Birding, travel, wildlife and nature photography
Nice to get back to the Rio Grande Valley for a few days to visit the wonderful wildlife refuges where so many beautiful birds and butterflies find sanctuary …
Great Kiskadee
Roseate Spoonbills
Great Blue Heron
Black-bellied Whistling Duck
Long-billed Curlew
Tricolored Heron
Verdin
Clapper Rail
Queen Butterfly
Around here it’s hard not to encounter Coast Blacktail deer. Most days, I see a half dozen or more. Bucks in rut seem particularly oblivious, driven as they are by the mating urge. Today, a fine-looking fellow and at least one doe wander the shoreline within meters of passersby. He’s alert, watching and sniffing the air. What’s at stake? I took shots of two big bruisers from the neighbourhood on another October day. They’re not buddies. They’ve already had a huge battle on the roads and in gardens. Now they’re exhausted, pausing to catch their breath before they go at it again. There’s a lot at stake and they won’t stop only when one breaks off combat and leaves the field. The winner gets the does, like the chap in the bay above. The loser gets nothing. Not that a victorious buck can feel secure. There’s always a challenger.
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Burgenland – Salt pond, vineyards and Roe Deer
It’s October 4 and it’s late in the year for Austrian birds, especially migrants. To maximize our chances, V and I elect to take a tour with Leander Khil, the author of a (the) book on Austrian birds, to the salt sloughs around Neusiedelersee, Austria’s large, shallow, steppe lake. The National Park here is partly in Hungary and the terrain seems, to us, very Hungarian, an impression reinforced by a herd of Hungarian Grey Cattle. These animals, once common, almost went extinct. They’ve been brought back from the edge, beautiful beasts with cloud-grey hides and long, black-tipped horns. We also spot a herd of Przewalski’s Horse, sometimes abbreviated to P-Horse. They’re too far off to see properly, much less photograph — a moving band of cinnamon and sand off in the distance. I’m delighted nevertheless. I first read about this last of the wild horse when I was a kid and hoped one day to see them. And now I have.
Hungarian Grey Cattle
P-Horse — Last of the Wild Horses
We pass a romantic-looking hut and draw well complete with bucket and beam, protected by law. Although they look traditional they were ‘made up’ for 1950s era films about the Empress Elizabeth, or Sisi, around whom a kind of cult has grown. They’re now preserved as genuine shepherds’ huts rather than film sets and apparently are described so on tourist brochures. I doubt I’ve ever seen a better example of history as a construct. No picture – sorry, Sisi fans.
Greylag Geese
Curlew
Like most of Europe, Austria has suffered drought for several years. The seasonal salt ponds here have mostly dried up and are empty of shorebirds. A lone Greenshank flies over us, its call reminiscent of our Greater Yellowlegs, its North American cousin. We do spot several Eurasian Curlew happily harvesting bugs from grassy meadows but they’re as happy working the fields as they are the ponds, so the lack of water seems less important to them. Greylag Geese are here in abundance and there are many birds in the air – Skylark, Corn Bunting, European Siskin, Linnet, Goldfinch, Black Redstart and a European Jay. We make a side trip hoping for Crested lark. At first, nothing, but then one scampers out from behind a hay bale, followed by several more. Lovely birds with their pronounced crests. I’m fond of birds with crests. Cedar waxwings are one of my favourite birds. Northern Lapwings, fashionable crests blowing in the breeze, join the favourites list.
Crested Lark
Wheatear
Northern Lapwings
White Wagtail
Corn Bunting
Because the National Park is a late development, much of it consists of scattered patches interrupted by vineyards, their berries protected with nets. Sometimes farmers droop acres of large mesh nets over and between rows and kill hundreds of birds. Proper netting procedure protects the fruit much better and doesn’t destroy birdlife.
The Wrong Way to Protect Grapes
Long-eared Owl
We side trip to a village cemetery where people are hard at work cleaning and maintaining graves, so unlike what generally happens in North America. We’re here for Long-eared Owls, which roost in this graveyard in winter. It’s V. who spots the first and then a second and finally a third. Even when she points them out to me I find it hard to see the birds. The owls located, Leander takes to a wayside with a view for a delicious lunch of local products provide by St. Martin’s Therme and Lodge. Fantastic. Thanks Leander for being such an excellent and knowledgeable guide!
