if you don't find the cache, see if you can solve the puzzles!
• Here's one right here in Ottawa: The Bird Brain Challenge GC255R3 I've already solved it but need to go find the cache!
• One in Vancouver: Jericho's Birder Cache GC206H6 
• One in Ohio. This one's for the birds GC2M0K8. I don't know why it's called this (it's definitely not for the birds), because I have no idea how to solve it.
• A cool one in Georgia. A little too far for me, but the puzzle looks fun. This cache is for the birds GC1FHNW

So it's nice to be to combine all my hobbies (and it's not a little bit surprising that some of them lead to others)...a little birding, a little photography, a cache or two, hiking...all at once. Before I could do them at the same time and all, but geocaches fully inspired by birds and birdwatching...now that's awesome.

Want to see if there's a cache near you? Let me know if you find one!

migration madness (sunday part 2) #145-146

(back on the ridge)

female rose-breasted grosbeak

I'm sure I've seen (and definitely heard) warbling vireos at Mud Lake before, but my shots were always from below with funny white balance and I was never really quite sure (since the Tennessee Warbler and the Philadelphia Vireo look kind of similar). I didn't hear this one sing, but I'm pretty positive I got one!
#145: Warbling Vireo; Mud Lake, Ottawa; May 15, 2011

I love the description of the warbling vireo's song: I'll seize you and I'll squeeze you!

Hey ladies! Click for full-effect.

Another blue-headed vireo! Isn't it funny when you get a lifer and then you start seeing them everywhere?? OK, maybe not everywhere, but at least a few times...



Another black-throated green warbler



Redstart posed for me...I know I posted one just the other day, but I had to...

Just along the edge of the water I found this beauty, among a bunch of yellow-rumped warblers. Actually I saw two of them that day....lucky me!

#146: Bay-breasted warbler; Mud Lake, Ottawa; May 15, 2011.

This flicker sits on these lights and drums them. It's metal and it's really loud...I don't know if he's just trying to communicate or if he's actually trying to drill a hole! Poor guy, this makes me kind of sad. Because birds should be on trees, not metal lamps.

Once I got home, I was sitting in the living room and noticed some movement in the window. I had hung the hummingbird feeder up a few weeks ago, but moved it on Saturday after the fiasco with the squirrel (he drank all the sugar water and pushed it onto the ground once it was empty). But I'm not home all the often to see the action out there, so this was the first (actually second, but maybe the same one) hummingbird I've seen this year!

The great thing is I got this feeder late in the year last year and I couldn't understand why the birds didn't have the bright red throat. So I guess it's a breeding thing and I was so excited to see his bright red throat. Actually I was so happy that a hummingbird was in my yard again that I actually emitting noises of pure joy! (hummers always do this me). A finch had landed on the pole and this guy arrived shortly after. His look clearly said, "excuse me, but your feeder is over there!" Since then he's been visiting often. I look forward to watching them this summer!

All in all, Sunday was a great day. I missed the Cape Mays and the blue-grey gnatcatcher that everyone was talking about. Gotta leave something for next time, right :)

So the cool thing about this year's migration is that I'm starting to get to the point where I "just know," or at least have a good guess of, what a bird is without having to pull out the book anymore. Lord knows I've flipped through my bird guide enough times to know almost every bird in it and where it is in the book! Granted, I do check once in a while, but I've come a long way from only being able to confidently identify a robin, cardinal, great blue heron and the other "typical" birds. Last year, I had to look up every warbler I saw, and had to compare every last aspect...now it seems so much more obvious. And sparrows are getting so much easier too. So you know, yay for getting better at things.

Things (I) have for sure changed a lot over the last year. If you told me two years ago that I would spend entire weekends, consistently (several hours at time) chasing down birds, I'm sure I wouldn't have believed you. It's funny how a short hike on a winter day turned into a full-blown addiction...well, I suppose I could be addicted to worse things! Spending so much time outside, surrounded by nature...I really don't think it gets better than that. So the only question is, where to next weekend?



Also, I just wanted to let you guys how how much I appreciate your stopping in and reading and maybe even leaving a comment or two. Your comments always make me smile, and it's nice to know when you're writing  that a person or two is going to actually see it. I'm already drafting entries in my head when I'm out in the field...so I'm thinking of you!

my first time (the bird whisperer) #144

The bird gods smiled down on me on Sunday and stopped the rain for the whole day! I was surprised there weren't more cars at Mud Lake. On the drive there, there was a song on the radio and about halfway in I realized, "hey! this song is about birds!" So I took note of the title and artist and feel free to listen to it while you read (Canadian guy, from Alexisonfire. He's got a nice sound..."Sleeping sickness" and "Coming home" are also good). But warning: it's a total downer about the oil spill. Luckily this post is going to be a little more upbeat than that, so probably not an appropriate soundtrack.

Actually, he's got another song called Fragile Bird, which has nothing to do with birds, but has "bird" in the title. Ok, I'm getting WAY off track now, but here it is anyway!

