A murder of crows at Kettleby

                                                                                                                                                                                   Photo by BarrytheBirder

I've been watching a murder of crows gathering near the hamlet of Kettleby, in King Township, for the past 10 days and today my count surpassed 400 birds.  This is the time of year, of course, that crows do gather and head to ever-so-slightly milder areas nearby.  400 is not a big number in the grand scheme of the things.   After all, there will be flocks in the tens of thousands this winter in the most south-western part of Ontario.   The Royal Ontario Museum, in its Field Guide to Birds of Ontario, states: "...more than 90,000 individuals reported to roost together at one site in winter".    Nevertheless, 400+ crows is a fairly sizeable flock hereabouts and I was impressed as I watched their constantly-moving and noisy entourage.   I had the feeling that each and every crow thought it was the centre of attention.   Folks in this area can see these crows on the north side of the Kettleby Road, between Keele Street and the east end of the hamlet.

Please comment if you wish.

BtheB 

Egyptian Goose by Mpho Phiri

MEGYPTIAN GOOSEM
Alopochen aegyptiacus 

Today I discovered this great photo of a very impressive-looking Egyptian Goose on Mpho Phiri's blogsite, from Mafikeng, South Africa.   Mpho and I check out and make comments on each other's blogs, from time to time.   His site is called Mafikeng Birding Blog.   I think Mpho's picture above is a terrific shot of a remarkable-looking goose and just had to spread it even further.   There aren't that many goose species in the world; maybe around 60, if you count the true geese (16), add the subspecies (37) and include the shelducks (7).   I personally think the most beautiful goose in the world is the Red-breasted Goose, but the Egyptian Goose, which is one of the shelducks,  might just be the most striking-looking, especially in flight (go to Google).

Please comment if you wish.
BtheB 

Obsolete bird names

                                                                                                                                                                                  Photo by BarrytheBirder

Sleepy Duck

a.k.a. Ruddy Duck

Oxyura jamaicensis

The Ruddy Duck wood carving above was crafted by Jim Harkness of Stayner, Ontario, in 1982.   It is one of my favourites in a small collection of bird carvings that I own.   The Ruddy Duck carving is almost 30 years old now and it's interesting to note that 100 years ago this bird was known as, for reasons unknown to me, the Sleepy Duck.   The Ruddy Duck is one of hundreds of birds in Canada and the USA that went by different names in the last two centuries.   If you are interested, there is a list of all those old names that has been compiled by Richards C. Banks of the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Centre, at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.   The list is available online at www.pwrc.usgc.gov/research/pubs/banks/obspart1.htm or just Google 'old bird names'.   Here is a list of old bird names (and their modern equivalents) that caught my eye.   They range from  exotic to odd to amusing to descriptive - referencing sight, sound or behaviour.

cock of the plains (sage grouse)

scolopaceous courlan (limpkin)

sicklebill (long-billed curlew)

acorn duck (wood duck)

dunk-a-doo (American bittern)

Lord Derby's flycatcher (great kiskadee)       

fly-up-the-creek (green-back heron)

brotherly love (Philadelphia vireo)

hairbird (chipping sparrow)

anthracite (common black-hawk)

hell-diver (horned grebe)

muttonbird (short-tailed shearwater)

niggergoose (double-crested cormorant)

monkey-faced (common barn owl)

oxeye (least or semipalmated sandpiper)

poke or shite-poke (green-backed heron)

rain crow (yellow-billed cuckoo)

rice-bird (bobolink)

snakebird (anhinga)

specklebelly (greater white-fronted goose)

stake-driver (American bittern)

tell-tale (greater yellowlegs)

...and my personal favourite: black warrior (red-tailed and Harlan's hawk)

Please comment if you wish, especially if you know the origin of 'Sleepy Duck'.   