Roundhouse Railyards
A warm late summer day, or will be once the sun is up. September has a faded glory I especially like, with a touch of melancholy in it — a string quartet replacing summer’s brass band. Today I’m searching for rare sparrows, a Brewer’s at Panama Flats and a Lark Sparrow at the old rail yards in Vic West. Both birds are common in Arizona, certainly not here. I try for the Lark first. The yard is more or less deserted but there are zero birds up yet. After three quarters of an hour of fruitless searching, I’m ready to give up. I’m almost back at the car when I see a single bird coming in, a sparrow from its undulating flight. It lands next to the open door of a construction worker’s pickup, ignores the heavy metal music emanating from within, and begins to feed. It’s the Lark. Birds are weird sometimes! More and more pickups arrive and the noise level rises. Time to move on to Panama Flats and some peace and quiet. The Lark Sparrow couldn’t care less about that, apparently.
Lark Sparrow
At the Flats it’s warmer and brighter. The wintertime wet meadows are now dry fields, knee-deep in snow-white Chamomile with their butter-yellow centers. The flowers’ powerful musky perfume, if ‘perfume’ is the right word, clings to my clothing as I wade through. Not unpleasant but strong!
Panama Flats
Head-high Cattails, Queen Ann’s Lace, Horse-weed and Thistle, crowd in along the dyke trail. A pudgy vole sees me just in time and panics, his round rear end (is bum inappropriate?) disappearing into the weeds. I track him through rustling leaves, scurrying loudly away. He needs to be more careful. A Northern Harrier just floated past and there’s a dark Merlin hunting nearby, lightning fast and deadly. Incautious voles don’t last long anywhere.
Vole in a Hurry (recreation)
This is sparrow land. I catch a glimpse of the Brewer’s in a stunted willow but mostly it’s Savannah, White-crowned and Lincoln’s Sparrows that populate the Flats, shooting left and right out of the taller vegetation like tiny, spring-loaded feathered missiles. Lots of Goldfinches here too, flitting through the branches of the taller willows. It’s the end of summer and birds are gathering for pre-migration, a wonderful time. The rains will come soon, the rampant plant growth will die down and the ponds will refill just in time to welcome the flocks of returning waterfowl and shore birds.
Savannah Sparrow
Lincoln’s Sparrow
Goldfinch
I’m scratching, alternating between the mosquito bite on the heel of my hand and those on my ankles. Makes me think back to when my mom used to dot us boys with calamine lotion, which helped, I think, but not much. We had lots of mosquitoes where I grew up. In summer, the kids in my neighbourhood looked like they’d contracted some kind of plague, the symptoms of which were abundant bright pink blotches and continued scratching. But I digress. I’m at Swan Lake again in spite of continuing forest fire smoke. My first bird of the day should have clued me in. The top of a very tall conifer ought to put you out of the bug zone. Not so for the Osprey who, in spite of biting insects and smoke, manages a ‘see if I care’ look. No bug repellent for wild things!
Osprey Under Attack
I’m determined to bird today so I carry on. As long as I don’t linger in any one spot, I seem to be okay. Speed doesn’t make for easy birding however. Nothing seems to want to stay put, like me. A noisy gaggle of young Waxwings zips through the higher branches, too skittish to pause for pictures. Likewise, a Bewick’s Wren appears and poses just as I turn my camera off to save the battery, and then ducks away as the machine blinks back to life. Towhees and Fox Sparrows are especially furtive. After forty minutes of fruitless searching, I’m almost done. I have just one more trail to try. It takes me under the trees and into deep shade, which is suicidal. Never mind. I hurry like I’m crossing No-Man’s Land to get to my home trench. I’m literally turning on my heel to make a run for it when I spot a young Great Horned Owl. Figures. Now I don’t care about mosquitoes — well, that’s a lie. Still, with such a beautiful bird and such beautiful light, sacrifices had to made. Now, where did I put that calamine!
A Perfect Little River…
The woods around my hometown are beautiful in May. It’s a great time to walk up the Sydenham River towards Inglis Falls. I spent many boyhood hours on, or in, or near the Sydenham. In all seasons too. That hillside over there – the snow leaves it first. It’s a good place to cook a can of beans over a campfire and lie back to bask in the late winter sun. Dry, clean ground in a world of snow, the smell of wood smoke and caramelized beans. A memory. Around me the Trilliums and Dogtooth Violets are coming in nicely. And the greens – soft, warm, luminous and arrestingly pretty.
The burgeoning foliage has its downside for a birder. It’s much harder to spot the little guys. I trace a pert Ovenbird by its ‘teacher, teacher, teacher’ song. A line of bouncing leaves marks the passage of a Nashville Warbler intent on bug picking, ignoring a tail-flicking Redstart. Overhead a Baltimore Oriole flashes orange. Higher up above the ‘Mile Drive’ a couple of male Ruffed Grouse start to drum – the slow ‘whumpf — wumpf — wumpf’ quickly increasing in tempo and climaxing in a muffled and impressive super-grouse-sized roar.