Well, there's something I want to talk about. We've all been first-timers at some point. Maybe some of us have never done it. It's something I've been shy and maybe even a little embarrassed about. I've looked up how to do it on the internet, but it's just not the same as the real thing, right? I mean, someone can explain it, but you never really know what it's going to be like when you do it, and how do you know if you are doing it right, or if you're going to be good at it? Should you do it with any of them? Can you do it too much? Nobody seems to talk about it, but I think a lot of people do it. Well, yesterday, I saw someone doing it right out in the open like it was nothing, and not holding back at all. We're talking "pishing" here.

Yep, pishing, which to me has been a particularly mysterious aspect of birding. For those who don't know, "pishing" is a silly word for the noises birders make to attract birds. Often, it sounds like "pssshp" (obviously), but it can really be any sort of noise you make to attract birds. For the first time, I saw a bunch of people do it at Mud Lake on Saturday, and it's not what I had in mind at all. The few times I had tried, I was super quiet...I had no idea what kind of volume was appropriate...I was practically whispering. But some of these people were quite loud, practically spitting everywhere! Then I asked someone, and she said, well, they do have to be able to hear you...

So today, I thought I might try it to see if it worked. My first attempt was on this little guy...

and he turned around and looked right at me!

Hey, I don't think I've even counted a least flycatcher before!

#144: Least flycatcher; Mud Lake, Ottawa; May 15, 2011

I used to only post new birds, but you've probably noticed that I'm adding a lot more pictures, of the things I see in general...plants, and animals, as well as birds I've already seen. If I restricted myself to only lifers I wouldn't have too many pictures, and there is just so much great stuff out there.

Stare-down contest. He won. I'm sure he's not as mean as he looks...just a hard exterior, but a softy inside?

Lots of yellow warbling going on. I think I can safely say I know their song!

Does this not look like a really skinny yellow warbler to you? And look at the teeny tiny band!

No need to pish for a catbird...you can hear them a mile away. Don't the twigs remind you of the LOTR logo? I tried to take a video, but just ended up fumbling with the settings because I wanted it in HD. So instead of a low-rez video, I got no video.

The nice thing about Sunday is that I got some really great looks at a few birds that I had seen before but from pretty far away, and when they were in fall feathers, and that my previous pics were not so great off. Namely the magnolia, the chest-nut sided and the northern parula.

So once I was into the woods, I make a serious effort to try this pishing thing again. At first, I was convinced that it wasn't doing anything; well, it wasn't driving them in, but at least it wasn't driving them away.

I took a moment to shoot the Jack-in-the-pulpit (aka. Bog onion, Brown dragon, Indian turnip, Wake robin or Wild turnip) that we had seen on the OFNC outing. Such a cool plant...it's nice to be able to put some names to things now. And it's nice to take photos of things once in a while that STAY STILL!

I was on a trail and caught sight of this lovely fellow. So I do a little check around to make sure nobody was around, and let out a PISH. So the bird checked me out and I told him how handsome he was. And then I see this guy to my left looking at me, and I am terribly embarrassed, because I'm pretty sure he just witnessed me both sputtering out loud and talking to a bird. Well, if you are looking for a crazy woman, deep in the woods talking to the wildlife is where to go.

Nashville Warbler

Then I found this little grove and something about it just seemed right. I caught sight of one little bird, and gave a pish! He really did come to check me out! Then I realized, it's a magnolia. Heck, there are like 3 of them right in front of me!

Magnolia warbler. Huge improvements on my first shots of magnolias.

So if that wasn't awesome enough, they just kept parading in, one at a time--magnolia, then black and white, then white-breasted nuthatch, chestnut-sided warbler--as I merrily pished. And I was quite confident at this point, because it really seemed to be working. Now, without a care about who was around me, PISH! PISH! PISH! I was so high on...birds. In the meanwhile, a particularly curious chickadee came right in, and was hovering around my head...I thought it was going to land on me!

Not a new blog bird, but the first time I've seen a chestnut-sided in spring feathers. What a difference. It sure seems like a different bird! I'm pretty sure he's looking at me trying to figure out what I'm doing. Photographic note: I also love the background on this one.



Wish I could have got a clearer shot of this robin collecting for her nest.

Well, I'll admit I might have gone a little overboard on the pishing and should probably pull it back a bit. In my excitement I was just pishing all over the place, pishing out of control. I imagine if everyone was doing it all the time, they would just get used to it and it wouldn't be effective anymore... So I guess my adventures in pishing will have to be made at a minimum.

I went down to the pine stand to see if I could pish out some pine warblers, which would have been a lifer for me. I've heard them but still never seen them. They're giving me a real hard time, those pine warblers! I did see this fine wood duck and his mate though...

Whose bum? At first I thought this was a very strange black bird with very unfamiliar white stripes. Oh, it's just glossy!

Heading back toward the ridge, I caught sight of my second Northern Parula of the day. This bird is so stunning, it seems it should be tropical!

After a little more wandering around off the main path, I realized I had lost yet another camera accessory. I'm notorious for losing lens caps, but this is my first time losing a lens hood. I had a good idea of where it went down...I had had a bit of a bout with a stand of sumacs....so I headed back and luckily found it.

Ok, at this point I had been there a few hours, and I kept saying, "Jenna, you need to go home now." But it was always the same, "Just one more trip up to the ridge." And I can't say no to myself...no matter how sore/hungry/thirsty I'm getting. So that's what I did.

However, I am going to take a little break now...come back tomorrow for the rest of the afternoon!