February feels more like April at Mill Pond Park

The ice on much of Richmond Hill's Mill Pond Park has melted and the ducks and geese are enjoying it greatly.   The Mute Swans of course are still in their enclosure, and were languidly and peacefully preparing themselves for the advent of spring.   Daylight Savings Time starts in just 12 days and the first day of spring is only 20 days away.   May winter slide away like slippery silk.

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BarrytheBirder

Wild weather ~ wild birds

Photo: Owen Humphries / PA

Oystercatchers in England

Oystercatcher sea birds (Haematopus ostralegus)  fly over rough seas at Alonby, on the west coast of Cumbria, in north-west England, in the wake of 90 mph. winds caused by last week's deadly storm Doris.

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BarrytheBirder

World Press Photo Contest 2017

Photo by Francis Perez - EPA

Nature - Singles - First Prize

The only thing this photo has to do with birds is the fact that it was taken in the 'Canary Islands'.   The photo captures the grimness of reality for this sea turtle entangled in a fishing net as it tries to swim off the coast of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Morocco.   No words are needed to embellish the image's impact.

 Photo: PA

  Photo: Alex Hofford / EPA

Elsewhere, 2,900 kms. (1,800 miles) north, in Cornwall, England, tiny plastic pellets, known as 'nurdles', are seen on the beaches at Tregantle Cove, near Newquay.   Nurdles are lentil-size plastic pellets used as a raw material by industry to make plastic products.   England's Guardian newspaper reports that nurdles find their way into waterways and end up on 73% of United Kingdom beaches.   The Guardian also reports that waste nurdles already number in the billions.   Most alarming is the fact that anything that eats plankton or fish eggs, also mistakenly eat nurdles which of course have no food value and also contain PCBs.   This includes birds.   70 different species of of seabirds are known to ingest nurdles.  
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BarrytheBirder

Hooded Mergansers last week ~ Fraser, British Columbia

Photos by Dave Kemp

Mergansers have serrated bills or 'teeth' on the edge of their bills that help them get a firm grip on fish. 

(Drawing: Journey North)

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BarrytheBirder

Last Varied Thrush I saw in King was in February, 2010

Photo by BarrytheBirder

   It's 7 years since I've seen a Varied Thrush.

  I took this photo of a Varied Thrush in February, of 2010, at Cold Creek Conservation Area, on the 11th Concession of King Township.   It got a lot of attention while it was around and I was very pleased to get several photos.   But I have not seen one since.   It's not surprising since it is a bird that normally confines itself to Canada's west coast.   Every once in a while, one strays across the country and we easterners get very excited.   After seven years, I'm about ready to see my second Varied Thrush.   If you see one, send it my way.

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BarrytheBirder

Crow grooms mate

Photo by BarrytheBirder

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BarrytheBirder

Bald Eagle snared by leg-hold trap

Photo by Susan Boardman / AP

Photographer Susan Boardman captured this Bald Eagle recently, with a leg-hold trap clamped to a talon, struggling to fly near Bonneauville, in south-central Pennsylvania, U.S.A.   Volunteers have been trying to locate the bird that experts say will die if not helped because eagles need their talons to hunt, eat, perch and defend themselves.   Legally, leg-hold traps should not be set out in the open, where bait would be visible from the air, and should be staked down and identify the trapper by name, according to the State Game Commission.

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BarrytheBirder

Humans pushing these vultures to the edge

 Photo by Vaibhaucho

LONG-BILLED VULTURE

'Critically Endangered' - I.U.C.N.

Photo: Alok Tewari

SLENDER-BILLED VULTURE

'Critically Endangered' - I.U.C.N. 

Photo: Yathinsk

WHITE-BACKED VULTURE

'Critically Endangered' - I.U.C.N.

The White-backed Vulture, Long-billed Vulture and Slender-billed Vulture have been decimated throughout south-east Asia over the past 20 years due to the widespread use of the anti-inflammatory cattle drug Diclofenac.   The drug causes kidney failure in birds that eat the carcasses of recently treated cattle.

