A House Finch Story

 There seemed to be a conversation.

With both of them having lots to say.

 

But then something goes wrong.

He tries to mend his fences.

She wasn't ready for that.

He moves to another arm.

She follows him...

And peace returns.

Last few seconds in the life of ...

 I don't know what this insect is.  It's possible the warbler didn't know, either. 

It is also possible that neither of us cares.

It was caught.

The bird was content.  The insect was soon gone.

And the warbler was off to find another.

By the way, this bird is a bit of a tricky ID.  I think it is a female Yellow Warbler, but the eye ring and faint eyebrow could suggest another species, though probably still a female.  Whatever, she is still cute and was in our trees here by Lucky Lake during fall migration.  Though if she is a Yellow Warbler, she could have been here all summer.

May Birding

May is the month when the interesting birds show up.

 House Finch

Red-necked Grebe.  Some of these will breed in southern Saskatchewan.

Tundra Swans, the swan normally seen in Saskatchewan. We just see them on their way north.

Swainson's Thrush.  Only two thrushes hang around our area, the American Robin lives everywhere, several pairs in our yard.  The Veery nests in well-treed parks but they are not as plentiful as the robins.  I'd love to see more of the other thrushes, like this one.

Song Sparrow.  They'll breed, and sing, anywhere but they prefer to be close to water.

The White-throated Sparrow.  One of my favourite singers. I first noticed this bird in Spruce Woods Provincial Park in Manitoba, the song echoing through the park.  Unlike the thrushes, they have no hesitation in singing while migrating.

Lincoln's Sparrow.  I love their dainty look. Another Just-passing-through bird.

Probably the most frequently seen migrant warbler.  The Yellow-rumped Warbler looks most beautiful in the spring.  This one with the white throat is the Myrtle subspecies we usually see in Saskatchewan.

But this May I spent a few days in Lethbridge, Alberta, and was happy to find a couple of yellow throated Yellow-rumped Warbler. The Audubon subspecies.

Also from my time in Lethbridge, a pair of Common Mergansers.  The redhead is the female.

We don't see these every year, but I was very pleased to have Rose-breasted Grosbeaks show up for a few days.

Here is a migrant that actually nests in our yard.  This Brown Thrasher appears to be collecting dead leaves to line a nest.

Baltimore Orioles, a favourite migrant.  At least one pair chooses to nest in our yard most years.  Others just pop in for a juice break and keep on going.

Orange-crowned Warblers drop by, eat for a few days, and move on.

We had a dozen Pine Siskins here for a few days, and then one or two several other days.

April Migrants 2024

 I doubt I'm the only birder to say this, but spring is the best time of year to be a birder.  After months of House Sparrows and Black-billed Magpies, it is a relief to see something new.

The early migrants come through in April.  There aren't a lot of passerines among the early migrants, but there are a few, like this Dark-eyed Junco.  The Juncos are just passing through, but we usually see them for a few weeks in the spring.

American Tree Sparrows come through in April, too, but this year we didn't see a single one.  With migrants sometimes it is just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  It's not as if the Tree Sparrows come to our patio like this junco did, and they don't stick around.  They are heading further north and seldom linger here. 

Horned Larks are also among the earliest birds to return north in the spring.  They can be seen at the edges of roads, often returning when there is still snow.  At first it seems as if there a dozen Larks in every mile of country road, but after a while they spread out or continue north.  We will see them right up till about August when they decide it is time to head south again.

Spring ducks are easy to see and come in bright colours.  Here we have a male Redhead and a pair of Ring-necked Ducks.  The Ring-necked is one of those birds that was named by someone holding the duck in hand.  Seeing the neck ring is a bit harder in the field.  We only see them in migration, they prefer to go further north to breed.

There are two scaup families that visit Saskatchewan.  The Greater Scaup shows up early, rests and eats, and continues north.  The Lesser Scaup does the same, but then some of them stay here to raise their babies.  I can't tell them apart. There are lots of suggestions about the shape of the head and the shading in the head colour, and even how much white is on the face of the female, but I still can't say which is which when I see them.   I've been told that the ones that visit Gardiner Dam in April are more likely to be Greater, which means these might be Greater.  But this is such an uncertainty that I won't label them as such.  All I can be sort of sure of is that the ones we see in June or July are Lesser Scaups.

There is no such problem with Buffleheads.  Nothing else looks like them.  The female is less distinctive as you can see, but she has the same head shape and the cutest little bill ever.  (By the way, these duck photos were all taken at Gardiner Dam and from a distance.  I have better photos but have decided to just include here photos taken in April of this year.)

Gardiner Dam is also a favourite spot for American White Pelicans.  These pelicans are not nesting. They don't breed until they are three years old, so I understand that the pelicans fishing below Gardiner Dam are younger birds.

We've been seeing Osprey at Gardiner Dam for many years.  There seemed to be at least two active nests when we were there this April.

Other early arrivals are gulls, like these Franklin's Gulls which stick around all summer and are frequently seen feeding in fields behind equipment.

California Gulls also breed in the lower part of Saskatchewan.

We get four or five species of grebes in Saskatchewan.  We have only seen four so far, as the Clark's Grebe is still unticked on our life list.  The fun thing about grebes is just as you look at them they disappear and it is anyone's guess where and when they will reappear.  This one is the Eared Grebe.

Shorebirds are also early migrants.  Gardiner Dam is not a great location to see them, but many different shorebirds can be seen at smaller sloughs as they pause on their way north.  Some of them will nest as far north as Alaska or the Northwest Territories. These three are distant Lesser Yellowlegs.  Hmm.  Wonder where they found that name?

I saved my favourite of these early migrants for the last.  The Great Blue Heron.  We can see individual herons almost anywhere during the summer, but there is one place we are guaranteed to see many, though only from a distance.

There's a Great Blue Heron nesting site at Gardiner Dam. These nests were already occupied on April 14 this year.  (This photo was taken from a road through a hay field using a telephoto lens and then cropped.)

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.