Your source for dapper crested frugivores
November 22nd, 2012
You want Bohemians? I got Bohemians. I got 'em noshing, posing, contorting,
diving, playing. I even got 'em saying "nyah!" in your general direction.
I spent the morning with a huge, tame flock of Bohemian Waxwings at Herzberg
and Legget, watching them feast, immersed in the sound of their gentle trill
and the flutter of their wings. I spent about half the time simply blissed
out. The rest of the time I took pictures.
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(
More. Much more. )
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The Bandit
November 16th, 2012
Sharing in the feast with the Pine Grosbeaks were
Bohemian
Waxwings. Large flocks of this boreal species are roving around Ottawa
this fall. They had apportioned things neatly with apparently one tree
belonging to the waxwings and the other to the grosbeaks. The one the waxwings
were in was the one with excellent afternoon lighting. (I kept hoping they
would trade places, as my camera struggled with shadows in the grosbeak tree.
No such luck.) I even managed to capture their eyes (usually eclipsed by the
surrounding black mask), as red as the fruit they were eating.
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Unlike grosbeaks, waxwings swallow berries whole. In fact they use fruit in
precisely the opposite way, digesting the pulp and juice and excreting the
seeds undigested.
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Mind you, the swallowing part can be a challenge!
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Pine Grosbeaks close to home
November 15th, 2012
It had been almost five years since I last saw
Pine
Grosbeaks. So I was thrilled to find a flock of them in front of my
husband's workplace, pigging out on ornamental fruit trees.
Pine Grosbeaks are large (as big as robins) fruit-loving finches. They're
boreal birds who only come south into our area when their native winter food
supply (mountain ash berries) is low. Some winters they don't come at all.
When they do, they feast on crabapples and ornamental mountain ash berries,
making a good living at places like Dominion Arboretum. They are amazingly
tame. I photographed from six feet away without causing any of them to bat an
eye. (Heck, a raven soared overhead croaking menacingly and they didn't bat an
eye. Careful, guys--I've seen ravens take down birds bigger than you.)
All of these photos are of females and juveniles. Unfortunately, no adult
males (who are a beautiful shade of dusky rose red) were present.
They also have to be the world's messiest eaters. Unlike waxwings who eat the
whole fruit, Pine Grosbeaks crush and discard the pulp to get at the seed
within, leaving berry innards all over the ground and all over their faces.
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Life bird #318
November 13th, 2012
The fellow second from the front is my latest lifer, and a long time coming!
This small, stubby-billed Canada-Goose-lookalike is a
Cackling
Goose, a bird of the far north.
Photos of Cackling Geese are often framed to emphasize their tininess--placing
them in the backdrop, for instance, or placing them right next to a "Giant"
Canada Goose (the familiar large, long-necked subspecies that frequents our
local parks in summer, often with goslings in tow.) I'm as guilty of this as
anyone (see above!) But I feel it does novice birders a disservice. Cackling
Geese, at least in the east, are not
that small compared to smaller
races of the Canada Goose, with whom they are often seen. It's the stubby bill
that really gives them away, in my opinion. A somewhat fairer comparison shot
follows (Cackling Goose in front):
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Exploring the Lime Kiln burn
November 6th, 2012
I went back to the Lime Kiln burn site, and this time, the female Black-Backed
Woodpecker was willing to pose for the camera! (
See here to read the background
and to learn all about this unique woodpecker.)
She's a somber bird, designed to blend in with the ashen-hued colors of a
burned forest. But she does show a pretty blue sheen on her back feathers in
good light.
Chickadees followed me into the burned woods, hoping for a handout. I was amused by how
baleful their charred surroundings made them look.
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"You will give us seed. You will give us seed
now."
(
More baleful chickadees )
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Hairy Woodpecker portrait
November 4th, 2012
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A photogenic hawk
November 1st, 2012
This rather tame
Red-Tailed
Hawk has been seen frequently along Carling Ave., and attracted a lot of
photographer attention. Even when several people are up close, he blithely
ignores them while scanning the ground below for scurrying field mice. He
haunted the same stretch of road last winter, as a juvenile, now, with his
mature brick-red tail feathers grown in, he's even more fun to photograph.
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Snow Buntings at Shirley's Bay
October 29th, 2012
A flock of
Snow
Buntings has been lingering at the Shirley's Bay boat launch area for the
last little while. These are sparrow-like, arctic-breeding songbirds, that
winter on open land throughout much of the U.S. and Canada. I find them
adorable. I also find them elusive! Prior to yesterday, I had never seen Snow
Buntings within the city limits of Ottawa (outlying rural areas like St.
Isadore are generally a better bet), nor had the opportunity to photograph
them.