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BarrytheBirder

Bald Eagles in British Columbia

Photo by Dave Kemp

Evocative eagle image

My friend Dave Kemp, from Fraser, British Columbia, has recently shared this wonderful photo with eagle-spotting friends and acquaintances, which he took at the George C. Reifel Bird Sanctuary, in 2011, at Delta, B.C.   Bald Eagles are found year-around at the Reifel Sanctuary, on Westham Island between the the north and south outlets of the Fraser River, about an hour south of Vancouver.
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BarrytheBirder 

Who has passed this way?

Photo by BarrytheBirder

                ME and a MOURNING DOVE

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BarrytheBirder

MOURNING DOVES - up close and personal

Photos

by

BarrytheBirder

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BarrytheBirder

Canadian Wildlife Magazine 2016 photo winner

Photo by Jacques-Andre Dupont

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

'Reflections of Nature'

2016 Annual Photo Contest

Other winners, by category, may be seen in the current January/February 2017 issue of Canadian Wildlife Magazine in a 10-page photo spread.   The same photos can also be seen on the Canadian Wildlife Federation website.

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BarrytheBirder

Small Siskins to big Bald Eagles on Canada's west coast

All photos by Dave Kemp ~ Fraser, B.C.

 Pelagic Cormorant ( early breeding plumage)

 Bald Eagle

Pine Siskins 

Northern Flicker (female)

Common Merganser (female)

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BarrytheBirder

2017 Ontario Nocturnal Owl Survey about to get underway

 Photos by Nancy and Bob Wallace

The annual Ontario Nocturnal Owl Survey is about to take place and I'm sure once again the Barred Owl will be the most numerous of the 9 or 10 species that will be counted.   In 2015, in the Central Ontario region, 415 Barred Owls were counted, while the next closest owl species was Northern Saw-Whet Owl at 60 individuals.   It will be some time before the final numbers for this year will be available, but in the meantime, I have an excuse to once again show a few Barred Owl photos that my brother Bob and his wife, Nancy, sent me from last year.   What a beautiful bird!   Then again all our owl species are exceptionally eye-catching.

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BarrytheBirder

New species of bird announced

Photo by Craig Belsford

Himalayan Forest Thrush

Zoothera salimalii

A new species of bird was discovered in 2016 in northeastern India and adjacent parts of China by a team of scientists from Sweden, China, the U.S., India and Russia. The bird, described in an early 2016 issue of Avian Research, has been named Himalayan Forest Thrush (Zoothera salimalii).   The discovery process for the Himalayan Forest Thrush began in 2009 when it was realized that what was considered a single species, the Plain-backed Thrush (Zoothera mollissima), was in fact two different species in northeastern India, said Pamela Rasmussen, of Michigan State University.   She was part of a team led by Per Alstrom of Uppsala University in Sweden.   

What first caught scientist's attention was the Plain-backed Thrush in the coniferous and mixed forest had a rather musical song, whereas individuals found in the same area - on bare rocky ground above the treeline - had a much harsher, scratchier, unmusical song.   "It was and exciting moment when the penny dropped, and we realized that the two different song types from Plain-backed Thrushes that we first heard in northeast India in 2009, and which were associated with different habitats at different elevations, were given by two different species," Alstrom said.

Along with keen field observations, the scientists did a lot of sleuthing with museum specimens.   Investigations involving collections in several countries revealed consistent differences in plumage and structure between birds that could be assigned to either of these two species.   It was confirmed that the species breeding in the forests of the eastern Himalayas had no name.

"At first we had no idea how or whether they differed morphologically.   We were stunned to finds the specimens in museums for over 150 years from the same parts of the Himalayas could readily be divided into two groups based on measurements and plumage," Rasmussen said.

This story underlines how elaborate it can be identifying a new avian species in the old world, while in South America, birders can spot new species outright.   Maddening on the one hand perhaps, serendipitous on the other.

Photo by Per Alstom

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BarrytheBirder

Libreville, Gabon

Photo by Gabriel Bouys / AFP / Getty Images

Egrets have best football seats

Egrets take over the goalposts before a 2017 Africa Cup of Nations football training session in Libreville, Gabon, at the equator on Africa's mid-western coast.

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BarrytheBirder

An obliging elephant...

