FOR THE BIRDS

SEPTEMBER  2003

By

Helen O'Shea

SIGHTINGS

• Don and Margie Cameron reported 2 Gray Jays and a White-crowned Sparrow.

• Bill O’Shea saw 2 Loons at French Village Lake on June 9.

• Cyneth Hutt called June 12 to report a pair of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, House Sparrows, Song Sparrows and Blue Jays.  On May 26 she had seen a male Baltimore Oriole.

• Bonnie Dalziel had seen a male Yellow Warbler and a Dickcissel on June 11.

• Bill O’Shea reported the Rara Avis, a tall ship, at the wharf on June 13.  He saw a male Northern Harrier on Route 22 and a pair of Northern Flickers on Father’s Day.

• Linda Burke reported a Northern Flicker on our lawn on June 16.

• Rosie Lahey reported lots of Grackles and Crows on June 30.  Her Ruby-throated Hummingbirds had been gone for several weeks.  She saw 4 eggs and a nest on a bait barrel earlier that month.

• Gisele Gartland reported Catbirds nesting in the trees in their yard.  Paul had also noticed a Semi-palmated Plover along the shore.

• Clarence “Soups” Perry mentioned on July 29 that he had had the Brown Pelican on his boat off Baleine, tried to feed it, but it wouldn’t eat the fish.

• Albert Bussey had the Brown Pelican off the Lighthouse before that.

• Carol Corbin’s cat killed a Song Sparrow on July 29. Cats are like that.

• Mary Kay MacKinnon was trying to assist a young Robin that had fallen from a nest.

• Gary Peck saw a Bald Eagle catch a fish in Catalone Lake on August 3.  This was the first time he had seen an eagle succeed.  Even though there are 2 eagle nests in the area, he has seen no offspring this summer.

• Elaine Carter reported that a Ruby-throated Hummingbird had been back at their feeders for more than a week on August 13.  She later watched it bring a little one to her feeder throughout the day by August 21.

AROUND THE TOWN

By mid-July adult Crows were seen feeding their young on various lawns through the town.  There was almost no difference in size although the begging behaviour identified the young.  Very few Great Blue Herons were seen in the local area this year although most were seen flying overhead.  Several were at the Fortress, Route 22, over the Administration road up near the water tower.  The young European Starlings were everywhere.  They are the brown birds that look like their black parents and are congregating in trees and on fences and chimneys.  A female Downy Woodpecker was in my backyard on August 18.  A Rock Dove (pigeon) was on the lawn of Chris and Darlene Chisholm on August 20.  This was the first sighting in the neighbourhood.  Usually there are Mourning Doves only.

AROUND THE HARBOUR

Throughout late July and the month of August there were Whimbrels seen at the Fortress site ranging from 3 in the bog to 23 flying overhead.  It was a banner year for Cormorants in late summer although they seemed off to a slow start.  There were a few Barn and Cliff Swallows hawking at the Fortress in early September. 

RARE BIRD

The afternoon of July 1 Cathy and Donald MacLeod reported a Pelican on Robert Levy’s Wharf.  Bill and I searched in vain for the bird.  Doug Pearl called to report a Pelican off the point of Louisbourg Harbour and said it was around for a couple of days.  Gerry Gartland reported the Pelican downtown along the waterfront where it was sighted by numerous individuals on July 3.  Leo Carter said he had thrown pieces of bait (mackerel) to the Brown Pelican and it was happy to eat them.  On July 11 Carlo Lunn emailed me a couple of photos of the Pelican. 

I’ve reproduced Carlo’s pictures here in black and white, but for those who have access to the web the photos can be seen in colour at the following address: HO’Shea.html

The first recorded sighting of a Brown Pelican in Louisbourg was almost 100 years ago. The Sydney Record on May 25, 1904 reported that, “ For some days last week two large and peculiar birds were seen hovering about West Louisbourg. Mr. John Kelly on Thursday shot one of them. From the peculiar appearance of the bird no one about this place knew what species it belonged to. Mr. Laurence Bates, express agent of the S&L Railway, took it to Sydney to have it sent to the museum at Halifax. It appears that it was a brown pelican a bird entirely foreign to these latitudes. It measures seven and a half feet from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other and had under its throat a large sack for the carrying of its food. It is said Mr. Kelly received $13 for the bird.”

Robie Tufts writes that “The Brown Pelican is a rare vagrant in Nova Scotia.  A male was taken at Louisbourg on 4 May 1904 and is now in the Nova Scotia Museum.  This pelican breeds in the Caribbean and Atlantic coasts from Georgia to Brazil; and in the Pacific from Washington State to Ecuador.  Its manner of fishing is spectacular and quite different from that of its larger cousin, the White Pelican.  It dives headlong for its food from an altitude of 30 m or more, like the Gannet.  Almost all the Nova Scotia occurrences were within May and June.”  Birds of Nova Scotia, 3rd Edition, 1986.

As luck would have it, Bill and I flew out on July 2 to a family reunion in Cornwall, Ontario and missed the rare opportunity of observing this bird.

Helen O’Shea

Extracted from © The Seagull, Helen O'Shea, For the Birds

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