Tag Archives: birding

Biggish Bird Year – Mission complete

January 22, 2019 Anthony 6 Comments

Bird: White-crowned Sparrow — White-crowned Sparrow. 3 May 18. Bird #147

So for 2018, my first year as a full-time birder, I set out to see 250 bird species in Ontario. By mid-October my year list was at 270, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to find new targets. I opined that there were maybe five more birds that I could reasonably hope to find by year-end. So how did that bold prediction pan out?

October continued to be good to me, and I was able to add a Hudsonian Godwit on Ault Island (near Morrisburg), a Lesser Black-backed Gull at the Lafleche landfill site, and a Eurasian Wigeon (the foreign cousin of our American Wigeon) along the St Lawrence Causeway.

Bird: Hudsonian Godwit — Grainy long-distance shot of a Hudsonian Godwit. 17 Oct 18. Bird #271

November

Then, depression set in. I contracted some sort of perfidious virus and was essentially out of commission for the month of November. My November list was the nine birds I could see out the back window. Sadly, this meant that I missed out on a mega-rarity: the first Ontario record and third Canada record of a Calliope Hummingbird, which hung around Goderich until it was seen by every birder in Ontario except me. J’étais triste en maudit.

Bird: Northern Cardinal — Northern Cardinal. First sighting of the year on 11 Jan 18. Bird #50

December

Fortunately, the worm started to turn in December. I headed off to Niagara Falls with my new birding pal Bruce to take in the
the Ontario Field Ornithologists’ Gull ID weekend. The event consisted of an ID lecture on Saturday afternoon and a field trip to the Niagara Gorge on Sunday. The gorge regularly produces rare gulls in the winter when conditions are right, so hopes were high.

Bird: Ring-billed Gull — Ring-billed Gull. First sighting of the year on 1 Jan 18. Bird #26

Most participants arrived at the Falls on Friday evening, so Bob Highcock and the Peninsula Field Naturalists kindly organized a field trip on Saturday morning to the piers at Port Weller. It was an excellent day out and we had great views of, inter alia, Red-throated Loon. I had seen the species in May at extreme telescope range, so it was nice to see one cavorting in the water 100 metres offshore.

I also was fortunate to add a new bird to the year list – a small flock of Common Redpolls made a brief appearance. Redpolls are normally a bird of the boreal forest, but 2018 was an irruption year, where a shortage of food drives finch species farther south than they normally roam. This turned out to be the first of several sightings of Common Redpoll, including a lone individual that visited our backyard feeder a couple of times.

Gulls

The Gull Weekend itself was a slight disappointment. The ID workshop, run by Justin Peter, was excellent, but sadly we were blessed with unseasonably warm and sunny weather on Sunday. On the plus side it was much more comfortable as we spent motionless hours telescoping gulls in the windswept Niagara Gorge. On the minus side there was no reason for deep water gulls to come in off the lake and seek shelter in the gorge. As a result, no real rarities were seen, though we had good views of Iceland, Lessser Black-backed and Little Gulls among the hordes of Herring Gulls. And on the way home Bruce introduced me to Earl the Eastern Screech Owl, who was roosting happily in a spruce tree.

Bird: Eastern Screech Owl — Eastern Screech Owl. 2 Dec 18. (Heard 10 Feb 18) Bird #74

Finding the Last Bird

Pine Grosbeak is another bird that irrupted south in late 2018, so when a flock was reported to have visited a crab apple tree in nearby Amherstview I went on the prowl. Two hours of watching the tree in question produced but a chickadee or two. With a heavy heart I turned for home, only to note a commotion in a mountain ash bush in the parking lot of an apartment block one street over from the Tree of No Birds. And there they were, happily feeding. Bird #275.

Bird: Pine Grosbeak — Pine Grosbeak. 8 Dec 18.

On Dec 16^th I participated in the Kingston Christmas Bird Count, which was remarkable only for the extreme paucity of birds in the area covered by me and Chris Heffernan. However on the ferry ride back from Wolfe Island someone mentioned that a Greater White-fronted Goose had been spotted on the grounds of the Royal Military College. Needless to say we sped there with all dispatch and spotted the blighter almost immediately. So a bird that I had chased unsuccessfully four times in the bleak fields outside of Ottawa turned up fat and happy about 900m from my front door. I admired the beast at close range, suppressed the urge to throttle it for its perfidy[1], and made off.

One Last Twitch

It had been agreed that we would spend Christmas with my brother-in-law’s family in Mississauga. This was not a hardship because (a) we all get on well, (b) our niece’s firstborn would be there, and (c) several juicy rare birds had been seen recently in the Golden Triangle. For boxing day my bride kindly agreed to accompany me on a birding foray, and though we dipped on the Eurasian Collared-doves in Hamilton, we managed to spot and photograph a flock of 58 Bohemian Waxwings near Caledon. Bohemian Waxwing is a holarctic species, meaning it breeds in the boreal forest in North America and Eurasia. They regularly irrupt from Scandinavia to England and Scotland in winter, but in seven years of living in the UK I had managed to see exactly 1/58^th of the number we saw in Caledon. And since I had also managed up to then so see exactly zero in Canada, it was a great find.

So the year was just about up, but there was one potential target left. Short-eared Owls are annual, though scarce visitors to Wolfe and Amherst Islands. Most owls are nocturnal hunters and thus hard to see, but Short-ears are crepuscular – they tend to hunt at dawn and dusk as well. (They are known to hunt during the day when vole populations are high, including on 19 January 2019… but that’s another story). So in principle it’s a simple task. All one has to do is go to Amherst Island, find a vantage point that looks over short grassy fields, and wait, with one eye on the landscape and the other watching the clock. And in the fifteen minute window between sunset and the last safe moment to catch the five o’clock ferry, owls might appear. And since I have gone through this long-winded exposition, you have doubtless already guessed that this is exactly what happened.