Photo: Alamy Stock Photo

Three egrets hitch a ride, past a group of Cape Buffalo, on the back of an elephant, in Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Egrets often perch on the backs of large animals but I can't remember ever seeing them on the back of an elephant, with a long, sweeping, heavy trunk at its disposal.

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BarrytheBirder

Great bird photos from Richmond, British Columbia

 All photos by Dave Kemp

Last Thursday broke a 66-year-old record cold temperature of -8.4 degrees Celsius in Vancouver, British Columbia.   Meanwhile, snow just keeps falling and falling and burying the lower B.C. mainland.   But my friend Dave Kemp, who lives in Fraser, south-east of Vancouver, is very close to the water and never seems to run of birds to photograph.   See the Rufous-sided Towhee, above, and the Eurasian Widgeon, immediately below.

 Above is a Common Merganser and below a Snipe.

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BarrytheBirder

A case of camouflage

Photo by Dave Kemp

One Greater Yellowlegs and 15 Snipe

This is a photo taken by my birding friend, Dave Kemp, out in Fraser, British Columbia.   It shows a a very obvious Greater Yellowlegs among some wetlands.   Not so obvious are the 15 Common Snipe sitting tight and gathered around and about the solitary yellowlegs.   If a hawk, hunting overhead, were to pounce on this group of waders, I think the hawk would have its eye on the yellowlegs, first and foremost.

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BarrytheBirder

Remarkable underwater photo of a Kingfisher

Photo: Cater News Agency

A Kingfisher dives underwater to grab its prey in Ferrara, Italy.   Kingfishers are frequently photographed in full dive mode, just above the surface of water, but what happens beneath the surface of the water has now been captured in an artistically mesmerizing shot.

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BarrytheBirder

Newly discovered frog sounds like a bird

Photo by Seshadri KS / Birdlife / Research Matters

Scientists mistake frog for a bird

Pictured above is a Karaavali Skitterling Frog, a hitherto unknown species recently discovered on the coastal plains of Karnataka, India.  The story goes that when this frog gave its call, nearby scientific observers, invited to the area, looked up to see a bird, instead of looking down to see a frog. 
Apparently, this newly-discovered frog had a very similar sound to a White-throated Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis) (seen at right), which just happens to be the State Bird of West Bengal.
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BarrytheBirder

Photo by Shantanu Kuveskar

One of the world's largest eagles

Photo by Yuri Smityuk / Tass

WHITE-TAILED EAGLE

Haliaeetus albicilla

Two White-tailed Eagles, pictured above, are seen having a dispute about a fish at Zolotoy Rog Bay, in Vladivostok, Russia.   One of the world's largest eagles, the White-tailed Eagle ranges throughout Europe and Russia.   It has the widest average wingspan of any eagle in the world, which can spread up to 8 ft.   With a huge range that stretches from Iceland to Russia's Pacific shores, it is no surprise that this raptor goes by several names, including Eagle of the Rain, Sea Grey Eagle, Erne, Gray Eagle and White-tailed Sea Eagle.
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BarrytheBirder     

Do Snowy Owls catch fish?

Photo by Chuck Homler d/b/a Focus on Wildlife

SNOWY OWL

(Nyctea nyctea)

As the photo above (by Chuck Homler) shows, Snowy Owls certainly do catch ducks.   I have just read that Snowy Owls also catch and eat fish, which I did not know.   I read this information in a bird guide, written by Chester A. Reed in 1906... 111 years ago.   He states: "...they will frequently kill animals or birds as heavy, or heavier, than themselves...They also catch a great many fish; these they get in shallow water among the rock-weed covered stones, by reaching down quickly and seizing their prey in their strong claws".   After reading this, I switched over to Wikipedia's photos of Snowy Owls to see if I could find one in which this magnificent bird was catching a fish.   I couldn't find a single one.   However, I am prepared to accept that Chester Reed's claim is accurate.   The only time I seen Snowy Owls, however, is when they occasionally migrate south in winter to a the nearby Holland Marsh, in southern Ontario, where I live, and they spend the cold winter months hunting mice, voles, pigeons or the occasional rabbit.

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BarrytheBirder