A Canada Bird

 There are only three birds that have the name of our country in their common name. Before this week we had seen all three, but only two in Canada.  A couple of days ago we were walking around a (dry) slough in a pasture when we saw bright yellow

and there was our first view of a Canada Warbler in Canada. 

This was likely a female, or possibly a first year male.

Similar to the bird we saw in Ecuador in December 2018, though a bit paler.  Perhaps that one was a young male?

Someday I'm hoping to see an adult male in all his beauty, but till then I am grateful for these.

Grassland Birds

There are always new birds to see.  We found a couple of these recently

The Chestnut-collared Longspur is known to nest in the Grasslands National Park so I hoped to go there one year in the early summer just to find the bird.

Instead we saw it recently while visiting the area around Estevan, Saskatchewan, very close to the US/Canada border and not far from the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border. 

 Once again, Ray was the first to realize we'd found a new bird.  We watched several flit in the grass.  They may have been closer to us than the Chimney Swifts in the last post, but they were harder to see as they kept disappearing in what appeared to be short grass.  It is so familiar to see a bird land in the grass and totally disappear.  Familiar but not a familiarity I enjoy.  I may still need to plan that trip to the Grassland Park.  My photos leave a lot to be desired.

Our other new bird was the Dickcissel, a strangely named bird that I never thought I'd see.  I'd put it in the category of rare birds that only full-time birders ever see.

But we saw and heard several near Roche Percee, Saskatchewan.  They weren't in any special birding spot, just in a grassy field beside an unnamed road and, obligingly, on the power line.

Chimney Swifts

 These birds were not on our life list, even though back ten or so years ago a guide pointed above our heads and said something like "Those dots up there are Chimney Swifts."  I have occasionally added a bird to our life list that I felt I barely saw but I drew the line at dots in the sky.  A different guide some years later said about swifts in general "If you don't consider that seeing a swift, you are never going to get one." (or something to that effect.)

Well, patience paid off.

We were in Manitoba in the beautiful town of Souris walking across their claim to fame, a swinging bridge.  As we stepped onto the other side, Ray looks up in the air and says "There are Chimney Swifts."  I look up and see swooping birds everywhere. 

 I am holding my phone in my hand, opened to the Merlin app.  I press the right button and the phone flashes its opinion.  House Sparrow.  Song Sparrow.  Red-winged Blackbird.  Chimney Swift!

How did you know? I asked Ray as I rapidly and mostly fruitlessly tried to photograph these flitting creatures.  "Well, they weren't swallows," he replied, "and they weren't Purple Martins, so that left Chimney Swifts."

What a great birding companion!  Would I have made the same conclusion?  I don't know.  At the moment he saw them, I was probably trying to photograph a blackbird!

These swifts are sometimes described as cigars with wings. The following photograph shows where that came from.

Northern Hawk Owl

 We may have gone looking for Ptarmigan, but we were really hoping to see something else.  Mostly we hoped for an owl.

So we drove hundreds of kilometres staring at the trees bordering the highway as we drove north, and then again south.

Our guide suggested we look at the tops of the trees to find Hawk Owls, the middle of the trees to find  Great Grey Owls and lower down, as we got closer to our destination, for the Ptarmigan. 

None of these showed up along the highways on the way north, but our guide caught this on the way back south.

This was rather amazing because most of the evergreens have an owl-shaped bunch of needles at the top.

We stopped and watched and photographed as the Northern Hawk Owl went from that tree to this tree where we could never have seen it from the highway at a hundred kmh.

But the photos were cropped, and the owls appeared.

And then it flew to another tree

Next time, perhaps the Northern Hawk Owl will be a little closer.

And that is 2023 Lifer Number Three.

Willow Ptarmigan: the perfect winter bird

 I've wanted to see a Ptarmigan for a long time. 

 This week we drove about 800 kilometres north and east just to see The Bird. And we did.

Our first glimpse was 

a glimpse.

But behind this ridge of snow were about fourteen more.  Seven of them (or at least parts of seven) are in this photo.

 Ptarmigans have feathered feet.

Which appear to act as snowshoes making the strangest bird foot prints I've ever seen.