Bird: Cooper's Hawk — Cooper’s Hawk at dawn. Bird #1

So there we were – year bird #278. Being a good citizen I drove home and parked before breaking out the single malt.

Good Company

As I noted in an earlier post, one of the essential elements of birding success is good company. I was privileged to share the long miles, long hours, hits and misses with a fine group of birders. I will no doubt forget a few names, but key birding pals in this endeavour have included:

My bride Lynn (“Sure, let’s go to Rainy River”)
Andy and Mike from the AOS (3663km, 198 species, 10 Tim Hortons, 12 beer species)
My birding mentor Dr Paul (“Let’s go get that Kiskadee!”)
The North Leeds Birders, especially Jim, Ken, Janis, and Kathy (“What time is coffee break?”)
Erwin and Sandra (“I know a few good spots for….. “)
Richard and Dianne (“We’re in!”)
OFO trip leaders Justin, Pete, Tyler, Josh and Jeremy (“Gulls are cool”)
KFN trip leaders including Peter, Kurt and Gaye (“You never know what we’ll see”)
Jon Ruddy and his gang of Eastern Ontario Birders (“I will find you a Ross’s Goose!”)
Pauliina and Meg (“Sure, let’s go there. It’s kinda on the way”)
Bruce (“It’s always the right time to chase a rarity”)

The final statistics are:

278 bird species in Ontario, of which I saw 277 and heard but didn’t see one (Eastern Whip-poor-will – an invisible bird with a very distinctive call)
1 additional species seen from Ontario but sitting in Lewiston N.Y. (Which I refused to include in my Ontario list. Unlike, harrumph, at least 30 eBird listers who apparently take a more expansive view of what goes on their ONTARIO lists).
17 new life birds
24 species seen previously but not in Ontario

(For comparison purposes we saw 266 species in Costa Rica in ten days).

Sites Visited

National Parks and National Wildlife Areas – 6
Provincial Parks – 6
Other parks – 11
Conservation Areas – 17
Bird Observatories – 2
Sewage Treatment Facilities and Landfill Sites – 11

Distance Travelled – approximately 19,000 km

Circumference of the Earth – 40,075km

[1] To be precise for the perfidy of its species. It seemed unfair to make this one individual a scapegoose.

Birds

Effort

October 16, 2018 Anthony Leave a comment

Effort = Results

In principle the goal of seeing 250 birds in Ontario in a year should be achievable. You just need to expend a lot of effort looking, and make sure you go to the right places at the right times.

I did spend a lot of time looking, and largely in the right places, and lo and behold, hit the magic 250 mark on June 26^th with a Least Bittern in the Moscow Marsh.

Having thus set a low standard and achieved it, I could have justifiably hung up my metaphorical skates for the year. But, you will be shocked to hear, I didn’t. The new goal became “how high can I go?”

There are a number of reasons for pushing on. In no particular order:

The forward-thinking reason. Someday I will do an official Big Year (300 birds) so all the effort put into finding birds this year and the lessons learned will pay dividends in the future.
The practical reason. I will be out birding anyway so why not focus on birds I can add to the list?
The nefarious reason. Once I stop birding three or more days a week I might have to do more of the useful but tedious things on my task list.

So, bird on it is!

However, the salient point about passing the 250 mark is that by then I had seen all the readily-seeable birds. Further progress would require not only continued effort, but also greater focus on planning where and when to see the missing birds. So the new equation is:

Effort + Homework + Good Company + Luck = Results

Homework is a key aspect that separates serious birders from people who like to look at birds. The ability to recognize the 291 species that (allegedly)[1] breed in Ontario, in all their various plumages (juvenile, breeding, non-breeding) comes from many hours of studying field guides and websites. Having started later in life and spent most of my birding time in the UK, I had a lot of catching up to do, but I have managed to get a reasonable grip on most species. Let’s say B+ in the more common birds, C+ in scarcities, and C with a Most Improved Student award in non-breeding warblers.

Knowing when and where to look for specific tricky species used to be in the realm of ancient lore, knowledge built up over a lifetime of birding and shared sparingly. The digital world has changed that, and we now have resources like E-bird that can help us narrow down the dates and sites where birds are likely to be seen.

But it also really helps to have additional sets of eyes at that time and place, especially if those eyes belong to better birders. Good company can skew the odds in your favour.

Still, for all the homework and effort you and your companions put in, the bird has to decide to (a) go to the anointed place at the anointed time, (b) be in a part of that place that is accessible to birders, and (c) make itself visible. This is where the perfidiousness of certain species comes into play. Nelson’s Sparrows, for example, typically pass through Southern Ontario in the first week of October. They favour wet, weedy reedbeds, where they skulk like mice and mostly refuse to show themselves. So luck is a key factor in the later parts of the year.

New Additions

How lucky have I been? Herewith an annotated list of birds seen and not seen since bird #250:

251 – Northern Bobwhite. 27 June near the Moscow Dump. Very scarce bird. Sheer luck.

252 – Eastern Whip-poor-will. 3 July, Prince Edward County. The birds had been calling for a few weeks along a remote country road. Homework + effort.

X – Chuck-will’s-widow. Prince Edward County. Calling near the Whip-poor-wills for a few weeks. Last heard the night before I went looking for it. Lack of effort.

253 – Little Blue Heron. The bird had been present for a few days. I was visiting family in the Toronto area so it was only a two-hour drive, and the bird made itself visible. Effort and Luck.

Effort - Little Blue Heron — Little Blue Heron

X – Yellow-crowned Night Heron. Cambridge. Had been seen well in the river for a week or more. The first day that it didn’t show up was the day I visited. Bad luck, but a consolation prize for effort in recognition of the THREE AND A HALF HOURS I spent standing on that bridge. At least I got to practise some birds-in-flight photography.

254-255 – Red Knot, Baird’s Sandpiper. 26 August, Presqu’ile. Good shorebird habitat during peak migration. Homework + effort.

