2 Lifers in 3 days

    This past week was the week I was able to get out and go birding outside of my property after my positive result. With mask in hand and bins strapped along my shoulders, I ventured out to chase some rarities for the first time in about 3 weeks. 

    It started with a report out of Bronte Beach Park from a great local birder. Although seemingly annual the last couple of years I have never ventured out to see one, a Western Grebe. This would be a crazy good bird and my 293rd species on my life list if I got it. So, that evening after work I threw the scope in the back of my Escape and headed out to Oakville. 

    I talked to Liam before I got out since he had already been out to see it, he mentioned that if I just wanted to see it that going up the stairs to see it would be the best view over the whole park. He was not joking, a great view of the whole Bronte Harbour! With the help of the original observer, I finally got on it, but this was not satisfying enough to me! It was getting fairly close to the other side of the park beside an accessible Lighthouse. After waiting for my friend Colleen we both headed down there to try to get some photos of the crazy cool bird. We also listened right and left for Fish Crow as they've been reported in the area as well. No luck on that, unfortunately, but after running into a couple other acquaintances and getting so decent photos of the Western Grebe I felt satisfied with my first outing in a while! Not to mention I got my first Red-necked Grebe of the year! 

There were about 9 Red-necked Grebes I could count in the immediate vicinity of the Western which was a long-waiting first of the year for me! 

The bright white neck and yellow bill really stick out on this Western Grebe, just awaiting the next time one pops up around here! 

Couldn't help but take like 30 pics of this guy, definitely a memorable lifer! 

The second lifer of the year came to me on a trip down to Long Point from Saturday. Not going to lie, I'd never really been around Old Cut during their banding season so it was cool to see all the birds they even had around the small property that the banding station sat on! I got 6 FOYs! After missing my target bird there I decided to pop down to Big Creek NWA, definitely worth a look as I happened upon 6 Pied-billed Grebes, this marked the last of the common Southern Ontario grebes for my year list. Also added a few Blue-winged Teal and Forster's Terns along the causeway. After I decided to try one more time for my target at the "New" Provincial Park. I took out the scope and searched around the ducks to find it, and boy did I get it! Eurasian Wigeon, and the hybrid EurasianXAmerican Wigeon that had been hanging around, about 2 scope diameters away from each other. That was so cool! Even though they were so far from one another it was lifer #294! Inching ever so closer to 300! 

Even though it isn't a Eurasian Wigeon (which I could not get pics of) I did see my first Purple Martin of the year! 

Tree Swallows hanging out on the boxes in Old Cut already! 

Birding with COVID-19

     For those unaware, I got a positive result from my COVID-19 test that I took on the 23rd of March. Just for everyone's peace of mind, we are all good now! 

    Let me get into how this worked for my birding. 

    This meant me having to stick to my family property, luckily for me my family has a small wetland across the road from my house. This meant I could still go out and not worry about getting others sick too! To top it off I was still able to grab 3 FOYs! 

The first was a Fox Sparrow, not super rare and definitely expected this time of year, and I almost missed seeing it! I was walking down the first trail to get to the wetland and there is a little trail that looks out over the field to the north (which happens to be great for Savannah Sparrow all summer long) I just happened to hear a Black-capped Chickadee call and by sheer instinct, I looked over, in the small bush beside it I see a rusty coloured sparrow, Fox! That happened to be my 114th species for the year. 

The second happened just a few minutes after the Fox Sparrow. I was walking along the east side which was in a field, I can hear singing Song Sparrow and Golden-crowned Kinglets all around, then I hear an odd call, familiar, but different. This little bird happened to be a Vesper Sparrow! I unfortunately never got eyes on the bird, but will not be the last time I'll see one this year, so maybe that one will be photogenic. 

The third was definitely a complete fluke. I had been feeling like crap all day so I wasn't planning on going out to the wetland that day. I look out to my feeders and I got my yard first Rusty Blackbird! The cool blackbird was getting pestered by a Red-wing for the seeds it was around, I got some good looks and then by the time I thought, grab the camera, it took off. Guess that's how it goes for birding sometimes! 

