Showers

April showers supposedly bring May flowers. So standby for Southern Ontario to be the garden capital of the world. April was – not to mince words – bleak. “Colder than normal temperatures predominated”, which is weatherperson speak for “there was no Spring this year”. By mid-April there was still significant ice cover on lakes Great and small. A significant dump of snow and freezing rain on the 16^th didn’t help:  inter alia it caused the Blue Jays game to be cancelled when large chunks of ice plummeting from the CN Tower put a big hole in the roof of Skydome.

The birds, sensibly, opted to stay put in sunnier climes, proving once again that Sibley’s, Peterson’s and the National Geographic so-called bird guides do not actually guide birds.

Carrying On

Nonetheless the quest for 250 continued. With a fair amount of hard graft and a dollop of luck here and there I added a few more specimens to my year list. Of course, it wouldn’t be proper birding without the odd bootless quest involving a zero-dark thirty wakeup, a long drive and hours of staring into the cold wind to no avail. In this case it was a Ruff and a Snowy Egret in some nameless wet field near Arnprior, both of whom evaded my grasp. And I got to hear the words all birders dread: “You should have been here half an hour ago.”

Which leads to the first Rule of Bird Acquisition for a future Big Year, should I be masochistic enough to try for 300:

• When a real rarity shows up (or two real rarities in this case), go now. Do not wait for tomorrow morning.
• And the corollary: If you have to get up at an ungodly hour, the difference between 0500 and 0400 is marginal. The additional pain is transitory; the pain of missing a mega rarity is a lasting wound.

So… on to the

April highlights

Algonquin Park with Paul, Richard and Dianne yielded epic views of Spruce Grouse and a re-look at the winter finches. Once again the accursed Black-backed Woodpecker made itself scarce.

At Prince Edward Point with the same gang plus Erwin we managed to see a Surf Scoter about a kilometre offshore. Good bird, not rare but hard to find.

At Marshlands Conservation Area I not only saw the scarce Fox Sparrow, but managed to get some decent pictures.

Under the Life’s Like That rubric I drove to Oshawa and stood for a couple of hours grilling[1] gulls way offshore before I had a confirmed Little Gull. Some days later at Kaiser Crossroads I had at least 17 Little Gulls at close range.

And I did add one real rarity – a White-winged Dove has decided to take up residence in Sandhurst Shores, a wee community half an hour from home.

Slow Motion Showers

For Bird Nerds, the day-by-day line scores for additions to the list:

April

• 11 Apr – Leeds County: Red-shouldered Hawk, Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Bluebird, White-throated Sparrow, Rusty Blackbird, Tree Swallow
• 11 Apr – Amherstview Sewage Lagoons: Northern Shoveler
• 12 Apr – Whitney: Sandhill Crane
• 12 Apr – Algonquin Provincial Park: Spruce Grouse
• 17 Apr – Doug Fluhrer Park, Kingston: Bonaparte’s Gull, Caspian Tern, Pied-billed Grebe
• 20 Apr – Prince Edward Point: Surf Scoter, Wilson’s Snipe, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
• 21 Apr – Helen Quilliam Sanctuary, Frontenac County: Winter Wren
• 22 Apr – Lennox Generating Station: Blue-winged Teal
• 22 Apr – Lennox & Addington County: Greater Yellowlegs
• 23 Apr – Marshlands CA, Kingston: Virginia Rail, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Hermit Thrush, Fox Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow
• 24 Apr – Oshawa Harbour: Little Gull, Barn Swallow
• 24 Apr – Second Marsh, Oshawa: Swamp Sparrow
• 24 Apr – Cranberry Marsh, Whitby: Dunlin, Lesser Yellowlegs, Common Tern
• 28 Apr – Lanark County: Broad-winged Hawk, Upland Sandpiper, Brown Thrasher, Pine Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Field Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow

May

• 3 May – Prince Edward Point: Cliff Swallow, House Wren, Veery, Yellow Warbler, Palm Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Bobolink, Black-crowned Night-heron
• 3 May – Lennox & Addington County: White-crowned Sparrow, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, White-winged Dove
• 4 May – Downtown Kingston: Chimney Swift (Ontario bird #150 for 2018)
• 4 May – Lemoine Point CA, Kingston: Northern Rough-winged Swallow

So that’s it for April’s update. The May Showers – when the skies darken with migrating warblers – are upon us. Stay tuned for the next episode, when Andy, Mike and I go Into the Vortex.

[1] i.e. staring at them one by one through a telescope, looking for infinitesimal differences.