Effort - Baird's Sandpiper — Baird’s Sandpiper

256 – Western Sandpiper. 26 August, Presqu’ile. Rare migrant. Luck (the bird was there) and good management (birding with a guy – Jon Ruddy – that could actually recognize a Western Sandpiper).

Effort - Western Sandpiper — Western Sandpiper

257 – Pectoral Sandpiper. 3 September, Morven. Good shorebird habitat during peak migration. Effort and homework. And a bit of luck as Pectoral is not a typical bird for this site.

Effort - Pectoral Sandpiper — Pectoral Sandpiper – Blenheim Sewage Lagoons

258 – Short-billed Dowitcher. 5 September, Brighton. Effort (it was at the end of a long, hot day) and good company. Bill Gilmour mentioned that the sewage lagoon was worth a look as they had cut back some of the reeds; Jim Thompson identified the bird while my dehydrated brain was still trying to process it.

Effort - Short-billed Dowitcher — Short-billed Dowitcher in the weeds

259 – Great Kiskadee. 15 September, Rondeau Provincial Park. Good company (my friend and birding mentor Paul Mackenzie), gold star for effort (we left Kingston at 0100 hours for the six-hour drive), major luck, as a few minutes after we left the bird disappeared, never to be seen again.

Effort - Great Kiskadee — Great Kiskadee (at long distance)

260 – Snowy Egret. 15 September, Roberta Stewart Wetland. Easiest bird of this list. Seen as we drove into the parking lot. A few marks for effort – after seeing the Kiskadee we took the time to check Ontbirds for any other rare birds in the area.

261 – American Pipit. 19 September, Wolfe Island. Out on our weekly trip with the North Leeds Birders. Jim Thompson spotted the well-camouflaged bird. Good company.

262, 263 – American Golden Plover, Buff-breasted Sandpiper. 23 September, Presqu’ile. I knew that American Golden Plover and (occasionally) Buff-breasted Sandpiper are seen on Gull Island at this time of the year. I picked a non duck-hunting day[2] when the weather looked promising and waded across to the island. Both birds were present – the Buff-breasted Sandpiper being one of only five sightings in the province this year. So gold star to me for homework, effort and luck!

Effort - Buff-breasted Sandpiper — Buff-breasted Sandpiper

264 – Purple Gallinule. 27 September, near Harrow. A long-staying rarity, but very hard to find as it skulked in the reeds. Effort (two and a half hours staring into the reeds) and good company (Paul, plus the young fellow who eventually tracked it down and immediately alerted the other birders on the site).

Effort - Purple Gallinule — Purple Gallinule

265 – Great Horned Owl. 27 September near Kingsville. We stopped to plot a course on the GPS and there it was, sitting on a wire. Sheer luck.

266 – Tufted Titmouse. 29 September, Ojibway Prairie Complex. Seen on a field trip during the Ontario Field Ornithologists Convention. The bird was known to be in the area. The trip leader, Peter Read, managed to point them out and we had decent looks as they flitted by. So effort, for driving to Leamington for the second time in a month, and good company. But also low cunning. They needed to split the group into two but we resolutely stayed with the best birder and it paid off. Pauvre Pauliina and Margaret did the “right” thing, went with the less-skilled guide, and didn’t see the bird.

267 – Red-necked Grebe. 12 October, Barrie. I had already made a plan to travel to Etobicoke in late October, when these birds are known to gather before migrating further south. But we saw several whilst looking for the target bird – Pacific Loon. Luck.

Effort - Red-necked Grebe — Red-necked Grebe

268 – Pacific Loon. 13 October, Barrie. A bird of the West Coast, but for reasons known only to themselves two or three birds show up in Barrie in mid-October every year to join the thousands (!) of Common Loons feasting on Emerald Shiners. So homework and effort, but especially good company – Jon Ruddy and the rest of the Eastern Ontario Birding collective.

269 – Yellow-billed Cuckoo. 13 October, Colonel Sam Smith Park. The bird had been seen by several other birders but managed to elude us for a while. When we noted a suspicious flitting of wings we got all field-crafty and snuck forward. Bruce spotted the bird skulking in a tree, and while we were spying on it it suddenly leapt out, nabbed a Wolly Bear caterpillar on the path and sped off. Luck and good company.

270 – Orange-crowned Warbler. 13 October, Colonel Sam Smith Park. A late-migrating warbler, predictable at this time but often hard to find. Luck and good company.

So all the Effort/Homework/Good Company/Luck factors played their part, with luck perhaps the most important. At this point there are maybe five birds left that I can reasonably hope to see in the last months of the Biggish Year. Let’s hope the luck holds out!

Ontario 2018 Bird Count – 270

2018 Jon Bubb Birding Beer Challenge beer count – 204

Days left to try new beers – 77. New beers needed: n , where n = (270 + further new birds seen) – 204. Hmmm. Greater effort required.

[1] Cinnamon Teal is listed as a breeding bird on the Ontario checklist. E-bird shows a total of one reported bird in Ontario in the last ten years.

[2] And why, one wonders, does Ontario permit duck-hunting in a Provincial Park…?

Birds

A Grand Day Out at Presqu’ile

August 30, 2018 Anthony Leave a comment

A Grand Day Out [1]

A bad day birding is better than a good day at work

– Anon

Every day at Presqu’ile is a good day

– Me

Presqu’ile Provincial Park is one of my favourite wildlife spots. It features an incredible range of habitat for such a small place: a sheltered bay loved by migrating ducks, extensive marshes, wet woods, sand dunes and climax forest. And of course, beautiful sand beaches, which attract swimmers and sun-worshippers, but much more importantly, migrating shorebirds.

So when the I saw that Jon Ruddy was leading a trip to Presqu’ile in prime shorebird season, I didn’t need much convincing. And thus it came to pass that on Sunday the 26^th we assembled at the Park gates for a spot of birding.

