Rondeau Ric

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 30, 2021. It was standing in the middle of the road doing its back and forth wobble. We pulled over to watch when another car spooked it. I was able to open the door and stand up just enough to get a clear sight line. Amazing little birds. Scolopax minor Young woodcocks leave the nest a few hours after hatching, but for their first week they depend on their mother for food. They start to probe in dirt at three or four days after hatching. The woodcock is also known as the timberdoodle, Labrador twister, night partridge, and bog sucker. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

I was trying to get the full moon right at the horizon over Lake Erie. Too little light and too much atmospheric interference. Obviously I didn't get the shot I wanted but I thought this was interesting, a bomb blast moon. Not an image I would normally post.

Ruby-throated hummingbird, Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, May 13, 2020. Hopefully they will start showing up in about 2 weeks. Archilochus colubris Make sugar water mixtures with about one-quarter cup of sugar per cup of water. Food coloring is unnecessary; table sugar is the best choice. Change the water before it grows cloudy or discolored and remember that during hot weather, sugar water ferments rapidly to produce toxic alcohol. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

Contemplating the pond. Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, Mar 20, 2021. After hitting the feeders this male cardinal checked out the water before coming in for a drink. Cardinalis cardinalis Cardinals don’t migrate and they don’t molt into a dull plumage, so they’re still breathtaking in winter’s snowy backyards. In summer, their sweet whistles are one of the first sounds of the morning. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

A wasp nest after the winter wars. Probably paper wasps, Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 24, 2021 Paper wasps are vespid wasps that gather fibers from dead wood and plant stems, which they mix with saliva, and use to construct nests made of gray or brown papery material.

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 22, 2021. While out for my bike ride a flock of golden-crowned kinglets worked their way across the road. Regulus satrapa Though barely larger than a hummingbird, this frenetically active bird can survive –40 degree nights, sometimes huddling together for warmth. They breed in the far north and montane west and visit most of North America during winter. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 21, 2021. This male towhee showed up in our yard Sunday, routing through the underbrush and tossing leaves. Pipilo erythrophthalmus Eastern Towhees are common victims of the parasitic Brown-headed Cowbird. Female cowbirds lay eggs in towhee nests, then leave the birds to raise their cowbird young. In some areas cowbirds lay eggs in more than half of all towhee nests. Towhees, unlike some other birds, show no ability to recognize or remove the imposter’s eggs. Female cowbirds typically take out a towhee egg when laying their own, making the swap still harder to notice. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 19, 2021. We get flying squirrels coming to one of our feeders after dark. This one landed on the screen door. This is a hand held shot, 12,800 iso, f8, 1/10 sec, 338mm. I will try again tonight to see if I can get a better image.

Rondeau Provincial Park, March 17, 2021. Nothing fancy, just another overlooked common bird. A regular winter visitor to the yard. They will disappear soon on their migration to the far north. Spizelloides arborea American Tree Sparrows need to take in about 30 percent of their body weight in food and a similar percentage in water each day. A full day's fasting is usually a death sentence. Their body temperature drops and they lose nearly a fifth of their weight in that short time. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

Aylmer, Ontario, Canada, March 17, 2021. Heard about this rarity and set off to see if we could find it. It wasn't at the original reported location but another birder had an update. It was at the sewage lagoons, birders go to the nicest places, and we saw it at a distance for about 45 minutes. It never came close for a really good image but you take what you can get. Life bird! Branta leucopsis These birds are normally found on the Arctic islands of the North Atlantic in Greenland, Ireland, Scotland, Norway and Russia.

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, May 10, 2018. One of my favourite warblers, love the colour. Setophaga cerulea The female Cerulean Warbler has an unusual way of leaving a nest after sitting on it a while. Some people call it "bungee-jumping." She drops from the side of the nest, keeping her wings folded to her sides, and opens her wings to fly only when she is well below the nest. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

Trilliums and may apple, Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, May 12, 2018.

