Early Spring Explorations In Southern Ontario

Since returning from my recent tour of Colombia's central Andes in March I have been getting back into the birding scene locally in southern Ontario. The last few weeks have been especially birdy and a wide range of species have been reported across the province. April and May is the most wonderful time of the year, indeed. 

Bufflehead - Tommy Thompson Park, City of Toronto, Ontario

One of the most exciting aspects of birding for me personally (and, I would argue, for a high percentage of birders) is the chance to see a rare bird. The spring rarity season gets going sometime in early to mid April and continues until early June. And due to the large influx of new birders over the last few years, more and more rare birds are reported each year. I've been fortunate to find several of these rarities this spring, while I have also chased additional rarities found by others. 

Tufted Duck - Erieau pier, Chatham-Kent, Ontario

In early April I had the opportunity to chase two rarities in Hamilton, both of which I had never seen locally before. The first was a Barnacle Goose found by Sarah Koeppe just east of the city. This is an Eurasian species that has appeared more and more frequently in the northeast, and Ontario now sees several records each year. Most of these are birds traveling with large Canada Geese flocks in eastern Ontario, but the occasional individual ends up further west, like this one in Hamilton. The bird was a little distant for good photos, but you take what you can get! While there has been a trend in recent years for Ontario's Barnacle Geese records to be accepted as wild birds, there is always the chance that this one originated in captivity, especially since it wasn't traveling with a large flock of migrant Canada Geese. We will see what the Ontario Bird Records Committee decides when they vote on this record. 

Barnacle Goose - City of Hamilton, Ontario

The second Hamilton rarity was a Loggerhead Shrike found by Ezra Campanelli about ten days later, only a few kilometres from the Barnacle Goose's location. I managed good scope views of this bird but it ducked back down into the long grass before I could manage a photo. Still, a great bird to see in my area! Loggerhead Shrikes breed in a couple of places in southern Ontario, including the Napanee Plain and Carden Alvar, but the population is only a few dozen pairs. Very occasionally one is seen elsewhere in southern Ontario during the migration season. 

Switching gears from rare birds for a moment. Early spring is such a dynamic time of year and there is so much new life in the natural world with each passing day. One of my favourite spectacles is the mass breeding events of our local salamander species. It had been a few years since I had seen this, mainly because I have been out of the country on birding trips during March, but this year Laura and I made it out to the ponds for a night in early April. We made it a date night - a lovely dinner at an excellent restaurant in Cambridge, followed by a change of clothes and a night out at the ponds!

It was a cool evening with temperatures in the single digits and projected to reach close to the freezing mark, but salamander activity in the ponds was still high shortly after sunset. ​

Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) - Waterloo Region, Ontario

As we slowly waded in the shallows of a vernal pond near Cambridge, our flashlights periodically caught the striking pattern of a Spotted Salamander lying motionless on the bottom. During warm nights their activity is much higher, with the salamanders moving frenetically as the males eagerly attempt to woo a female. Sometimes, "mating balls" of multiple males and a single female can be observed; a hypnotic dance in the watery depths.

Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) - Waterloo Region, Ontario

American Woodcocks performed their iconic displays overhead as Laura and I moved between ponds. We kept finding Spotted Salamanders and located a few Blue-spotted Salamanders as well; they were heavily outnumbered by the Spotted Salamanders. Also of note were several Eastern Newts patrolling the ponds. These semi-aquatic salamanders often feast on the eggs of Spotted and Blue-spotted Salamanders, of which there were many clusters that had been laid on vegetation below the water's surface. Laura apprehended one of the newts for a few photos before releasing it back into the icy water. 

Eastern Newt (Notophthalmus viridescent) - Waterloo Region, Ontario

The final highlight was a Four-toed Salamander that I found resting on some leaves floating on the water's surface. This is a sphagnum moss specialist; in April, females lay their eggs deep inside a cluster of sphagnum lining a wetland. Presumably, this individual was on its way to do just that, though the middle of this vernal pond was a strange location to see a Four-toed. I typically think of them as a largely terrestrial species. 

Four-toed Salamander (Hemidactylium scutatum)

A few days after our salamander escapades, I hit the road and drove down to the Rondeau area to look for another rare bird - this time, a Tufted Duck. 

Much like the Barnacle Goose from earlier in this post, the Tufted Duck is also a vagrant from Eurasia. This species seems to appear on the east coast of North America rather frequently and there are usually one or two records a year in southern Ontario. This one was discovered at the Erieau pier/marina by Garry Sadler and it hung around for quite a while, allowing many birders to see this rarity. 