The Beaches

The first step in the Presqu’ile stations of the cross is a visit to the beaches. If shorebirds are present they will be somewhere along the 2.5km of beach, so (quelle surprise!) the best approach is to start scanning at one end and then work one’s way along to the other. We started at Beach 1 with a good look at the gull flock. The usual suspects were around – an assortment of Herring and Ring-billed Gulls and Caspian Terns – with singles of Bonaparte’s Gull and Common Tern. We were admiring Ring-bill youngsters in their juvenile plumages when the first “peeps”[2] came through. Baird’s Sandpipers are normally seen in the autumn in ones and twos, but on this day they were darting about in groups of ten or more.

Presqu'ile - Juvenile Ring-billed Gull (first cycle) — Juvenile Ring-billed Gull (first cycle)

Presqu'ile - The peeps arrive! Baird's Sandpiper. — The peeps arrive! Baird’s Sandpiper.

Continue reading A Grand Day Out at Presqu’ile →

Birds

Waders, Warblers and Water

July 27, 2018 Anthony Leave a comment

Onwards, ever onwards

As you may recall, your intrepid heroes had finished scouring the Carden Alvar, making a decent haul of … alvar birds. On the afternoon of 11 May we headed down to Brighton to check in on Presqu’ile Provincial Park. Presqu’ile is one of my favourite birding haunts. It’s another migrant trap that sticks out into Lake Ontario, but it also has long sand beaches that attract migrating shorebirds. Having arrived during peak migration season we hoped to find a selection of early waders,[1] though we still held out hope for a dose of warbler mania.

Our first stop was the Brighton Constructed Wetland (another sewage lagoon, albeit with a downtown name). This site can be excellent in the right conditions but it’s very much feast or famine. If the water levels are too high the mud flats, a.k.a. smorgasbord for waders, are submerged. Our visit was more on the famine side, with only a few waders sneaking about. Blue-winged Teal, normally a regular visitor, were also absent. The best sightings were our first Marsh Wren of the year – expected at the site – and a Sedge Wren – apparently unexpected at that site, provoking an I-don’t-think-so email from the local EBird[2] coordinator. We saw what we saw. But more about EBird in another post.

Marsh Wren - Biggish Year 2018 — Marsh Wren

So basically we “dipped”[3] at the sewage lagoons, but we hoped for a regain when we got to the Park. Almost certainly we would be inundated by warblers and waders, as payback by the Bird Gods for our many hours of driving and birding. Almost certainly we were not.

Not that it was bad, mind you. We had two plover species (Black-bellied and Semipalmated) and two sandpipers (Least and Spotted). Nothing earth-shattering but two of these were new to the trip list. We also added a nice (and early) Olive-sided Flycatcher near the Camp Office and our first Great Egrets lounging about on Gull Island (as they do). Probably our best find was a lone Black Scoter lurking among a small gaggle of Surf Scoters. So… not bad, but not brilliant either. The warbler count consisted of the three most common warblers (Yellow, Yellow-rumped and Tennessee) and no others.

Yellow-rumped Warbler - Biggish Year 2018 — Well, at least there were Yellow-rumped Warblers

Poignantly, there is a plaque at the Lighthouse, dedicated by his friends to a now-deceased birder “in memory of many twenty warbler days”. Our three-warbler day seemed a bit sad in comparison. At this point I was starting to doubt whether we would ever get to the 180+ species seen on the two previous Army Ornithological Society expeditions to Ontario. A serious case of mockery seemed likely.[4]

So with tears in our eyes we moped off to Lola’s Coffee House for a restorative tonic and set our course for Algonquin. Continue reading Waders, Warblers and Water →

Food and Drink

Birding Beer Challenge 2018

July 16, 2018 Anthony 3 Comments

The Jon Bubb Beer Challenge

When I announced my intention to have a biggish birding year, one of my friends innocently(!) suggested that sampling a different beer for every bird seen was some sort of tradition. The provenance of this claim is unknown, but Jon is a straight shooter and former Royal Marine and thus trustworthy on the subject of drinking traditions, so I had little choice but to take on the birding beer challenge.

Simple enough, or so it seemed…

Birding and beers have a long and storied friendship. In the UK, where I cut my birding teeth, a visit to the pub was the normal end to a good day of birding. In Canada this is less true – stopping at Tim’s is more common (a poor substitute in my mind). But most birders can be talked into a post-ornithological pint with minimal arm-twisting.

We are also living in the golden age of craft beer, with hundreds of brews available and new micro-breweries popping up everywhere. So in principle there should be 250 beers available, even in our benighted province where the beer market is a government monopoly.

Oh, and I like beer.

There is a fly in this ointment, of course. On the best day so far this year (1 Jan, natch) I added 31 species to the year list. On no day this or any other year have I sampled 31 pints of beer. So I have been trying to play catch-up on the beer front while falling farther behind all the time.

However this post marks beer #100. I had planned to sample something special for the one hundredth beer species of the year, but due to poor accountancy skills I squandered the number 100 slot on the boringest of beers – Heineken. The pictured brew is more what I had in mind. It rings in at number 104.

A few general observations so far:

Why are Canadian craft beers unnecessarily strong? A session ale should be in the 3.5-4% range, especially if served in pints. The minimum for Canadian craft beers seems to be 5%, and 6+% is common. Lynn theorizes that this is because hipsters drink only one beer at a time and then waste their remaining in-pub hours debating its merits… 🙂
Yes, modern IPAs are interesting and voguish. But something close to 80% of available craft beers are IPAs. There are other beer styles known to humankind. Our local brew pub likes to brag about the number of craft brews they have on tap, but almost all of them are variations on IPA.
Where are the English-style bitters? A mere handful are being made. And again GUM Department Store the LCBO doesn’t help – on a typical day they will have one English bitter on sale, hemmed in by hordes of pedestrian imports and a plethora of nearly-identical IPAs. They once carried the excellent Propeller Extra Special Bitter from Halifax, but they have de-listed it in favour of Propeller IPA. Grrr.
Everything from Muskoka Brewery, Mill Street and Nickel Brook is good. Perth Brewery and Prince Eddy are very promising and will require further investigation.