All in all, I would like to mention, I had it and even though I got through it I was still down and out for a few days, and I am young and healthy otherwise. This definitely is not something to brush off. 

Please everyone stay safe! 

Even though I didn't get any pictures of the birds I saw for FOYs, here are a couple quarantine photos from my yard, including my first (surprisingly) yard Eastern Phoebe! 

Winter Birding Change of Heart

It wasn't too long ago that winter birding seemed like a dead-zone for me. Very little bird activity and the birds I did get were in low numbers and seemed slow and tiresome to search for. Of course, this was a time when I could not travel even to other parts of the province and I was young and restless, wanting the birds to come to me. But, as I have grown so has my patience and my abilities in birding to find these little pockets of birds. 

Well, this year I knew it was going to be different, and not only for the finch irruption in 2020, but this year I felt more motivated to get out birding and count all the birds I can possibly see anywhere I was. With this, I have demolished my counts for a lot of birds last year in 2 months...

January started off slow, the lock-down made it very hard to get out of Haldimand, me airing on the side of caution after hearing people getting fined for not following the guidelines. The one thing that was very good was the number of raptors. I recorded 9 species of birds of prey in 10 days, with lots of Rough-legged Hawks and Kestrels around patrolling the fields. After this I went on my first twitch of the year, for a Townsend's Solitaire in Niagara, which I dipped on really badly, I did, however, find the Red-headed Woodpecker, which knocks my previous FOY record for this species out of the water by 3-4 months. 

I ended the month with 95 species, just short of my goal of 100. I also added 1 lifer in January with spotting my first Hoary Redpoll! With the irruption, more and more finches are being accessible to birders in Southern Ontario, so this was a long-overdue bird for me, and only the 4th record for Haldimand County on eBird. 

February was much easier for me to get around, restrictions dropped and birds still hanging around. Early on I didn't get too many new birds, but the ball rolled with an oddly late Shoveler and moved onto a lot of birds coming out of my few trips to Long Point. A couple field birds in Savannah Sparrow and Eastern Meadowlark, and grabbing a Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Hermit Thrush at Old Cut. These are all great winter birds, no doubt, but the best trip was going out to London, Liam Thorne came along with me on this trip and we managed to muster up 5 local rarities, 2 Southern Ontario rarities, and 1 Provincial rarity (Local: Green-winged Teal, Greater Scaup, American Coot, Ruddy Duck, and Savannah Sparrow. S.O: Hoary Redpoll, and Harlequin Duck. Prov: Spotted Towhee). We also swung by Long Point on the way back and I picked up my first American Wigeon for the year, an early Killdeer, and ticked Golden Eagle off early with a scoped view of one flying over Lakeshore Rd. 

Ending the month with 15 new species I ended up county 110 species in just under 60 days and a personal record for me in the first 2 months of the year! I also grabbed 3 lifers this month; Gray Partridge, Spotted Towhee, and Harlequin Duck! 

I got a lot of great responses from my post about summing up my last year, so I'd like to nod to that at the end of March, do kind of a 3 month summary of where the numbers look compared to last year. If you would like to see more specific content including the stats like that just let me know via social media @bassindalebirding on Instagram or you can email me here: bassindalecody@gmail.com. I really appreciate the input of others! 

This clean-rumped, smooshed-faced Redpoll was my first Photographed Hoary! - Elgin, ON

Although not the greatest shot, these were my first Gray Partridge - Brant, ON

Super cool bird on such a small river! - Middlesex, ON

This Hermit Thrush sat nicely on a bunch of sumac - Norfolk, ON

Even the stick in the way can't hide the IDing feature of this woodpecker - Niagara, ON

So many of these little sparrows around this winter - Middlesex, ON

Little ways off course it seems, this Spotted Towhee may need a map...- Middlesex, ON