Close To Home

It never ceases to amaze me just how many birds I get right here in the middle of suburbia. I suppose I have the advantage of being in an established neighbourhood with lots of mature trees, and also right next to a park (even though that's mostly grass).

Still, I've tallied 35 species just in and around my yard. Which, considering that I can walk across my entire yard in three good-sized steps, isn't bad. Of those, Canada Goose and Red-tailed Hawk were just fly-overs (usually, anyway; a Red-tailed did land briefly in the tree just behind the house, and let me tell you those things are big up close). The species which are our usual customers are no surprise: Black-capped Chickadee, American Goldfinch, Northern Cardinal, Chipping Sparrow, Common Grackle, Brown-headed Cowbird, both Nuthatches.... etc, etc.

It's the rest that make it really interesting. I love my resident featherheads, but it's always fun when something new shows up. I had an Orange-crowned Warbler make a very brief visit, just once. Then there was The Year Of The Pine Siskin and The Year Of The Redpoll (separate events), in which we were nearly eaten out of house and home by winter flocks. There have been the occasional White-crowned Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, and Purple Finch drop by during migration. And just this week, I heard an Eastern Wood-Pewee calling from somewhere in the subdivision; I figure it must have gotten lost on its way to the forest or something.

You really can find the most unexpected birds in the most unexpected places. :D

Surprise!

Hunh! Apparently that Cape May Warbler I saw on my lunchtime walk was a lifer for me. I could have sworn I'd seen one before, but my eBird list doesn't lie.

Lucky #231.

Here We Go Again

The Grand River is quite low at the moment, so Riverside Park here in Guelph has some lovely mud flats which seem to be attracting shorebirds. I managed a short visit out there this morning to see who was around.


I really wanted one of these to be a Yellowlegs, but I'm pretty sure all four that I saw were Solitary Sandpipers. I honestly can't tell whether the legs are pure yellow or greenish-yellow, but they all had a really prominent white eye-ring, and that dark leading edge at the front of the wing.


Small peeps, which I think are all Least Sandpipers. They seem pretty dark overall, even on the throat, mostly with a cleanly-delineated line between dark breast and white belly (reminiscent of a Pectoral Sandpiper, really, though these are way too small for that). Noticeably smaller than the Semipalmated Plovers that they were with.


Northern Rough-winged Swallows were flying over the water, and hanging around the concrete wing-walls near the bridge. Wonder if they will nest there?


These pigeons caught my interest, because those are definitely not the average coloration. Wonder if they're escapees from someone's coop?


And finally, there's one late Bufflehead lady still hanging around. Silly bird, don't you know you're supposed to have moved on by now?