BtheB

Cairns Warbler

                                                                                                  Photo by BarrytheBirder

I was quite surprised to discover this past week that back in the late 1800s and early 1900s there was a warbler known as the Cairns Warbler.   Cairns happens to my wife's maiden name and her ancestors arrived in Canada in the early 1800s and took up homesteading in King Township, not far from where she and I live today.   How could she and I never have heard of the Cairns Warbler before?   It's because the Cairns Warbler  was a subspecies of the Black-throated Blue Warbler (Dendroica caerulescens)   It was discovered and first described in the southern Allegheny Mountains by John S. Cairns of Weaveryule, North Carolina.   What made it different?   It was apparently a little darker than other Black-throated Blue Warblers and had staked out a favourite territory.   There were skeptics, but eventually Dendroica caerulescens cairnsi was declared.   The case for the subspecies did not last however and today it is only a historical footnote.

I do nevertheless have to admire John Cairns' convincing eloquence when he described his special bird.   "High up on the heavily timbered mountain ranges of western North Carolina is the summer home of the Black-throated Blue Warbler.   Here in precipitous ravines, amid tangled vines and moss-covered logs, where the sun's rays never penetrate the rank vegetation and the air is always cool, dwells the happy little creature, filling the woods from dawn to twilight with its song.   These birds are a local race.   They arrive ten days earlier than those that pass through the valleys on their northward migration.   The nests show little variation...exteriorly they are composed of rhododendron or grape-vine bark, interwoven with birch-bark, moss, spider-webs, and occasionally bits of rotten wood.   The interior is neatly lined with hair-like moss, resembling fine black roots, mixed with a few sprays of bright red moss, forming a strikingly beautiful contrast to the pearly eggs.   The female gathers all the materials, and builds rapidly, usually completing a nest in from four to six days if the weather is favourable.   She is usually accompanied by the male, which, however, does not assist her in any way."   I probably would have been convinced by Mr. Cairns also.   Those Scottish immigrants could be very persuasive.

Please comment if you wish.

BtheB         

Collector's canoe needs lots of TLC

                                                                                                                                                                                      Photo by Bob Wallace

My brother is the proud owner of the classic Peterborough canoe pictured above.   He bought it recently in northern Ontario and plans to restore it to its former glory sometime in the future.   Knowing Bob, the job will be done with extreme care and attention to detail.   As-is, it is a collectors item, but when my brother is finished with it, it could become someone's highly-prized and valuable pride and joy.   The canoe seems to be an authentic Peterborough Floatwell 16' Canvas Sponson model, probably built between 1927 and 1938.   The sponsons, just below the rails on each side, make the canoe wider and heavier, and supposedly more stable and buoyant in heavy weather and currents.   The Floatwells were probably thought of as a workhorses by many of those who paddled them 75 and 80 years ago.   I can hardly wait to see the transformation in the next year or so.   I may even get to paddle it.   Ah, but that is a somewhat sad story.   My seventy-year-old knees are not user-friendly anymore when it comes to canoes.   Nevertheless, I'd love to give it a spin.   Bob the Restorer has warned me, however, that he is not getting any younger and this old canoe needs a heck of a lot of work.   He says this old Floatwell could end up as a terrific working restoration or as two sawn-off, half-canoe curio/bookshelves!!!   He wouldn't dare. 

Please comment if you wish.

BtheB

Early November at Cawthra Mulock

                                                                                                                                                                                  Photos by BarrytheBirder

This very attractive Beech tree is located in the Cawthra Mulock Nature Reserve parking area, in King Township, east of Newmarket and south of the Holland Marsh community of Ansnorveldt.   The tree graces a former homesite where it was allowed to grow in its own space, with little or no competition.   This meant it could horizontally.   Normally a Beech  would grow in a tall fashion to 60'-80', but this is not the case here.   This tree has grown to typical Beech girth however, of almost 3', and it has the distinctive smooth gray bark that I always think looks like elephant skin.   Beech is known for hanging on to its leaves late into the fall, which certainly is the case with this specimen.  My Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide remarks that Beech was an important timber species, but not for the quality of the wood.   Rather, it was traditionally and extensively used to make cheap furniture, tool handles, veneer, shoe lasts, and fuel.   Its ecological significance, however, is the importance of its fruit to ruffed grouse, wild turkey, bobwhite, pheasant, black bear, raccoon, red and grey foxes, white-tailed deer, cottontail rabbit, many squirrels, porcupine and oppossum.   Near to this beech is a young Sugar Maple, which was planted to honour acclaimed Canadian authors and naturalists Margaret Atwood and her husband Graeme Gibson (see plaque photo below).   The Cawthra Mulock site is operated by Ontario Nature ( formerly Federation of Ontario Naturalists) and many of the tree plantings and site enhancements have been noted with markers such as this one.   The site can be reached from either Bathurst or Dufferin Streets (parking lot at both locations) 1/4 mile north of  Millers Sideroad.

