I'm Back - Wier and Burt Road Outings

Where have I been?  Yes, I've been silent for almost two months with no post and very little visiting myself to the blogs I usually frequent.  It's a combination of having been quite busy (funny, I can't really remember any more with what), and having been away on three separate vacation outings. Two were with family, and one was a week chaperoning at a church youth conference with 175 young people - that was a huge privilege and a growing experience for me. Summer was full and went by very fast.  I just got back from a four day camping trip with just my boys up at Arrowhead Provincial Park.  I'll put a post up on that in the near future.

I'm going to condense my summer pictures into a couple of compressed/combined posts or I'll never catch up, and the details of the outings is quickly slipping into oblivion.

Back at the end of June, I made two Sunday trips to two different country roads close to home - one a previously visited place on the rail trail off Wier Road.  The walk, with Justin as my trail-mate looked like it was going to become strictly a butterfly adventure rather than birding. We walked along the treed path and then into an old, overgrown apple orchard where we saw a Common Wood Nymph Butterfly.

Common Wood Nymph butterfly

As we rejoined the trail, a Eastern Comma was hanging upside down on tree trunk, nicely contrasted against the greenery behind.

Eastern Comma butterfly

Further down the trail, we noticed a small beam of sun lighting up a Mourning Cloak.

Mourning Cloak butterfly

But, though there weren't a lot of birds, quality made up for quantity as my notice of bird in the branches above us turned up a lifer! A Chestnut-sided Warbler!! (#131).  It was hard to get a clear shot of, especially since, although it didn't seem terribly afraid of me, it stayed behind the foliage. It actually seemed quite curious, moving all around us. Made it hard to get a clear shot.  Exciting find though!

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Chestnut-sided Warbler

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A Sunday or so later, I headed out alone to the east of St. George to Burt Road, a closed country road.  It was a hot, humid summer afternoon so there was not a lot of activity.

Like my previous outing, my first sighting was a butterfly - a very tired, frazzled looking Northern Crescent butterfly showing only part of the glory it was given by its Maker.

Northern Crescent butterfly

An oh so common Song Sparrow was singing its heart out on top of a bush topped with wild grape vine.

Song Sparrow

A group of Turkey Vultures had just taken off from somewhere close and caught the thermals, slowly rising above me and on to the east.

soaring Turkey Vulture

As I was heading back to the car, I noticed an American Robin with white streaked colouring on its back instead of the slatey black.  It's a condition called Leucism.  It's similar to an albino, but only the bird's feathers are affected and not their skin or eyes.  It's usually a patchy appearance as well. It is not very common condition.

Leucistic American Robin

When I got home, a pair of young squirrels were having quite the game of tag beside our house.  In the low light, I only managed to get a couple presentable pictures of the action.

Rambunctious squirrel youth.

Caught!

Well, hopefully this breaks the dam and the post will follow a bit more regularly again! 
Till then...
Keep enjoying His handiwork!

Jacob's Woods, St. George

A couple Sundays ago, in the couple hours between church services, I went for a quick walk through the local green space area in St. George.  It's a patch of forest with two different section: a mix of older, more traditional forest of pines and deciduous, and as section of slowly maturing, planted white pines.  Unfortunately, it has never really yielded much in the way of bird life in the times I've walked through it.  This time however, I heard a House Wren chattering its scattered song.  I saw it flitting around me in the trees, checking out who the intruder was in it's territory, but it was too quick for any pictures.

I did see a few butterflies moving about though.  A new butterfly, the Gray Eastern Comma (thanks for the correction Dwayne) was one of them.

Gray Eastern Comma

Gray Eastern Comma.
(the sun just nicely came out as it opened its wings)

Norther Pearly-Eye

With the lack of activity, I soon headed up the ridge to behind the cemetry where someone has been maintaining a few mown trails through a young aspen forest.  It's a neat forest; the trees are all reaching for the light and there is no brush under cover.  At eye level, the view is pretty clear, the only bottom vegetation lower down a thicket of wild raspberry and goldenrod, providing plenty of food for birds that prefer "emergent cover".  Soon enough, I heard the scolding sound of the House Wren again.  The trail I was on was on the top of the ridge, the bottom of which was approximately where I had seen the wren before. So it's quite likely it was the same bird and I was still in its territory.  This time I could see it with more light and clear views.

House Wren

House Wren in classic wren pose.