Willow Ptarmigans are at their cutest in the winter when they only have a few spots of black and a whole lot of white.

They were finding something to eat on these tiny bare-looking bushes.

It was cold but we saw a lot of Willow Ptarmigans. 

 2023 Lifer Number Two

Still more from Mazatlán

So many cute birds:

Nashville Warbler

Yellow Warbler

Summer Tanager

Streak-backed Oriole

Hooded Oriole

More from Mazatlán

 An iconic bird along the ocean.  The Brown Pelican.

Some birds like to hang around in groups, others appear to be loners.  Normally when we see Willets, we really only see a Willet.  One bird at a time seems to be their favoured plan.  But on January 25 at Cerritos we saw 14.  Not all are in this photo, but the others were not far away.

There are many possible hawks, but the hawk we see the most is the Grey Hawk.

I believe this is also a Grey Hawk, but an immature so it has not yet achieved its greyness.

At the Laguna by the Bosque de la Ciudad, two Tricoloured Herons flying together or possibly playing follow the leader.

We watched them for several minutes. 

Here there appears to be a meeting; several Snowy Egrets attended, led by a Little Blue Heron with a couple of Neotropic Cormorants in the background.

One of the fun things we see in Mexico is a collection of species in close proximity.  These five are in a space no bigger than our kitchen.  We have a Great Blue Heron, a White Ibis, a Snowy Egret, a Willet and a couple of terns, likely Caspian Terns.  Not visible in this photo but just a short ways away was a Tricoloured Heron.

This trip was notable for seeing an egret that we've only glimpsed once before: the Reddish Egret.

I was happy to see this guy, especially after an hour earlier I had been deceived for a while by a Little Blue Heron. When I research the Reddish Egret it typically shows a shaggy bird just like this Little Blue. But note the Reddish has a bi-coloured bill and is definitely more reddish.

The last heron I'm showing you is another that we have seldom seen, the Bare-throated Tiger Heron.  This one was in the Botanical Garden on La Isla de la Piedra. (Stone Island)  Though he is on dry ground here, there is water nearby.

Black Skimmer

Near El Bosque de la Ciudad in Mazatlán, a Black Skimmer.  I would have expected to see it on the ocean, but this was on an inland lagoon, though only a couple of blocks from the ocean.

I wondered if its deformed bill made fishing in this very fishy lagoon easier than in the ocean.

2023 Lifer Number One

Paco's Reserva, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico

 On January 26 we were picked up at our hotel in Mazatlán by Paco (Two) and taken to Paco´s Reserva de Flora y Fauna.  It's a small place but very important when so much of the natural area around the city is disappearing.  Paco's father, Paco (One), started the Reserva about forty years ago when he began planting native plants on his farm.  Now the plants attract wildlife we didn't even know could be found in the area. There is a water body there, too.  I don't recall if this water belonged to the Reserva or if it was just conveniently located. There we saw three White Ibises and a Snowy Egret.  There was a White-faced Ibis, too, but it missed the photo.

Wood Storks

and the cutest member of the grebe family, the Least Grebe.   

There were good birds in the trees, too.

The most special to me was a winter visitor, one that never spends anytime anywhere near us. The Northern Cardinal.

A warbler we've seldom seen was the Nashville Warbler.  I took about twenty photos, but only the last couple were worth saving.

Nearby was a female Painted Bunting.  Not as spectacular as her mate, she is still a very pretty bird.

At home I hang feeders to attract birds.  Something similar happens in the warm places where we've gone birding.  Paco serves peanuts to attract several birds that might not have dropped by otherwise.

There were a couple of Golden-cheeked Woodpeckers.

Purplish-backed Jays 

 Yellow-winged Caciques

Black-throated Magpie Jays

and Rufous-bellied Chachalacas.

 Also interested in the peanuts were a couple of Coatis.

Paco concentrated on birds for us, but he also told us about the native plants, 

a few insects,

 and even an anole that was so tiny and so camouflaged that I have no idea how Paco saw it.

 

 

We appreciated seeing all the birds, even though none of them were lifers, but even more we were happy to find people who were working to create habitat for the native species.