I got an urgent text from Karen last night letting me know that there was a sizeable group (10 at least) of Common Nighthawks flying around the vicinity of her house in Caledonia. Half an hour later I went out on my back porch to watch the coming thunderstorm and saw at least five flying acrobatically over the Grand River. These might have been some of the ones that Karen had spotted and they had moved downriver or….they might have been other ones. I’m hoping they were in addition to the ones that Karen had seen. This hope is based on the fact that the number of this bird has taken a significant nosedive since the 1970’s.

When I was kid (well before the 70’s), growing up in the east end of Hamilton, the sound of nighthawks was often the last thing I heard before falling asleep on warm Summer nights. They were common everywhere and it was a favourite pastime of mine to watch them just before dusk chasing insects high overhead or swooping toward earth only to pull up at the last minute. Some nested on the gravel roof of W.H. Ballard Public School just 2 blocks away. In those days there were many gravel roofs – tarred roofs hadn’t taken over yet. As far as I know you don’t see them in Hamilton anymore in the Summer. That sizeable breeding population just doesn’t exist anymore.

A look at the maps in the 2001-2005 Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas is pretty depressing. Most of the squares in southern Ontario have a little black dot in them indicating that they were present during the time of the first Atlas (1981-1985) but not in the second. Bob Curry in his Birds of Hamilton and Surrounding Areas noted that the species was confirmed in only one atlas square in the Hamilton area. He also noted that birds migrating south have dwindled in the area from “quite large flocks” in the early 90’s to groups of just 20-38 in the early 2000’s. So the 10-15 that Karen and I saw between us might represent a significant sighting.

You don’t hear much about the migration of this bird but it’s a real long-distance migrant nesting throughout all of Canada except Nunavut and wintering in most of South America although it’s most abundant in eastern Peru, eastern Ecuador and southern Brazil. Incredible to think about!

So what’s the problem? Like the rest of the aerial insectivores the use of pesticides and agricultural mono-cropping has, likely, decimated the insects they depend on. Simply put there’s just not enough insect food to maintain them, especially in southern Ontario. Further, nesting places down here are few and far between…..no more gravel roofs for one thing, to say nothing of urban sprawl. So, if you get a chance, wander down to the Grand River in the next week or so in the late evening and maybe you’ll see remnants of a once great population of a marvellous bird as it heads toward South America.
Rick

There was a powerful thunderstorm in the middle of the night but it didn’t cool things down at all – if anything it made things worse. It got hot (and very humid) early until it was hard to believe that we are supposed to be experiencing the end of Summer. Early in the morning there was a good movement of small birds but they were high in the tree tops and moving quickly so I didn’t get to “see” many of them. I was hoping that they would drop down to net level but this didn’t happen…..

However, one great bird I caught was a female Golden-winged Warbler. When I first started banding around York in the early ’80’s this was a relatively common bird and Blue-winged Warblers were an anomaly. But this has changed and Blue-winged Warblers have taken over effectively pushing the Golden-wings out of the area. So it’s a treat to catch one!

Banded 24:
1 Yellow-billed Cuckoo
3 Eastern Wood-pewees
1 Least flycatcher
1 Veery
5 Warbling Vireo
3 Red-eyed Vireos
1 Yellow-throated Vireo
1 Golden-winged Warbler
3 Black-throated Green Warblers
1 Bay-breasted Warbler
1 Field Sparrow
2 Song Sparrows
1 American Goldfinch

ET’s: 37 spp.
Rick

Wow! We went from riches to rags in just 24 hours. Yesterday the birds were flowing through while today they were few and far between: we went from 52 banded to just 16! Ouch. The only highlight was an Olive-sided Flycatcher – we think it’s the same one as yesterday; it was hawking insects from the same perch.


Banded 16:

1 Eastern Wood-pewee

1 Least Flycatcher
2 House Wrens
1 Veery
1 Gray Catbird

2 Red-eyed Vireos

2 Tennessee Warblers

1 American Redstart

2 Common Yellowthroats
1 Northern Cardinal
1 Song Sparrow
1 American Goldfinch

ET’s: 50 spp.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s note from Lyn Brown, she sent this picture of juvenile White Pelicans:

I guess the thing that struck us the most was the tranquillity. It was just Carol and me to cover the morning – no visitors, no novices, no chatter. Just the occasional satisfied grunt as I dug into the cheesy zucchini quiche (still warm) that Carol had made. And because it was so relaxed I was surprised when we tallied things up at the end of the day and found that we had pulled off the highest banding total of the Fall so far – 52. Highlites of the day included the banding of a young Black-billed Cuckoo and the sighting of at least one Olive-sided Flycatcher.


Banded 52:
4 Mourning Doves
1 Black-billed Cuckoo
2 Red-bellied Woodpeckers
1 Downy Woodpecker
5 Eastern Wood-pewees
1 Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
1 Traill’s Flycatcher
2 Least Flycatchers
1 White-breasted Nuthatch
1 House Wren
1 American Robin
1 Cedar Waxwing
2 Warbling Vireos
4 Red-eyed Vireos
1 Nashville Warbler
2 Magnolia Warblers
1 Bay-breasted Warbler
2 American Redstarts
5 Ovenbirds
4 Common Yellowthroats
1 Wilson’s Warbler

1 Scarlet Tanager
2 Northern Cardinals
2 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks
3 Song Sparrows
1 American Goldfinch

ET’s: 48 spp.

We’ve had some pretty neat young people volunteer at the station over the years and it’s always interesting to see where they end up on their travels. Lyn Brown volunteered last Fall and I just received this note from her:

Hello Rick,
I hope you have been having a productive fall banding season.

I wanted to let you know that I am working at the Kalamazoo Valley Bird Observatory as a bird banding assistant this fall. The time I spent at Ruthven, set me up well to start here. I really appreciated the guidance and teaching that you and others at Ruthven provided in introducing me to bird banding. At Kalamazoo, we have had over 300 birds so far including warblers like the Canada warbler seen in the attached photo.

I also got the chance to band pelicans as part of my summer job in North Carolina. That was an awesome experience! We banded 1249 pelicans in one morning (see attached photo). The island had about 4000 pelicans and terns nesting on it. It was quite a sight to behold.
Hope you are doing well.
Lyn

Rick