The Best of the First 100

So I am 104 beers into the Beer Challenge and so far I have not tasted an actively bad brew. A few, however, stand out from the others and deserve mention. Herewith my recommendations. I have not attempted to rank them, save that the number one beer is my Number One Beer:

Fuller’s London Pride
(tie)

Prince Eddie’s Brewing Co	Milk Shaka Stout
Skeleton Park	Amber 6.6
Stone City	12 Star Session Ale
Spearhead	Moroccan Brown Ale
Boshkung Brewing Company	35 & 118 Cream Ale
La Micro Brewing Co	Conejo Mago IPA
Muskoka Brewery	Mad Tom
Muskoka Brewery	Moonlight Kettle
MacKinnon Brothers	Crosscut
Boreale	IPA
Boshkung Brewing Company	North Country Kellerbier
Bobcaygeon Brewing Company	Firestarter
MacKinnon Brothers	Red Fox Ale
Black Creek	Canada 150 Best Bitter
Fullers	London Porter
Shepherd Neame	Spitfire Kentish Ale
Manitoulin Brewing Co	Cup and Saucer English Ale
Sierra Nevada	Pale Ale
St-Ambroise	Oatmeal Stout
Creveceria Nacional Dominicana	Presidente
Mill Street	100th Meridian
Muskoka	Cream Ale
555 Brewing Co	Footprint IPA
Muskoka	Harvested Ale
Prince Eddy’s	Milkshaka Stout
Granville Island	Pale Ale
Four Fathers Brewing Co	Shevchenko 9 Ukrainian dunkel
Manitoulin Brewing Co	Cup and Saucer English ale
Railway City Brewing Co	Black Coal stout
Nickel Brook Brewing Co	Head Stock IPA
Nickel Brook Brewing Co	Equilibrium English-style ale
Amsterdam Brewery	Boneshaker unfiltered IPA
Waterloo	Grapefruit Radler
Black Creek	Canadian Frontier Best Bitter Ale
Mad and Noisy	Orange Pale Ale
Chimay	Blue Label
Upper Canada	Repatriation Lager
Perth Brewery	25 Thistles Anniversary Ale
Br. Verhaege Vichte	Duchesse de Bourgogne

Of course I cannot consider these results scientifically valid until I have replicated them…

Beer Challenge Rules (as determined by me):

Sample Size. Ideally each beer should be imbibed in its natural form. For draft beers this means a pint glass; bottles or cans should be decanted into an appropriate-sized glass. I will allow half pints in a pinch, but samples do not count.
Do radlers count? I deem that they do. Especially Waterloo’s Grapefruit Radler. Allowing the odd radler or shandy makes up for all those 7% IPAs.
Neer beers (i.e. alcohol-free beers) do not count. That said, I can recommend two good ones: Grolsch and Molson’s Excel.
In this era of trade wars and other sorts of strategic stupidity it is important to stand up for your friends and boycott the products of the countries that are intent on doing us harm. So rule number 4 is: no beers from fascist countries, from countries sliding towards fascism, and from countries run by populist demagogues.

To avoid offending anyone’s ancestral home (and to lessen the risk of hacking attacks) I will not name the offenders. Suffice it to say that I will have to continue the Beer Challenge without the help of Baltika, San Miguel, Tsingtao, and whatever swill they drink in Venezuela. Peroni is no great loss anyway, but foregoing Zywiec is a blow. I will survive.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale remains on the list. For now.

Birds

Warbler Mania – The Agony of Defeat

July 2, 2018 Anthony Leave a comment

When we last saw our heroes, they were headed East into the sunrise, destination…

Long Point

The Long Point area is another prime birding hotspot in Ontario and we planned to have a good look around for about a day. There are dozens of birding spots in the area but ground zero is a smallish patch of scrub known as The Old Cut. Long Point itself juts well out into Lake Erie so it’s another shortcut for migrating birds. They land at the point and then work their way North, foraging through scrub, reeds and wet boggy copses – the bird equivalent of a breakfast buffet.

Old Cut is the end of the road – the good habitat comes to an end and their next move is a long flight to the next feeding station. So the birds tend to stooge around Old Cut for a while, getting in their pre-flight meal and flinging themselves into mist nets so they can be banded by the diligent workers at the Long Point Bird Observatory.

In my previous May visits the Old Cut has been crawling with birds, particularly of the wood warbler persuasion. Wood warblers, for those not up on their North American birding lore, are a family of tiny, active insectivores that pass through in hordes on their way to breed in the boreal forest. Their claim to fame is that they are improbably gorgeous. Each species has its particular markings and colours, ranging from the pinstriped Black and White Warbler to the madly orange Blackburnian, the sky blue Cerulaean and the dash-of-everything Magnolia Warbler. They are spectacular birds, though their hyperactivity makes them notoriously difficult to photograph.

Black-throated Blue Warbler - Biggish Year 2018 — Black-throated Blue Warbler

Golden-winged Warbler- Biggish Year 2018 — Golden-winged Warbler

Blackburnian Warbler- Biggish Year 2018 — Blackburnian Warbler

Warbler Mania

What we were hoping to experience at Long Point was a “fall” of warblers. When conditions are right (or wrong, from the warblers’ point of view) unfavourable winds and/or rain can force a huge number of migrating birds to seek shelter in the nearest available cover. They then try to load up on food until the time comes to resume the Northward trek.

A big fall is an epic experience. You can find yourself surrounded by hundreds of warblers of twenty or more species, all buzzing about and singing their special songs of love. Birders experiencing a fall often descend into warbler mania, a state of giddiness and mild confusion brought on by being surrounded by fast-moving natural beauty and trying to look at every bird at once.

