Every Spring for the last 5 years, our yard is visited by 2 Fox Sparrows. They always stop by in May and spend a few days. I always look forward to their arrival; they are beautiful birds and they have the nicest song of all sparrows. I was never able to get a good photo of them in the past; they mostly stay on the ground, doing their continuous little "kicking backward" motion to get food so most of my photos were blurry. This Spring, however, the day before they left, one was kind enough to perch on a branch and pose for me.
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Fox Sparrow / Bruant fauve
South Porcupine (May 2014) |
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Fox Sparrow / Bruant fauve
South Porcupine (May 2014) |
A lot of fields and roadsides are flooded and there's still some snow in the forest. One of our favorite birding rural road got washed away so we had to find new ones for now. We discovered a new marsh, where I was able to watch my first Pied-billed Grebe sink like a submarine. It's quite impressive! I wish I had a video but all I got is this photo.
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Pied-billed Grebe / Grèbe à bec bigarré
(May 2014) |
I was very happy to see my first yard Warblers last week; a Nashville Warbler and a Black-and-white Warbler. Warblers love our Tamarack trees. At Frederick House Lake, we saw our first Cliff Swallows of the year; they were already hard at work under the bridge. We also saw our first Bonaparte's Gulls of the spring.
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Bonaparte's Gull / Mouette de Bonaparte
Frederick House Lake (May 2014) |
We also spotted a group of at least 28 Double-crested Cormorants under the railway bridge at Frederick House Lake. For some reason, this number was flagged on eBird as being a too large quantity for the date and for our location but the truth is, we see more and more Cormorants every year in this area so I wasn't surprised by this group. This is becoming a common sight in Northern Ontario.
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Double-crested Cormorant / Cormoran à aigrettes
Frederick House Lake/river (May 2014) |
Nice shots of the fox sparrow. Forgot to look for the cliff swallows yesterday - we were right there. With regards to large numbers of birds, I get warnings with just about everything over 20. I hope we can find some way to assure eBird that seeing 50 lesser scaups on a lake is not that big a deal. :)
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the eBird review system is so important to assure a high quality standard. It's such a great system and the volunteers are doing a good job at maintaining data quality. And for some species, I'm wondering if the fact that there's not a lot of users in our district has something to do with some of the reviews; for example, there might be a lack of previous reports to confirm the fact that certain species are common in our area.
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