What a surprise!!! A South Polar Skua in the Grand River – blown in by the strong southerly winds. You would have thought it was an April Fool’s prank.
What a start! A big dark bird flew low over the river. I couldn’t believe my eyes but I thought it was a South Polar Skua!!!! I don’t think one has ever been seen in Ontario. But I wasn’t sure so I grabbed the can of sardines from the lab (we keep one handy to bait live traps when cats find the nets) and gave it to Carol. She jumped in her car and drove half a kilometer upstream (on the highway of course) and dumped the oily fish into the Grand River. My thinking was that the odour of the fish would bring the skua in to check things out as the oil slick moved downstream toward Ruthven. In fact, we were “chumming” seabirds on the Grand River. And it worked! Fifteen minutes later I saw the skua riding high on the floodwater moving quickly downstream with the flow and was able to get a good picture. The only explanation for its presence was that it had got caught up in the strong southerly storm winds that blew through the night.
Firsts of the year: the junco was the first bird banded in the new Spring season; the muffins (low-fat I was reassured) were the first gustatory offerings of the new season.
There was plenty of other bird activity at Ruthven this morning. Birds were on the move with the strong south winds. We started off with a Dark-eyed Junco and it just got better. We had a number of surprises: a Purple Martin showed up to check out the nest boxes; a flock of 10 very early (for us) Golden-crowned Kinglets piled into Net 4; a very early Common Loon went through – at the wind-assisted speed it was moving at, I think it could make Georgian Bay in 3 hours. When the dust settled we had banded 44 birds and retrapped another 17 for a total of 61 birds handled.
A flock of 10 Golden-crowned Kinglets was a big surprise in Net 4 – half and half, male to female.
Hard to tell from this picture…..but this is a very early Purple Martin!
An early Field Sparrow.
This was a really good total considering that when we started the morning only the feeder nets were up. My trip to Costa Rica and the rain yesterday had slowed putting the nets in place – we got all but one (#10) done. We’ll do it after the AGM tomorrow morning. [You’re all welcome to attend! Bruce Murphy from Hilliardton Marsh near New Liskeard will be talking about catching and banding Long-eared Owls and Hummingbirds.]
Killdeer on last year’s nest site.
Male American Goldfinch moulting into alternate or breeding plumage.
Turkey Vultures were on the move today.
A male Eastern Bluebird checking out the Tree Swallow situation – getting ready for the battles to come.
Banded 44:
1 Downy Woodpecker
1 Black-capped Chickadee
10 Golden-crowned Kinglets
1 American Robin
7 American Tree Sparrows
1 Field Sparrow
3 Song Sparrows
11 Dark-eyed Juncos
2 Brown-headed Cowbirds
7 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 37 spp.
Rick