A similar effect has been observed among tourists visiting Florence. As the author Stendhal[1] observed,

I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty … I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations … Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call ‘nerves’. Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.

Yup, that’s about it. Warbler Mania.

However, this time it was not to be. As in our visits to Pelee and Rondeau, there were a good number of birds passing through but nothing like the divine madness we were hoping for. 24 hours at Long Point only added two new birds to our list, though we had a frustrating might-have-seen-for-a-second experience with an exotic yellow-throated warbler. We consoled ourselves in the traditional birder way (application of beer) and then girded ourselves for the longest day of our trip.

Mike, Andy, Me - Biggish Year 2018 — Slightly deranged from sun, driving and lack of sleep: Mike, Andy, Me.

The Long March

The next day we set out on a 500km road march, aiming to bypass Toronto, nab a series of scarce birds that hang around in the Carden Alvar, and end up in Brighton poised for a thorough scouring of Presqu’ile Provincial Park.

Alvars are limestone plains partly covered by a thin layer of soil and sparse grassland vegetation.[2] They tend to attract a special set of birds that are difficult or impossible to see elsewhere. The Carden Alvar, North of Kirkfield, is one of the best such spots in Ontario.

We escaped Toronto traffic relatively unscathed, and made it to Kirkfield in time to have a great lunch at the imaginatively-named but nonetheless estimable Kirkfield Restaurant. Thus fortified we headed North to Wylie Road, the heartland of special alvar birds.[3]

Alvar Birding

We first visited my no-fail site for Vesper Sparrow – and failed. But things improved when we got onto Wylie Road. Look for Eastern Bluebird on the fenceposts. Tick.

Eastern Bluebird - Biggish Year 2018 — Eastern Bluebird. Not on a fencepost. Not on Wylie Road for that matter. Fake News.

Bobolink in the grassy field. Tick. Stop at the bird hide and look for Loggerhead Shrike. Tick. As we left the bird hide we were treated to, in quick succession, excellent views of Field Sparrow and Grasshopper Sparrow. Tick, tick. Down to the marsh for Swamp Sparrow. Tick. About the only target bird we missed out on was Upland Sandpiper, but for consolation we had extraordinarily close views of the normally shy and retiring Wilson’s Snipe.

Wilson's Snipe - Biggish Year 2018 — Wilson’s Snipe

By 1730 our work there was done, and we headed south for Brighton and a few hours of sleep, punctuated by feverish visions of multicoloured warblers flitting just out of sight.

Would we get our fall of warblers? Would we finally experience warbler mania? Stay tuned…

Notes:

[1] Marie-Henri Beyle 1783-1842, best known for his novels The Red and the Black, and The Charterhouse of Parma.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvar

[3] …and nutbar people. “The environmental theme is being challenged politically by a significant group of landowners, both local and away, who call themselves alternatively the Rural Revolution or the Ontario Landowners Association (OLA) They reject any government planned use of their private land (i.e. zoning) especially if it interferes with what they can do on it and who they can sell it to. They have posted signs throughout the City reading “THIS IS OUR LAND, GOVERNMENT BACK OFF!”. Seven local landowners, on the Carden Plain, went further in the summer of 2006 and posted signs prohibiting birders from looking for birds in their fields from the road. One local landowner even began stopping birders, walking on public roads, telling them to stop bird watching. He ceased this activity after being confronted by the police.” http://www.cardenplainimportantbirdarea.com/news.htm

Birds

The Vortex – Biggish Year 2018

June 17, 2018 Anthony 1 Comment

American White Pelican - Biggish Year 2018 — American White Pelican

After six weeks of virtually non-stop birding (and other events) I am trying to catch up on reporting. Hopefully my memories are not too blurred…

The Road Trip, Part 1

In pursuit of the Biggish Year I planned a two-week road trip to hit most of the major birding hotspots in Southern Ontario. Executing this plan would involve thousands of kilometres on the road, late nights, early mornings, breakfast at Tim’s, and long marches in all kinds of weather conditions. Travelling companions were needed to share the driving load and bear witness to the mayhem of Spring migration, but they needed to be stout-hearted types able to endure the conditions without whingeing. So naturally I turned to my colleagues in the (British) Army Ornithological Society and on 5 May Andrew Harrison and Mike Williams arrived at YYZ eager to pad their Canada lists. Mike’s was at zero when he arrived, so he was at that happy stage where every bird was potentially a lifer.

AOS Birders — If it ain’t rainin’ it ain’t birdin.

After the obligatory touristy stuff (a visit to the wildly-overpriced CN Tower, a somewhat adequate meal at Wayne Gretzky’s) we sped off down the highway bound for the vortex that is Point Pelee.[1]

The Vortex

Point Pelee National Park is justly renowned as one of the premier birding spots in North America. As the southernmost point in mainland Canada and the shortest way across Lake Erie it acts a superhighway for migratory birds. The masses of inbound birds that flow through in May are only matched by the thousands of birders and photographers who descend upon the park in droves.

Birding can be a peaceful, contemplative way of enjoying nature, but birding in Pelee in May is… not. The hordes rush madly between trails and viewing areas, hot on the heels of any rarish bird that peeks its head out of the bushes. Photographers with massive lenses and tripods elbow their way to the front, demanding to know which bird is the “good” one. Birders compare notes on what is being seen, often ending with the dreaded phrase “you should have been here ten minutes ago.” Lists-services and the park sightings book (a.k.a. The Book of Lies) taunt you with tales of extreme rarities seen briefly at the other end of the park, which might still be there but might also cause you to lose your precious parking spot to see where they once had been.

Are you getting the impression that I didn’t love Pelee? Perhaps, though it can’t be denied that we were seeing a lot of birds in a very short time. We arrived late on the 6^th and “only” added 13 species in the pouring rain. Another 22 showed up the next day, including White-eyed Vireo (a lifer for me).

