The Sunny South March Highlands

Red Columbine

It rained almost all day on Saturday, June 15th, so my hopes of going out and finding butterflies and dragonflies were ruined. At least Sunday promised to be gorgeous, and although the ground was soaking wet when I got up, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I drove out to the South March Highlands, one of my favourite conservation areas in Ottawa, hoping to find some skippers and swallowtails, and hoping to find the Yellow-throated Vireo that has been dominating my eBird alerts these days – I still haven’t seen this bird in Ottawa.

Shorebirds of the Eagleson Ponds

Wilson’s Snipe

I had a few days off in the middle of September and spent them birding. The weather was fantastic from Thursday through Saturday, and I started my days at the Eagleson storm water ponds which usually has a great diversity of species during migration. The habitat has been excellent for shorebirds, as the water levels were low enough for Lesser Yellowlegs to walk around the middle of the central pond. However, I was really hoping to find some different warbler and songbird species to add to my list, and checked each grove of trees carefully. I wasn’t happy when I found only one warbler species (a Common Yellowthroat) in the 5 hours I spent there total, but the diversity of shorebirds was amazingly excellent. Several were foraging quite close to shore, too, making them easy to identify! I found nine species altogether, which is terrific for an urban pond system so close to human habitation.

A Walk on the Beach

Hermit Crab

After breakfast Doran and I walked down to the beach. To get there we had to pass by the small group of mango trees, cross an open lawn, and descend a few Palm-shaded stairs before emerging onto the sand. There was a wide swath of sand exposed by the low tide, and a large crust of rocks protruding from the water that reminded me that the geological history of Central America is very different from that of eastern North America. The land bridge connecting North and South America – which includes Costa Rica and Panama – didn’t exist until about three million years ago. Costa Rica was formed when the movement of the western edge of the Caribbean plate forced the Cocos plate beneath what is now the Pacific Ocean to slide beneath it, creating a subduction zone which birthed a number of volcanoes. The relentless grinding of the Caribbean plate over the Cocos plate and the numerous volcanic eruptions over the millennia caused the land mass to grow, resulting in a today’s mountainous west coast with its steep cliffs overlooking rocky tidal lagoons.

Costa Rica: Birding around the Resort

Great Kiskadee

Costa Rica operates on Central Standard Time. Being so close to the equator, however, it receives roughly 12 hours of daylight throughout the year; as such, it has no need for Daylight Saving Time, and doesn’t reset its clocks twice a year. This is quite unlike Ottawa, which fluctuates from about 8 hours of daylight at the December solstice to just under 16 hours at the June solstice. It was light enough to go birding around 5:30 am, and started getting dark around 6:30 pm. Costa Rica was two hours behind Ottawa time during our trip, and as a result of the time change, we were up earlier than usual. This made time seem to slow down, for the days seemed much longer, with plenty of hours to fill.

With my sleep issues I still woke up at my usual time each day, which meant I was wide awake by 3:30 or 4:00 am and couldn’t fall back asleep. As soon as it got light I went birding, sneaking out around 5:30 or 6:00 am almost every day we didn’t have any activities planned. We spent our first full day in Costa Rica on the resort, and almost right away I discovered a great birding spot right near our building.

Birding in Lambton County

Forster’s Tern

Wallaceburg is in Chatham-Kent, but Lambton County is just a ten-minute drive away from my mother’s house. I didn’t realize this when Mom suggested we go birding north along the St. Clair River; although I am not a huge county lister, the new eBird profile pages are great incentive for birding across county lines. The profile pages provide you with a coloured map of all the countries, provinces, states and counties where you have birded, the colours shading from yellow to red depending on the number of species seen, and there is something about seeing all those empty white spaces (much like a Sudoku puzzle) that creates a festering need to fill them in.

The St. Clair River connects the upper and lower Great Lakes and separates Ontario from Michigan. There are numerous small parks and lookouts along the river that can be used for picnicking, camping, or river-watching. Although most of the parks consist of manicured lawns with a few trees here and there, the chief attraction here for birders is the thousands of ducks, gulls and other migratory waterfowl that congregate here in the winter and during migration, in particular Common Goldeneyes, Redheads, and Canvasbacks. We took a drive from Port Lambton up past Sombra on my first morning in southern Ontario, crossing over into Lambton County as we stopped at some of these parks and giving me the opportunity to fill in one more county on my eBird profile page.

Thanksgiving Birds

Wood Duck (male)

On September 27th, a rare Western Kingbird was found at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden. Although it was found on a Sunday, I didn’t feel like making the drive out there (it’s a good half hour away from me through the city) and joining a mob of people surrounding the bird. The Fletcher Wildlife Garden, although beautiful, is also one of my least favourite places to go birding in Ottawa as it’s usually full of off-leash dogs. However, as the week wore on, the kingbird continued to be reported every day. It was still there on Friday, so I began planning an early morning visit to the FWG the following day. I left just after it had gotten light enough to see, and arrived at the FWG at about 8:15 am. There was a cold, blustery wind blowing, and this change in the weather made my heart sink as I realized that the kingbird might have blown out with the winds.

Last Hours in Florida

Seaside Dragonlet

After returning from Naples we cooled off in the pool, and then I spent some time photographing the birds and dragonflies around the property. The Common Grackles and Northern Mockingbirds were around, as usual, and when I walked over the marina I saw a few Purple Martins flying over the water. There are a couple of Purple Martin houses on the opposite shore of the marina where they nest; we saw them bringing food to their young.

I was quite taken with the pretty blue dragonflies perching on the vegetation. The Seaside Dragonlet is the only dragonfly in North America that breeds in salt water, spending the larval stage of its life in the tropical mangrove swamps, saltwater marshes, and some brackish areas further inland.

Eco Pond and Flamingo

Black-necked Stilt

After leaving Paurotis Pond, our next stop was Nine Mile Pond, and the difference between the two couldn’t have been greater. As soon as we arrived we found about 20 Black Vultures sitting on the ground. I didn’t see a single heron or egret on the water – in fact, I don’t recall any other birds present. Then, when I got out of the car I was swarmed immediately by mosquitoes and some sort of mutant deer flies. Needless to say, I didn’t stay there very long. I got back in the car and we kept driving to our destination, the Flamingo Visitor Center and Eco Pond.

The Everglades: En Route to Paurotis Pond

Wood Stork

The following morning we headed back to Everglades National Park after getting a good night’s sleep. When we went out to the car we saw the Muscovy Duck hanging around the parking lot. It liked to drink from the puddles formed by the sprinklers, and snooze in the shade of the cars parked outside of the motel. However, it appeared that the main attraction was the food – some sort of cereal or cracked corn – that someone had left out in a parking space right outside one of the motel rooms. It was certainly neat to see the duck hanging around like an unofficial motel guest, and, as we weren’t returning to Florida City after our return trip to Everglades National Park, we said goodbye to the Muscovy Duck one last time before we left.

The Anhinga Trail

Cooter sp. (Pseudemys sp.)

After leaving the Visitor Center we headed to the Anhinga Trail because I’d heard it was a great spot for both birds and alligators, and because it was close by – the other trails I wanted to see, such as Eco Pond, were an hour’s drive away. As we drove through the park the landscape appeared very flat and grassy; we were only a few feet above sea level. There were some trees scattered about, but overall we didn’t see much wildlife, unless you counted the giant grasshoppers on the road, and the crows and Red-winged Blackbirds foraging along the shoulder – presumably feasting on the road-killed grasshoppers.