Silly Little Country

A Bird's Eye View

Spectacular! The flight of the goshawk is particularly engaging.

Labels: birds, flight

posted by Alan Adamson @ 8:51 AM 0 comments

Ashbridge's Bay, April 25, 2009 - Avian Update

While a few buffleheads and oldsquaws are hanging around (might they stay all summer?), the complement of usual suspect summer species has filled out quite nicely. While one swallow does not a summer make, a whole bunch of them starts making one think about the warmer days coming. Even the kingfishers are back. The audio landscape is now in its usual state, dominated by redwings and cardinals, then gulls, song sparrows, the chatter of mallards, squawks of Canada geese, and the occasional croak of a kingfisher, or cry of a killdeer plover. Other regulars at the park report the return of the herons, but I have yet to see one.
And the highlight, as regular readers know - the swans are on the nest!

They are on the same spot used the last few years, with mixed success.

Labels: Ashbridge's Bay, birds

posted by Alan Adamson @ 1:53 PM 0 comments

An Avian Stroll of the Park

The nearby park has, needless to say, many birds, but most of them seem rather prosaic to a North American.

However, a few minutes later, I got to see a variant of our Great Blue Heron, the Graureiher, strutting about, apparently not concerned at all about the children and others cavorting nearby.

There are pigeons, magpies, and some funny little birds I have not identified despite long internet searches - colorful and flitty.
What I have NOT seen, and this alarms me a little though they are a pest in Canada, is a House sparrow. I have been reading in European and British newspapers about serious declines in their population over here.

Labels: birds, Darmstadt

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:18 AM 0 comments

Fecundity and Diversity

The swans are not alone. On this morning's walk, the first encounter of interest was a parent robin feeding its child as the two were hopping around on the grass in front of me. It was an unusual scene, in that the child bird was not constantly screaming at its overworked parent, which is one thing I am used to seeing. In fact, later on the walk, I came by a parent song sparrow looking a bit overwhelmed dealing with its insistent youngster, twice the size of its parent.

But all over the park, it is clear there is a new generation, as the number of birds has increased enormously. One mallard mother (despite the efforts of the Toronto parks people to cover all the eggs of them and Canada Geese with mineral oil, effectively murdering the embryos) even managed a very small brood!



That park policy, combined with another decision to leave the vegetation near the water alone, mowing only in the picnic areas, appears as well over the years to have contributed to an enormous increase in the diversity of life down at the lake. This year I have seen Baltimore Orioles and Eastern Kingbirds for the first time in the park. And that is on top of the increasing number of FLBBs (flitty little brown birds) that I have yet to identify.

Lately there has been a concern about the number of double-crested cormorants on the waterfront. This reflective fellow (in two senses) below is one of those.


They are amazing birds, great hunters, but not such great flyers - takeoffs are always quite a show:


In any case Toronto has decided not to shoot them, and not to coat their eggs with mineral oil, but rather to try to freak them out by sending practitioners of tai chi and roller blading into their nesting areas on the Leslie Street Spit. (Don't blame me for the Globe and Mail's policies - the essence though is there in the part you do not have to pay for!)

This seems to me to fit the Toronto mentality perfectly.

Labels: Ashbridge's Bay, birds, plants, reproduction

posted by Alan Adamson @ 8:07 AM 0 comments