Snow Buntings are masters of camouflage. Their winter plumage is a mix of
white, black, and orangey-brown, perfectly designed to blend in with the
colors of a snowed-over field. Yesterday I learned that their camouflage is
equally effective on rocky river shores. Repeatedly I was amazed to see the
flock--briefly flushed--settle down a short distance from me and utterly melt
into the landscape. Even on bare rock.
With this fellow, I stalked up close and carefully timed my shot, and
sharpened and contrast-enhanced it, to make him stand out as much as possible.
(Note nonetheless how all his colors are shared by the surrounding landscape,
with the exception of the brighter whites as there hasn't been snow yet.)
And with this photo I didn't do any of those things. Quick, where's Waldo?
(
More pix )
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Autumn At Andrew Haydon Park
October 25th, 2012
There were dark clouds on one side of the sky and full sunlight on the other.
It made for spectacular lighting.
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An odd duck, and the upside of forest fires
October 23rd, 2012
I had read on Ontbirds that a super-rare female
Tufted Duck was being seen
at Shirley's Bay. This is a Eurasian species that has only strayed into our
area once before in recorded history. So I headed down to the boat launch
parking lot, joined a large group of birders with scopes, and had a look. Success!
Of my three lifers yesterday, this is one I kind of have to call a
technicality. The female Tufted Duck doesn't share the male's obvious
strange
hairstyle. The only thing to distinguish her from her new-world
counterpart (Ring-Necked Duck) is a teeny little nub of feathers on the back
of the head. I saw the duck, and I saw the teeny nub. But no way by myself
would I even have noticed, much less thought it significant, much,
much
less confidently identified her on the basis of it!
Bob Cermak, one of the local experts, was there. As I was about to leave, I
overheard him tell someone that a
Black-Backed
Woodpecker had been reported at Lime Kiln Trail, and my ears perked way
up. Black-Backed is one of the two boreal woodpeckers that are seldom seen in
Ottawa, and had never been seen by me. So I immediately hopped in my car and
zipped over there, where I intersected with Bob's group and ended up falling
in with them.
There was a forest fire at Lime Kiln Trail earlier this year. A forest fire is
generally seen as an unfortunate thing. But for certain birds, and for the
birding world, it's actually a big positive. Birds, like other creatures,
evolved in the presence of natural fires. They have ways of dealing with it.
Some have even evolved to specialize in burned-over areas, for various
reasons--maybe because they like the resulting open habitat, or because they
prefer to dig their nest holes in burnt trees, or because their preferred
insect prey specialize in burns. Naturalists call them "fire followers."
A lot of those birds are in trouble now. Unfortunately evolution is blind, and
didn't know that humans were going to come along and devastate the "fire
follower" niche. Fire prevention policies have even driven a few species to
near-extinction. (The tide is now being turned in some cases via the use of
prescribed burns.) Burn sites are at a premium, so when a new one appears,
it's a given that interesting birds will show up there. An old burn site in
Constance Bay, for instance, is Ottawa's only known location for breeding
Red-Headed Woodpeckers: a single pair of them. Lime Kiln Trail, or at least
part of it, is now such a site, and assuming the city leaves it more or less
alone, it could remain so for years.
The Black-Backed Woodpecker report was recent and news to all of us, but as we
explored the site, it became clear that the species had been there for months,
and probably more than one of them. The telltale sign of boreal woodpeckers is
bark stripped off of dead trees. They eat a special kind of beetle larvae that
tunnel under the bark. There were trees in those woods that had been more than
half de-barked. Trees with heaps of bark piled under them.
I wasn't the only one who was kicking myself that I hadn't thought of it
sooner. I knew about fire followers. And I had been planning on going there in
spring, searching for Red-Headed Woodpeckers, Olive-Sided Flycatchers and
others. It just didn't occur to me to do it in fall.
So we fanned out over the burn site, pored over every promising tree, listened
carefully for the sound of slow tapping, and came up empty. Tons of Downy and
Hairy Woodpeckers, the most I've ever seen in one place (clearly burn sites
are of interest even to some birds that don't specialize in them per se), but
no Black-Backed.
Damned if I was giving up. I went home, had lunch, showered, and went back out
solo. This time I found it! Specifically her--a female. Which proves that
there is at least a pair, since the original report was of a male. Have they
bred? Will they breed? I can't wait to find out.
I have no pictures as yet, since she flew off before I got the chance to close
in on her. But I'll be back to try again.
ETA:
Success, photos here!
This autumn has been like magic. So many surprises. This afternoon,
twenty-four Sandhill Cranes were circling on thermals practically right over
my house. I wonder what else it has in store?
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