White-eyed Vireo - Biggish Year 2018 — White-eyed Vireo

Rondeau

And Point Pelee is not the only hotspot in the bird-blessed Southwest of Ontario. Rondeau Provincial Park is about an hour away and a much more pleasant experience. The variety of birds on view was excellent but for some reason Rondeau does not attract the mobs. We birded the park on the 8^th and added several good species including the much-desired Prothonotary Warbler. And just when spirits were dangerously flagging the Visitor Centre came up with cups of good coffee, and all was well again.

Prothonotary Warbler - Biggish Year 2018 — Prothonotary Warbler

On the way back from Rondeau the word went out that American Avocets were being seen at Hillman Marsh. Of course we had to check it out, so we and a couple hundred of our closest friends descended on this conservation area for a look. The small, one-lane parking area was completely overwhelmed so we parked in a nearby churchyard, tabbed in,[2] saw the birds and moved back out in the space of about 15 minutes – much to the surprise of the lady collecting money at the gate.

Avocet Twitch - Hillman Marsh — Avocet Twitch – Hillman Marsh

American Avocets - Biggish Year 2018 — American Avocets in the distance, apparently unconcerned

Then back to the vortex on the 9^th for one last round of crowd-birding, netting a further nine species.

The Tally

For all its oversubscribed charms, the Pelee area was an excellent place to run up the year list. I started the excursion with 152 species on my year list, and added 66 species over three and a half days. We missed the enigmatic Worm-eating Warbler, but added a few semi-rarities and hard-to-see birds including Kentucky, Hooded and Cerulean Warblers, American White Pelican, Surf Scoter, Willet, the Avocets and a Red-headed Woodpecker.

Horned Grebe - Biggish Year 2018 — Horned Grebe

We also had an excellent meal of ribs at Ray’s Ribhouse in Leamington, albeit on the third attempt: on Sunday evening the extraction fans broke down and the place was filled with smoke, and of course as everyone knows (!) all restaurants in Leamington are closed on Mondays. But Tuesday all was well and it was worth the wait.

The morning of the 10^th saw us headed East. A short side trip to the Blenheim sewage lagoons on the way netted Wilson’s Phalarope, which was a great start to the next phase of the adventure: Long Point and The Long March.

Ontario Year List: 208

[1] For reasons unknown there is no accent on the first e.

[2] Another virtue of Army birders – we/they are not afraid of rapid-pace forced marches in pursuit of our quarry.

Birds

April Showers – Biggish Year 2018

May 4, 2018 Anthony Leave a comment

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

Spruce Grouse - April Showers — Spruce Grouse

White-winged Crossbill - April Showers — White-winged Crossbill

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.

Surf Scoter - April Showers — Surf Scoter – Trust me!

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.

Fox Sparrow - April Showers — Fox Sparrow in the murk.

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

E-Bird Checklist hits 150 - April Showers — E-Bird Checklist hits 150

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.

Birds

Bird #100 – Biggish Year 2018

April 10, 2018 Anthony Leave a comment

#100

And just like that, bird #100 is in the bag.

During a cruise around Wolfe Island on Friday I was able to add Eastern Meadowlark, Turkey Vulture, and Northern Harrier to the year list, bringing the total to 96. Migrants are starting to flow in in increasing numbers, but the key task for now is to see the scarce ones that arrive for a brief stay and are now about to move North.

Gentlemen, your target for today…

Briefing My next key targets were two very uncommon migrant geese – Ross’s and Greater White-fronted. Both birds should be working their way North on the Western Flyway by way of Saskatchewan, but every year there are a few who stray into the east. They are in a hurry to get to the high Arctic to breed, so they normally stay for only a week or two in Southern Ontario.

Both are hard birds to see. White-fronted geese are similar to Canada Geese, but have orange legs and a white mask around the base of the bill. If you met them on a downtown sidewalk you would see the difference immediately. Amongst a couple of thousand Canada Geese in a field… not so much. Especially since there is maybe one White-fronted Goose in every fiftieth flock.

In principle Ross’s Goose should be easier to find. Birders tend to estimate that one in every 1,000 geese in a Snow Goose flock will be a Ross’s. And a Snow Goose flock in Ontario is rarely smaller than 1,000 birds. But as always with birds, there are issues. A Ross’s Goose is almost identical to a Snow Goose. The only difference that can be seen at ranges over 50m is that it is somewhat smaller. And they are never closer than 50m. And they are almost always embedded in a typical Snow Goose flock of 10,000 birds, give or take.

The Snow Geese currently loitering around Prescott and Russell counties are due to leave anytime now – inclement weather is all that is holding them back. And when they leave the Ross’s will also depart, thumbing their noses at all the birders that didn’t see one.[1]

The Mission

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I turned once more to my trusty local guide, Jon Ruddy of Eastern Ontario Birding. He had an aptly-named Wild Goose Chase planned for Sunday, and off we went with a small party of like-minded souls for a bit of what birders call fun – a massive game of Where’s Waldo played by peering through telescopes for hours in the bracing wind.

Ross's Goose and friends. Ontario bird #100 for 2018 — Ross’s Goose and friends.

The trip was planned for four hours (about the limit of anyone’s tolerance for standing in the aforementioned bracing wind looking for geese that aren’t there). Along the way we lucked into a very early American Bittern (#97), whilst adding a few Green-winged Teal (#98) and a large clutch of Northern Pintail (#99) to the Ontario year list. But not a Ross’s or White-front to be seen.

Our time was up, but Jon was determined to get us a Ross’s Goose. We stayed and peered some more and finally when all seemed lost a rather pequeño goose was seen scurrying amongst a group of its hulking cousins. Victory! High fives were exchanged in the Canadian manner: politely, with insulated gloves.

A more cooperative group of Ross's Geese - Carrying Place, 4 Feb 16. #100 — A more cooperative group of Ross’s Geese – Carrying Place, 4 Feb 16

Somehow it seemed fitting that the #100 bird in this biggish year was a good one that was found through hard graft. In order not to spoil the festive mood we will speak no more of White-fronted Geese.