Please comment if you wish.

BtheB     

Sparrow may join junco gang

Photo by BarrytheBirder

It's now November and the 40 or so Juncos in the backyard can't seem to get the one male White-throated Sparrow, who shares their seeds, to move on.   In fact, he may not move any further south.   For many years, the northern limit of White-throated Sparrows, in winter, has been the north shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.   I'm located just north of Toronto and I put out birdseed faithfully, all winter long, so this fellow may hang around.   Most birdwatchers know that White-throated Sparrows come in two flavours: their head stripes being either white or tan.   The one pictured above has tan stripes.   What I didn't know, until I opened Kenn Kaufman's 1996 book, Lives of North American Birds, was that the two colour morphs of White-throated Sparrows almost always mate with their opposite colour morph.   In other words, the white-striped male will usually mate with a tan-striped female, while the tan-striped male will mate with a white-striped female.   The different colour mixtures produce some slightly different behaviours also.   Kaufman notes that this bird is  common and widespread, but adds that surveys suggest slight declines in total numbers during recent decades.

Please comment if you wish.

BtheB

Pied-billed Grebes pass through

Photo by BarrytheBirder 

A pair of Pied-billed Grebes were the only migrants I spotted today.   They had stopped-over at Seneca College, near King City, and were busy diving for fish in Lake Jonda.   Of the four grebes which can be spotted in Ontario, The Pied-billed is the most likely to breed here but even then it is uncommon.   It has a short laterally compressed bluish-white bill which has a black ring during summer.   Other grebes have thinner, longer bills.   The name grebe is actually a french word and was borrowed into english in the mid-1700s.

BtheB

No more elk at Marylake

Photo by BarrytheBirder

Today I looked for birds along part of the Oak Ridges Trail at Marylake Augustinian Monastry, just south of the Sacred Heart catholic settlement in King Township.   I picked up the trail where it heads east from Jane Street (see photo below).   The trail follows the old fence line (see photo above) that marks the northern boundary of what was once the country estate of Sir Henry Pellatt, the builder and owner of Toronto's famed castle, Casa Loma.   Back in the 1920s and 1930s, Sir Henry's country estate boasted a hunting lodge from which he and friends hunted deer and elk.   The deer and elk were contained by an impressive  fence that enclosed several hundred acres of the estate.   Beaters would drive the animals past the hunters situated at the lodge, on the shore of the 40-acre Lake Marie.   In the photo above, the remains of the old fencing can be seen alongside the modern-day Oak Ridges Trail.   The cement posts rise 10' above the ground and support Page wire fencing, topped by six strands of barbed wire!

Photo by BarrytheBirder

A stout concrete pillar (see photo above) anchors part of the tall, one-time, deer fence along the Oak Ridges Trail.   The 10'-high fence is approximately 85 years old and although it no longer keeps deer and elk herds contained, many of its posts have a 21st-century use as trail markers for hikers.   You will no longer see an elk along this trail but White-tailed Deer are frequently spotted.

Please comment if you wish.

BtheB 

The Junco's job

Photo by BarrytheBirder

   The Junco has returned

and we have reached an agreement.

I will keep the feeders full

and he and thirty or so friends
will cajole me through the cold months.

Already the winter is shorter.

Please comment if you wish.

BtheB

How good can they be?