Eastern screech owl, Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 12, 2021. I went back to check on the screech owl that I posted the other day. As I looked to the tree which is fairly far away from the road, I spotted another owl in another hole about half way to the second owl. It was the first time I've seen two owls in two trees about 75 feet apart. Bonus. Megascops asio The Eastern Screech-Owl is known to eat a variety of songbirds, including the European Starling. Despite this fact, the starling regularly displaces the owl from nesting sites and takes over the hole to raise its own brood. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

A white-breasted nuthatch and a tufted titmouse disagreed over who had first dibs on the peanut feeder. The titmouse drove off the nuthatch. Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 11, 2021

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 2, 2021. Hanging around the feeder, usually in pairs.and snatching a peanut when the blackbirds aren't mobbing it. Baeolophus bicolor Tufted Titmice often line the inner cup of their nest with hair, sometimes plucked directly from living animals. The list of hair types identified from old nests includes raccoons, opossums, mice, woodchucks, squirrels, rabbits, livestock, pets, and even humans. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 9, 2021. While out for my daily bike ride I checked out a know owl roost and it was home today. Long lens and heavily cropped. Owl was left in peace. Megascops asio Like most raptors, male Eastern Screech-Owls are smaller than females, and are more agile fliers and hunters. The female doesn’t hunt while on the nest; she and the chicks depend on food brought them by the male. Though the male is smaller, his voice is deeper than the female’s. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, Mar 8, 2021. In the yard on a dying ash tree- emerald ash borer, the stared at each other from opposite sides of the tree. The larger of two look alikes, the Hairy Woodpecker is a small but powerful bird that forages along trunks and main branches of large trees. It wields a much longer bill than the Downy. Downy's bills are small , almost thorn-like. Downy - Dryobates pubescens Hairy - Dryobates villosus source - Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

Opossum, its what's for dinner. Bald eagle snacking on an opossum in a farmers field, near Ridgetown, Ontario, Canada, March 5, 2021. On the way back from a birding trip we spotted a bald eagle coming into a field. It land about 30 feet, 10 metres, away from the road and proceeded to dine. Haliaeetus leucocephalus The largest Bald Eagle nest on record, in St. Petersburg, Florida, was 2.9 meters in diameter and 6.1 meters tall. Another famous nest—in Vermilion, Ohio—was shaped like a wine glass and weighed almost two metric tons. It was used for 34 years until the tree blew down. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 2, 2021. Another sign of spring when the goldfinches start to show more colour. Spinus tristis Paired-up goldfinches make virtually identical flight calls; goldfinches may be able to distinguish members of various pairs by these calls. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 3, 2021. Grackles are back in small numbers, just give it a few days and we will have plenty. Large numbers of red-winged blackbirds. Both nice to see but they swarm the feeders. Quiscalus quiscula Those raggedy figures out in cornfields may be called scare-crows, but grackles are the #1 threat to corn. They eat ripening corn as well as corn sprouts, and their habit of foraging in big flocks means they have a multimillion dollar impact. Some people have tried to reduce their effects by spraying a foul-tasting chemical on corn sprouts or by culling grackles at their roosts. Source -Cornell Lab of Ornithology- All About Birds

After Watergate, you get Flippergate. Along Marsh Trail, Rondeau Provincial Park

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 2, 2021. A through the Wonderful Wildlife Window image. We don't usually see them in the day time but this one was cleaning up under the bird feeders. I didn't try to open the window or go outside as they are very shy and skittish. Didelphis virginiana The Opossum of North America is a different species than its Australian cousin, although, both are marsupials which means that they give birth to babies at a very early stage of development. At birth, these little critters are about the size of a Kidney Bean! The young then crawl to the mother's pouch and latch onto a nipple, where they stay and feed for about 2 months, until they emerge from the pouch to face the outside world.

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 2, 2021. We had four of them chasing around the yard this afternoon. Sitta carolinensis The White-breasted Nuthatch is normally territorial throughout the year, with pairs staying together. The male has to spend more time looking out for predators when he’s alone than while he’s with his mate. That’s the pattern for most birds, and one reason why birds spend so much time in flocks. But the female nuthatch has to put up with the male pushing her aside from foraging sites, so she spends more time looking around (for him) when he’s around than when she is alone. source - Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds

Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, July 13, 2020. Dryobates villosus Hairy Woodpeckers sometimes follow Pileated Woodpeckers, and sometimes appear when it hears the heavy sounds of a pileated excavating. As the pileated moves on, the Hairy Woodpecker investigates the deep holes, taking insects the pileated missed. The oldest recorded Hairy Woodpecker was a male, and at least 15 years, 11 months source - https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Hairy_Woodpecker