#101

And just to show that St Thomas Aquinas was right (“that which is more difficult is not necessarily more virtuous”), I snagged bird #101 on the way back into Kingston – the usual Osprey that nests every year on the light standard of the RMCC soccer pitch.

An appropriate ceremony was duly conducted.

#100

[1] In a metaphorical sense, you understand – geese not being blessed with either thumbs or noses.

Birds

February Doldrums – Biggish Year 2018

April 3, 2018 Anthony Leave a comment

The February Doldrums

T.S. Eliot claimed that April is the cruellest month. Evidently he was not a birder. April is birding nirvana, or perhaps little nirvana to May’s big nirvana. It’s when millions of migratory birds start to pile into Canada from their tropical resort communities to get on with the business of breeding. And thousands of birders lurk in the bushes to see them, photograph them and marvel at their willingness to fly thousands of miles so we can enjoy them.

No, the cruellest month is February.

Birders start off every January with a blank year list and for the first few weeks it’s easy to add new species. Even very common species become new again. Crow? Tick! Rock Pigeon? First of the year! There are 75 or 80 bird species that can be seen in Eastern Ontario in the dead of winter, and with a bit of effort and luck I managed to get 71 in January.

But then the new additions started to taper off, and the February doldrums loomed. In the service of a biggish year list those missing species needed to be found. But of course they were the ones that are scarce or skulking enough as not to be seen during the hundred plus hours I spent in the field in January. So in the continuing deep freeze I knew that I was doomed to spend many hours trudging through snow and ice chasing the elusive pests, usually to no avail. And so it came to pass.

February Birds

The first February bird was Peregrine Falcon. A pair nests in downtown Kingston but I shamelessly saved them so I could start off February with a win. The next “tick” was totally unexpected and rather gratifying. Whilst out on a field trip with Jon Ruddy, where we signally failed to catch sight of the target Black-backed Woodpecker, someone scanned a raptor soaring by high overhead which mirabile dictu turned out to be a Golden Eagle. A rather excellent bird, as all eagles are, but previously I have only seen them in Crete and Scotland’s Findhorn Valley, so it was great to add this one to my Canada list. Two new birds by 3 February. Perhaps I was on a roll?

Well… no actually. The total haul for the rest of February was an Eastern Screech Owl on the 10^th, and a big day by February doldrums standards – 23 Feb – when Mark Read and I added Long-eared Owl, Glaucous Gull and an overwintering Golden-crowned Kinglet. So six new birds for the month. A bit paltry, though the Long-ears were a great find that I frankly didn’t expect to see this year.

After a brief interlude with my bride in Costa Rica (257 bird species in 10 days – I do love the tropics!) it was back on the trail. The migrant ducks were finally starting to arrive. By the end of March I had added most of the standard ducks and swans to the list, though my punishment for sipping Guaro Sours and looking at hummingbirds during the short window when Canvasback pass through Kingston meant that I had to deploy to Presqu’ile to see them.

Rarities

There were also a couple of non-standard finds. A long trudge to the end of Tommy Thompson Park (a.k.a. the Leslie Street Spit) was rewarded with great views of a Harlequin Duck – a beast that lives on the East and West coasts but occasionally wanders in to catch up with the relatives.

But the two best finds came from serious twitching. A female Barrow’s Goldeneye had been seen regularly along the Rideau River in Ottawa, but then the much more handsome and colorful drake showed up. Despite serious emotional pain earlier inflicted by earlier attempts to twitch this species I concluded, entirely without reason, that this time luck would be on my side. I can now admit that at several points during my three-hour patrol along a short stretch of the river I succumbed to doubt, but the day was won when I finally clocked the beast in all his I-look-almost-identical-to-Common-Goldeneye glory. A lifer and a new year list bird – surely worth the trip to Ottawa. There is no need to spoil this happy tale by recounting the four hours I then spent waiting fruitlessly for the Marchurst Short-eared Owl to make an appearance.

More Rarities

The best twitch of all came from a to-hell-with-the-carbon-footprint dash up to Schomberg to see one of my favourite birds. Barnacle Goose was the first truly wild goose I identified as a beginner birder, and I have enjoyed seeing them and hearing their weird honking calls in Gloucestershire, Dumfries & Galloway, and on Islay. But they do not come to Canada. The bird is rated as “an occasional, rare straggler”, which in normal people speech means “you are not going to see one.” But there it was, happily swimming around in a water resource recovery facility (i.e. a sewage lagoon) and heading out with his new Canada Goose pals to feed in the surrounding fields.

As usual I agonized over this one, and thus almost missed it, but on a gloriously sunny day I braved the 401 and 400 in the hopes of seeing it. It went like this: parked, walked down the edge of the lagoon, saw the bird. And then just watched it for a long while enjoying its barnacle-ness. A great find, and for icing on the cake I had really good views of 10+ Cackling Geese. Bird seen, home for dinner. Sometimes it just works that way.

Cackling Goose (on the left) comparison with Canada Goose

Biggish Year Total so far: 92 species. 158 to go!

November

December

Gulls

Finding the Last Bird

One Last Twitch

Good Company

The final statistics are:

Sites Visited

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Effort = Results

Effort + Homework + Good Company + Luck = Results

New Additions

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The Beaches

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Onwards, ever onwards

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The Jon Bubb Beer Challenge

A few general observations so far:

The Best of the First 100

Beer Challenge Rules (as determined by me):

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Long Point

Warbler Mania

The Long March

Alvar Birding

Notes:

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The Road Trip, Part 1

The Vortex

Rondeau

The Tally

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Showers

Carrying On

April highlights

Slow Motion Showers

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#100

Gentlemen, your target for today…

The Mission

#101

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The February Doldrums

February Birds

Rarities

More Rarities

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