                                                                                                                                                               Photo by BarrytheBirder

I just spent a couple of days in the country, near Ottawa, and I spotted this sign on the side of the highway between Perth and Smith's Falls.   I think I know a bit about birds, but I know a lot less about eggs.   I was really curious to know what could be better than an organic egg, but  not curious enough to inquire at the farm.   Oh well, it's a provocative and attention-getting name and I'm sure it has helped to to attract an appreciative, local clientele.   Please comment if you wish.

BtheB

14 peanuts ~ 1 Blue Jay

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Photo by BarrytheBirder

mmBLUE JAYmm

Cyanocitta cristata

I watched this Blue Jay, above, stuff 14 peanuts into his craw, in one sitting, at a feeder in the backyard this morning.   And this was just one of many trips it made to the feeders.   It never made a trip that didn't result in at least three peanuts and usually twice that.   It made me wonder what the record might be for most peanuts in a Blue Jay's craw, crop and/or gullet, at one time.   I spent a bit of time trying to track this down but was unsuccessful.   Anyone out there have any idea?   By the way, it's latin name (Cyanocitta cristata) translates into blue, chattering bird.
Please comment if you wish.
BtheB  

Critters protecting critters

Photos by BarrytheBirder

Fences are the first line of protection for livestock on King Township farms but animals are showing up, more and more, as sentinels and protectors.   I have taken pictures previously of donkeys, burros, ponies, dogs, geese and llamas all fulfilling the roles of guardians.   The Great White Pyrenees dog (top) and the tuxedo-clad burro (above) were both doing their jobs, in the rain today, on nearby King/Vaughan Townline farms.  
Please comment if you wish.  

BtheB

Big birds everywhere

Big birds seemed to be the order of the day as I wandered about in the rain this afternoon.   Turkey vultures, Wild Turkeys and Canada Geese seemed to be everywhere.   Pictured here is a wet and sombre gathering of  20 Turkey Vultures overlooking the stream and valley beside the one-time Hamlet of Holy Park, in south-west King Township.   Not far away, I came across a flock of 14 Wild Turkeys which flew off in a great clatter of wings.   Normally, wild turkeys would rather run off but I had come upon them much too quietly and quickly.   And then there is the Canada Goose.   It seems every farm field hereabouts that has recently been harvested is now a buffet for our ubiquitous goose.   Whereas one is used to seeing a few dozen Canada Geese at a time, suddenly even the smallest field has hundreds of them and the big farms have thousands of them gleaning in the stubble.   Pictured below are Canada Geese in a recently-cut corn field, near the King Township hamlet of Strange.

Please comment if you wish.                                                                                        Photos by BarrytheBirder

BtheB

A BIG mistake!

What was I thinking?!?   Living with the fact, for just a little over a week, that I wasn't going to be writing this blog anymore made me quite miserable.   Who knew?!?  If you were one of the people who left a comment during the past 11 days and happen to stumble back upon this blog, please accept my sincere thanks for your kind words regarding what was supposed to be the end of  the BARRY the BIRDER's blogsite.   I hope to pick up where I left off, with one slight change.   I have always tried to present the joy, beauty and love in nature, knowing that the harsher sides of our natural world are readily available elsewhere.   I admit to often seeing nature through rose-coloured glasses.   From this point forward however, I'd like to occasionally comment, in a forceful tone, through words and pictures, on how our natural world is used and abused.   having said that, let me jump in with both feet  by sharing the following story.   At the same time as I was foolishly pulling the plug on BARRY the BIRDER, a reader, unaware of my imminent departure, took the time to send me a personal email in which she took great exception to something I didn't say, rather than to something I did say .   It was the blog about Luther Marsh, back in mid-September..   I had written about Luther Marsh through those unfortunate rose-coloured glasses.   I did make a comment about how unfortunate it was that hunting is part of the Luther Marsh reality.   I did not go into detail, however.   Someone seeing the overwhelming presence of the hunting reality at Luther Marsh, with their own eyes (which the reader had done), can be forgiven for seeing nothing but a killing field.   Luther Marsh is a wildlife protection area - until it is time to slaughter the wildlife.   Then it is a killing field.   The hunting state-of-mind is omnipresent and oppressive at Luther Marsh.   It is why I stopped going there many years ago to view birds.   The Luther Marsh Killing Fields are part of our reality, but I will be more forthcoming in the future about the reality of places I write about and their possible effect on those who have  not been comprehensively alerted to the grisly truth.
Please comment if you wish.
BtheB