Tufted Duck - Erieau pier, Chatham-Kent, Ontario

While I had seen Tufted Ducks a few times previously in the province I had never managed a really good photo of one, and so that was my goal on this sunny, cold early April day. I ran into several young birders; Markus Legzdins and Alex Skevington, and together we found the Tufted Duck loosely associating with some Lesser Scaup. The sun was at the right angle and the birds were not too distant, allowing me a chance at the photos I had envisioned. 

Tufted Duck and Lesser Scaup - Erieau pier, Chatham-Kent, Ontario

For me, the "money shot" was when it quickly flapped its wings after a few successful dives for mollusc prey. 

Tufted Duck - Erieau pier, Chatham-Kent, Ontario

I will finish this post with some highlights from a two-day private tour I led for a birder, Chung Cheong, from Singapore who was in southern Ontario for work and had a few extra days free for some birding. On our first day, I picked him up from his hotel in Niagara-on-the-Lake and we had an excellently productive day of birding in Niagara and Hamilton before I dropped him off at his hotel. The day began with a few unusual sightings - first, a leucitic American Robin that flew across the road in front of the car (it took me a second to figure out what the robin-sized, frosty bird was!), and then, a rare Forster's Tern flying along the Niagara River near the Queenston docks. This is a regular rarity in Niagara with usually a couple of records each spring. 

American Robin (leucistic) - Niagara-on-the-Lake, Niagara Region, Ontario

Owls are usually high on people's wish lists, and it was no different for Chung Cheong. Given the time of year most species had already flown north, but one that we had good chances at was the Great Horned Owl. I had a nest with young staked out and they performed beautifully for us. 

Great Horned Owl - Niagara Region, Ontario

The Grimsby Lagoons produced many new birds for the day including a locally rare Common Gallinule and some Eastern Meadowlarks. We finished the day at Valley Inn in Burlington where good photographic opportunities abounded. A first-of-season Osprey carrying a Yellow Perch was a nice way to finish off the day. 

Dark-eyed Junco - Burlington, Halton Region, Ontario

For our second day together, Chung Cheong and I focused on some sites within the City of Toronto. The morning was calm and sunny; gorgeous conditions for a long walk out on Tommy Thompson Park. 

Tree Swallow - Tommy Thompson Park, City of Toronto, Ontario

As we approached Cell 1, we noticed several Wood Ducks floating around and so we repositioned ourselves so that the sun was at our backs. This was one of Chung Cheong's big photographic targets and so we locked in on the ducks. 

Wood Ducks - Tommy Thompson Park, City of Toronto, Ontario

I noticed a smallish cormorant perched on some woody debris and snapped a few photos. Something about this cormorant seemed off for Double-crested Cormorant (our only species locally), and I considered the possibility of Neotropic Cormorant, a rarity in southern Ontario. I wasn't sure at the time and didn't look at the photos closely enough, though in the back of my mind I knew I needed to revisit the photos later on a computer screen. We were distracted by all the ducks and the cormorant was forgotten. 

Blue-winged Teals - Tommy Thompson Park, City of Toronto, Ontario

The rest of our birding was great - we found over 50 bird species at Tommy Thompson including a Northern Harrier and many other spring migrants like Savannah Sparrow, Horned Grebe and Red-necked Grebe. We also stopped by High Park and Colonel Samuel Smith Park, adding several lifers to Chung Cheong's list. I dropped him off at Toronto's Pearson International Airport after a very successful two days of birding. 

Northern Harrier - Tommy Thompson Park, City of Toronto, Ontario

Two days later, I saw a message on Discord (the messaging app we use to report rare birds in Ontario) from Nate Klassen about a Neotropic Cormorant that he had just found at Tommy Thompson Park. Suddenly the thought of the suspicious small cormorant came back to me, and I rushed to my computer to upload the photos. Sure enough, upon closer inspection it was the same bird, an immature Neotropic Cormorant. Full credit to Nate for finding this bird independently and identifying it correctly in the field. It was a good lession in humility as a birder and to closely scrutinize every bird at the time. As someone who has been an experienced birder for quite a while, I often say that the difference between a new birder and an experienced birder is that the experienced birder has misidentified more birds. 

The Neotropic Cormorant was a new bird species for Tommy Thompson's all time list, number 324 all-time. Fortunately, the cormorant hung around for a couple of weeks, allowing many other birders to see it and add it to their lists, so there was no harm/no foul for my blunder. 

Neotropic Cormorant - Tommy Thompson Park, City of Toronto, Ontario