Soon, I recognized the song of an Indigo Bunting (I'm starting to learn some more bird songs which is helpful).  It was too shy for pictures though. As I came out of the woods and passed a small brush pile from the cemetery, I heard a stern warning "buzz" of a worried little bird and I soon saw a flash of bright yellow and white and black meandering through the tangle of twigs and sticks.  A Common Yellowthroat, life bird #130.

Common Yellowthroat on the edge of a brush pile.

 

Common Yellowthroat

 
With a bird name containing the word "common" you almost feel guilty if you've not noticed them more before.  Checking in the Birds of Hamilton (we're in the Hamilton Bird Study area), the frequency charts do show them as common, but not abundant like Robins, etc.  The Common Yellowthroat's tendency for low, dense underbrush and nesting in a brush pile like I found this one would contribute to them not being easily, or often seen.  A very cute little bird.

Common Yellowthroat

Common Yellowthroat

As I headed home through the cemetery, I noticed a Chipmunk hole with the remnants of harvesting the the meat from walnuts. Someone is busy preparing for winter! The kids call the walnut shell halves "pig noses."

Chipmunk hole and walnut shells.

In the golden rod along the way home, I noticed two busy flies. Not sure what they are.

Two busy flies.

There is an old, abandoned (I think) tree nursery of some sort on the edge of town, and my walk home brought me through there.  In one spruce tree, there was a whole group of both male and female House Finches.

House Finches

A nice Sunday walk!
Till next time.... Keep enjoying His handiwork!

A Lot of Tails

So yes, except for one of the items in this post, they all have a common element - a tail.

A few weeks ago we were able to take a week off and head up to the Lodge for a week, first with some good friends of ours and then family joined us for the rest of the week.  Being up at the Lodge during the fall is completely different than during the summer.  The bugs are gone and we can actually hike in the trails in the bush, the colours are already started compared to home which is a couple hours south, and the crisper temperature mean the woodstove is on to warm the place up.  Evenings are inside with games and talks in the great room.

Our good friends Adam and Kerri have boys almost the same ages as ours, so we hiked all but one of the trails in the "back forty".  Coming back from the trails, the boys brought back tales for the moms (Ok, corny and a stretch!)

Crazy gang of hikers!  Adam and his boys with mine.

Some bright fungi on a log.

More fungi on a tree stump.

But, on our way back from one hike, we must have just scared off something eating a Garter Snake it had caught.  The kill must just have happened because even though it was half eaten, when touched, the tail would still constrict and grip your finger.  I really wonder what we scared off.  Too bad we didn't see it.  The boys were quite fascinated by it though.  (There is tail #2)

Half-eaten Garter Snake.

Throughout the week, I was also glad to get a number of  opportunities to get some nice pictures both around the grounds and on an outing to Bancroft one day.

In a canoe ride fishing on the lake with two of my boys, we were surprised by a big splash and soon spotted a beaver. We were close enough to shore to go back and get the camera in the fading afternoon light and followed him around to get quite close.

Beaver.

 A bad picture of the "splash and dive". (but tail #3!)

By the lodge, I got a couple other pictures of interest... One of a daring Red Squirrel which chewed into Holly's plastic container to get at some homemade Sweet-Marie bars, got it open and managed to get a way with a huge square.  Later, it was found licking off the spoon from one of our Apple Crisp desserts.

Red Squirrel finishing off our Apple Crisp.
(tail #4)

I saw only one butterfly the whole time up there, but it was one I hadn't seen before.

Morning Cloak Butterfly

Morning Cloak Butterfly -
missing its characteristic blue spots though.

This post is going to have to end here as I should be off to bed, it's getting long, and I obviously ran out of tails!

I'll post the rest of the pictures from this trip soon where I did my day trip out towards Bancroft.  The trip ended up going way longer than the couple hours I had planned as I kept bumping into more creatures...but I'm getting ahead of myself. :) And I won't torment you with more corny themes like "tails".

Down by the River

On Sunday, the two oldest were invited to friend's houses between church services and Justin settled for the consolation of going for a walk with Dad to try and see the Bald Eagles on the Grand River in Brantford. I hadn't been there since March either not having time, other locations pulling me, or the weather not cooperating. I didn't see the Eagles this time.  Apparently one has prematurely fallen out of the nest - wonder how it has fared.

