It continues to be a cool spring here with occasional storms and spikes in temperature. The canopy is filling out. Some trees are not yet in full leaf.
Erieau Marsh Trail
The Erieau Marsh Trail runs along the trackbed of a former railway. It provides a variety of habitats for birds with marshland on one side and woody vegetation on the other.
We often see several turtle species in the pond, but that day we saw only Midland Painted Turtles and a Common Snapping Turtle lurking under the water.
Mute Swans were nesting, but there were no mudflats this year for migrating shorebirds.
Tree Swallows and Barn Swallows soared over the marsh, scooping insects. A Great Blue Heron flew over and landed on a distant snag overlooking the lake. Barn Swallows sometimes landed closer to hand. Kildeer called and foraged on the edge of the deep ditches between the farm fields on the far side of the path.
We looked for Northern Waterthrush along the edge of the pond. We caught glimpses of a bird with a striped breast and thought we had found one. Glenn managed to capture a few photos of it as moved through the vegetation. It turned to to be an Ovenbird!
We were hoping to find that some warblers had arrived and were rewarded with a few. Of course they were high in the trees and moving nonstop!
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler and Black-and-white Wabler
Other birds:
Gray Catbird and baby American Robins in a nest
Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Warbling Vireo
We tallied 33 species of birds in total.
McGeachy Pond Conservation Area
The McGeachy trail overlooks the pond on one side and Lake Erie on the other.
Here, we found Yellow Warblers and Red-winged Blackbirds in abundance, Barn and Tree Swallows soaring overhead, and few ducks and geese far out in the lake. A White-crowned and a Song Sparrow were foraging along the path.
A Common Tern and a Ring-billed Gull flew along the lakeshore.
Rondeau Provincial Park – Tulip Tree Trail
Once we knew that warblers had begun to arrive, we were eager to head back to Rondeau. We took a short trail, grateful for the long hours of daylight in May. In one hour, we logged 22 species of birds.
Glenn was happy to get better photos of a Blackburnian Warbler and good photos of two Yellow-rumped Warblers.
In lower light, photos can be grainy.
Baltimore Oriole, Veery and Common Grackle
The prize of the day was finally finding the Eastern Towhee that had been singing “drink-your-tea” for days in the undergrowth!
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Towhee/sounds
As the light faded, we agreed to be back at Rondeau the next day.
Osprey News!!!
We are delighted to tell you that last Sunday, May 24th, we saw that the Ospreys were feeding young!
On Sunday when the male brought a headless fish, the female stood, but did not fly off with it. After she pulled large chunks from the fish for herself, she pulled smaller shreds and moved them down into the nest. It looked like she was delivering food to two different places. Here is the first video:
This 10-minute video recorded a few days later provides a view of Osprey domestic life. The male remains on the nest, grooming and helping with the housekeeping while the female feeds herself and two young. At about the 7-minute mark, two wobbly heads, about the size of pingpong balls, can be seen.
Spring flowers from Wandering Bee…
First blooms on the balcony!
Songs about Birds
This playlist has a few songs I like.