-30-

In the newspaper world, where I spent almost my entire working life,  -30- is what a reporter types at the end of a story, to indicate to the editor, that the story is finished.   Although I wrote a story or two over a 40-year career in the newspaper publishing business, I was never a reporter.   But this newspaper story sign-off seems appropriate as I end my BarrytheBirder blogsite.   I'd been mulling this over for a while and today suddenly presented itself as the right time.   Rather abrupt, but right, I felt.   I have written 564 blogs over the past 2 1/2 years and have had just over 20,000 hits and 368 comments.   I enjoyed it immensely and will be very lucky to enjoy half as much, whatever I tackle next.   Best wishes, dear reader.
BtheB      

The promise of fall is nigh

Photo by BarrytheBirder

Fall colours have arrived slowly this year but a first frost, last night, might change that.   This King Township horse farm (above)  seems to need little more than that which already exists to convey the transformational aura of autumn.   I shall, however, take this picture again in a week or so and we shall see what transpires now that the nip in the air is for real.   Will it be ablaze or will it be brown?

BtheB 

Pesky crows a drudgery for hawks?

Photo by BarrytheBirder

I watched today as a pair of crows harassed a Rough-legged Hawk as it was heading southward, over King Township.   The hawk did make several evasive manoeuvres but otherwise seemed to take it in stride.   The encounter was short-lived and all the parties moved on.   However, I was left wondering how many times this happens to the hawk as it migrates from Canada's Arctic to the southern United States.   And in the far north, the protestors would be Ravens, a bird that is the same size, or even slightly bigger, than the Rough-legged Hawk.   The migrant raptors are probably harassed off-and-on all the way south.   And I thought all they had to do was just keep flying.   Please comment if you wish.

BtheB

The bird with the bright orange bib

                                                                                                                           Photo by Mpho Phiri

Cape Longclaw

Macronyx capensis

The photo above was taken by Mpho Phiri of Mafikeng, in northern South Africa.   Mpho is the current president of the Mafikeng Bird Club and he also is one the followers of my blog.   This photo of a Cape Longclaw is featured in his latest blog.   There is something that I really like about this bird and it's that remarkable throat colouring.   There are other species of Longclaws around and about, but I think I could identify this striking passerine anywhere...in South Africa that is.   There are six other Longclaw species in Africa and they all have fairly distinguishing appearances.   Many bear a passing resemblance to North American meadowlarks.   Google Mpho at Mafeking Birding Blog. 
Please comment if you wish.
BtheB 

Our skunk motto: live and let live

This is our resident skunk. She lives under our garden shed.   We have not given her a name, even though after all these years, she seems like part of the family.   Each year she raises a half-dozen or so babies which she will bestow upon the neighbourhood when she feels the time is right.   When that time is right, she will assemble her almost fully-grown brood and they will undulate, like a large, floating, black and white patchwork quilt, across the backyard and into the neighbour's yard and then on to some nether world; we know not where.

Somehow they will become separated.   She will manage to elude them all and return to her home-sweet-home which she will have all to herself again.  Amazingly, her offspring never seem to remember the way back.   They seem unable to retrace their steps by following her scented trail.   She has been doing this for years.   We admire her pluckiness but keep her exploits to ourselves (until now, I suppose).

Our paths seldom cross.   She is nocturnal.   We are diurnal.   When we do get too close for her comfort, there is a great stamping of feet, polka-like pivoting, flinging of her tail up over her back, and a beady stare and snort.   All of which serves to remind us that we do not enjoy absolute sole ownership of this little plot of garden.   How dare we!

Please comment if you wish.

BtheB

BarrytheBirder Photo