Bank Swallow

But we did enjoy walking along the river's edge, Justin looking for frogs and me enjoying watching the swallows swiftly darting just above the water with deft maneouvres to catch insects in the air.  Amid the Barn Swallows and Tree Swallows were some Northern Rough-winged Swallows (life bird #87).  They are mostly light brown, with a light, pale underbelly.  Their name comes from a rough barb-like feathers on the leading edge of their wings.  It's not known what they are for, but thought possibly to assist them in producing sounds during mating - the males roughness is more pronounced.  They live in small colonies in river banks.


UPDATE: Thanks to Caleb S for pointing out that my identification of the swallows is likely wrong and probably Bank Swallows, not the Northern Rough-winged Swallows as I thought.  The two birds are quite similar, and pictures I had seen weren't terribly clear.  But by looking around a little more and at other photos I had but didn't post I think he's right. So my tags and picture labels and list have been updated (life list on Tuesday as it's at work). Consolation is that it is still a lifer.

Bank Swallow

Justin suddenly got enthusiastic about finding things on his own and spotted two of these butterflies.  He was quite proud of himself when I commended him on his good eye!

Cabbage White Butterly

Delaware Skipper Butterfly

The bright-eyed little guy.

Red Admiral Butterfly

Early Morning Traipsing

Last Friday evening, all of my family (less my brother and sister-in-law out west) gathered at my sister and brother-in-law's beautiful place on 4 acres south of Brantford. We were combining the birthday celebrations of three June birthdays into a night of BBQ, campfire, and a camp-out in their back yard. The adults loved it almost as much as the kids who were quite thrilled to spend time with their cousins and enjoying staying up past mid-night ending with a night in a tent trailer or tent. Although most of the kids were impervious, the late night for me didn't keep the birds from an awakening at 4:30am. Their full volume met the morning light with gusto, and the thin layer of the tent did nothing to let me sleep in.  By 5:30am, my brother Dan also awoke and followed through on his plan to sit in the small bush in the back yard beside a good sized pond.  I joined him with a couple of the older kids in tow who had also not slept in.

The morning skies were full of singing, and stirring birds.  A Great Blue Heron traveled across neighbouring farmer's fields to its hunting grounds for the day.

Great Blue Heron flies across early morning skies.

And the rising sun glistened off the night's dew left condensed on the surrounding corn fields.

Morning haze over corn field.

Dan capturing sun's reflections off dew.

The night before, my sister had mentioned the small herons they had often seen around the pond - Dan and I were eager to see if we could track them down. We heard them calling with what Cornell's Bird Site indicates is an "advertising" call.  You can hear the call here.  The vocalization has a deceiving effect - it is not very loud and yet, the sound travels well.  But when you hear it, the bird is often much closer than first though.  So as we followed the sound, very often the bird would be perched in a tree, closer than anticipated, and more than once we'd find the bird by having flushed it off it's perch only to have to track it down again.

Green Heron in the top of a Spruce tree -
the first clear view

We spent a couple hours walking through the "bush", back out over the fence and following what ended up being three of these little herons.  We'd end up following as they would avoid our approaches and fly to a dead Elm tree in the open, and then as we approached, they'd head back to the cover of the trees and pond again.

Green Heron in dead Elm tree mobbed by Starlings

While traipsing around, there were other sights to see too....

Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly

Red Admiral Butterfly

But finally we got a closer look at these small herons. The green colour is not clearly apparent, but their lightly edged feathers do in fact have a green hue to them, contrasting against the rusty breast feathers. Case in point on my comment about the "advertising call" being deceiving, I must have walked right under/past this bird.  Dan was on the other side and got much closer pictures. I'm not sure if he will post as he's created (but not really started) a blog as well.

Green Heron

This is what the Green Heron looks like when it's making
the advertising call.

This is the closest I ended up getting, though not a unobstructed view.

Green Heron
Obstructed, but the closest shot I got of the herons.

A neighbour also had a small pond with open edges, and a solitary Spotted Sandpiper was perusing the water's edge for breakfast.

Spotted Sandpiper

We spent a few hours that morning circling around and waiting for the light "boink" sound to give us a clue as to where one of the three birds were.  Two new life birds too - the Green Heron and Spotted Sandpiper. It got me itching to do some more exploring and longer excursions some day. I'm hoping sometime this summer something will work out if Dan ends up with a holiday to spare. Hint, hint.