I cut away to avoid a flooded section of path. My detour takes me past a memory – a patch of jumbled dolomite where long ago I stashed and later lost a canvas knapsack. A peripatetic porcupine, or several, ate it right down to the buckles. Nothing left but metal. In one night!
I lost a perfectly good cheese whiz and onion sandwich wrapped in wax paper to the prickly little guys too. Today I’d worry about the harm the white bread and canvas might do to the wildlife. I’m not sure I was feeling quite so equable at the time.
Red Trillium
Ovenbird
Nashville Warbler
Redstart
Baltimore Oriole
Redwing Blackbirds
I leave the river and head for the country roads. As always I check the rare bird reports wherever I go. The latest surprises me – three or four Snowy Owls seen in Grey and Bruce counties. Right now? Amazing! It’s the last bird I expected to see. Likely I won’t, not with my bird luck. I take up the chase anyway. It’s a compulsion after all and not entirely rational. I spend quite a few hours searching the countryside. I pick up a few good birds – wild Turkeys, a lone Sandhill Crane, an equally lone Broad-winged Hawk. No Owl though. By this time, I’m famished and I’d really like to stop for a late lunch. One last road to try and then I’ll stop. Just when I’m about to turn back, there it is – calm as can be, sitting on a boulder at the edge of a swale that’s likely teaming with rodents. There’s no way I can get close enough for a good photo but I’m happy, thrilled actually.
After lunch, I head back to the sparkling Sydenham, likely for the last time this year. Family dinner tonight and a visit with one of my cousins. Tomorrow I’ll head south to Toronto and then the flight home. I’ll leave early just in case there’s a rare bird or two to ‘pick up’ on the way down. I’ve still got the bug.
Snowy Owl
Tree Swallow
Redstart – Female
Wild Turkey
The Mile Drive
A River Runs Through It
American Avocets and Coots
Burrowing Owls – I can’t seem to get these little guys. By ‘get’, I mean ‘add to my list’, not as in ‘I don’t understand them’. Although I don’t. Anyway, I’m determined on this trip — steely-eyed. The owls are ‘reliable’ in the intensely agricultural Imperial Valley south of the Salton Sea. It’s a curiosity, the Salton Sea. An accident. Sort of. Being below sea level the Salton is a sink soaking up seasonal runoff. Boy, that’s a lot of ‘s’s!
In centuries past, runoff created a lake, which the sun quickly evaporated away. Then about 1905 or so, a water company goof let the Colorado River fill the basin and suddenly the folks in Palm springs and LA had a big beautiful lake to visit. Great! Resort communities sprang up; probably Bogie and Bacall spent time here. In the a 1950’s it was a Beach Blanket Bingo kind of a place. That was then. Nowadays, almost no new water comes in and the lake is shrinking under the hot desert sun. Did I mention the smell? It has an unusual bouquet and when the wind’s in the wrong quarter, it’s fierce. If nothing changes, all the fish will die within seven years — even the hardy African Tilapia. Birds will suffer too as water levels drop. Where will the migrating flocks go to replenish their energy when the Sea is gone? Who knows?
The change is happening now. Three years ago squadrons of White Pelicans cruised the Sea; today not a single bird. Maybe there just aren’t enough fish anymore. Maybe the Pelis are at the other end of the lake. Lots of birds still come – they have to – but fewer and fewer every year they say.
But I need to lighten up. It’s not all doomsday. There are folks trying to get more water for the Sea. The birding’s still good. American Avocets, which don’t need the Tilapia, still work the retreating edge of the water picking up brine shrimp. They are tall, pretty shorebirds with their French lawyer robe colouring and upturned bills. I can vouch for the upturned bill, not the other.
Waterfowl in Transit
The Sonny Bono Wildlife Refuge has Burrowing Owls — or they’re close by at any rate. Just inside the Refuge, a Roadrunner ambles by and then darts off looking, I suppose, for a snake or lizard for breakfast. Some Gambel’s Quail chuckle their way through the undergrowth. On some ponds, huge numbers of waterfowl rest on their way north; on others amazing numbers of shorebirds, including dozens of Dowitchers.
Roadrunner
Gambel’s Quail
Dowitchers
I stop at the Refuge office for tips and also to ask about Sonny. Politicians tack their names on projects in which they otherwise have little interest but Sonny, once mayor of Palm Springs, really cared. So, thanks Sonny, (though not necessarily for “I Got You Babe)! As for the owls – “just walk out to the end of the parking lot and look right.” Which I do. In the wild, they’d use the abandoned burrows of other animals as they don’t dig their own. Here people have installed nesting pipes. And there they are, right on their doorstep, taking in the morning sun. So easy. How come it took me so long to get ’em’?
Burrowing Owls
