FOR THE BIRDS

November 1999

By

Helen O'Shea

This has been a great month for birding. On October 12, a Yellow-breasted Chat visited my yard. Bill also saw a Hermit Thrush which returned the morning of the 16^th so I saw it as well.

Jean and Dodie Bagnell called us about an interesting sighting. Arriving at their home on Riverdale, we watched a pair of Red Crossbills eating at a window feeder. They were very trusting birds. They moved away just long enough for Jean to refill the feeder and then they were right back for more. What was so interesting was that we were standing outside, about 10 feet away from the birds, the entire time. The range of trees and bushes in that location on Riverdale Street encourages Black-capped Chickadees, Blue Jays and Red-breasted Nuthatch to frequent the feeders. Jean and Dodie also see Great Blue Heron flying overhead on a regular basis - probably to the stillwaters on Terra Nova Road.  

Blue Jays They are everywhere this year, flying past, sitting on the tops of trees screeching at each other and eating as much birdfood as they can get. While we were visiting Jean and Dodie Bagnell, John Wilcox drove up and commented on the number of Blue Jays he has arriving as soon as he fills his feeders and how quickly they empty them. I’d forgotten just how much food Blue Jays can take from a feeder. They never just eat one seed. They fill their crops until they bulge, cache it somewhere in the woods and come back for more. In a 4 hour period a family of 7 Jays emptied about 14 pounds of sunflower seeds from my new feeder. They knocked a good deal of the smaller seed on the ground for the Mourning Doves and Juncoes, but they bullied the smaller birds that wanted to eat on the feeder. We had to find a way to keep them away and copied a method Jim Steylen uses on his feeders. We wrapped wide mesh chicken wire around the feeder and the small birds - sparrows, juncoes, nuthatches, chickadees and warblers - can get through the mesh and eat to their heart’s content. But no Blue Jays. Thank you for the idea Jim Steylen.

In October, Bill and I went to Petersfield Park in Westmount where we saw a Yellow-throated Vireo and numerous Black-capped Chickadees, Starlings, Crows, Blue Jays and a Raven. We also saw 3 Cormorants near the Coast Guard College. On our trip along the road to the park we saw 4 mature and 2 immature Ring-billed Gulls.

A White-throated Sparrow visited for several days from October 19 as well as the Juncos and Mourning Doves. There were many Robins on the lawns of Wilson and Beryl Eavis, Pauline Kelly, Perry and Alice Lahey - all in the housing area. Obviously the warm weather and generally good summer provided a plentiful food source. Gwen Lunn called to report a Cape May Warbler. There were 30 Herring Gulls behind the Star Dragon restaurant.

A Chipping Sparrow appeared at my feeder on October 20 and by November 6 there were 3 of them. The same day I had 4 Pine Siskins and 8 Goldfinch.

Pearl Magee called on October 21 to report an immature male Indigo Bunting. It had more streaks on the breast and back. She also has a pair of Evening Grosbeaks and a Goldfinch with an all-white tail. That day I had a pair of White-throated Sparrows and a pair of Song Sparrows arrive in the yard.

Pearl also called to report a Gray Jay, 6 White-throated Sparrows, a Sharp-shinned Hawk, 8 Pine Siskins, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and a Wilson’s Warbler. The birds really like her part of town. She has been observing a pair of mature Bald Eagles daily that circle Havenside. 

Snow Buntings - the real Snow Birds Almost everyone has seen the Snow Bunting in Louisbourg over the last few weeks. You see them at the side of the road. These little birds flush with a flash of white feathers and chattering noise as you walk or drive by them. The Snow Buntings summer in the Arctic and fly south to the U.S.A. in winter. They can stand very cold temperatures and burrow in the snow to keep warm. Normally there are a few seen around Louisbourg though Gwen Lunn saw one on November 3, 1993. In the past Bill and I would drive to Catalone Gut to see the Snow Buntings. This year all is different. The Snow Buntings are everywhere. October 29 was the first report. Susann Myers drew Bill’s attention to several of them eating grit under a picnic table at the Fortress Administration building and later we saw three of these birds in the parking lot. It turns out that Brian Harpell had been watching them all week on the road past Black Rock and asked Carlo Lunn what they were. On October 30, Bill saw a dozen fly from a field behind our house up beside the home of Perry Lahey. At the old Stella Maris cemetery there were 3 dozen. We saw 6 at the Fortress Barachois, 6 eating seeds of wild asters on the Fortress service road, 6 at Rochefort Point, and 10 in the reconstructed site. Chad Magee mentioned he had to drive slowly from the Fortress since they would flutter a few metres and then land back on the road ahead of his vehicle. Doug Pearl saw hundreds along Big Ridge Road on his way to the Gabarus end of the Park last week. There was a flock of 6 on Main Street flying between the home of Derrick Burke and the Han Beck lawn . Colleen Rosta, a summer resident at the Motorhome Park, reported seeing flocks of Snow Buntings on several occasions on MacAdam’s Lake Road, and in Northside East Bay. And Sheila Fudge reported Snow Buntings on November 4. She says that one of her relatives who works on a supply boat to Labrador is on seasonal layoff since the Strait of Belle Isle is already iced over. This means that is colder much earlier than usual. Maybe this is a reason why there have been so many sightings of Snow Buntings throughout the province earlier than usual. The Snow Bunting is "The only one of our winter birds that really seems a part of the winter, that seems to be born of the whirling snow, and to be happiest when storms drive thickest and coldest . . . the real snowbird . . . Its twittering call and chirrup coming out of the white obscurity is the sweetest and happiest of all winter bird sounds." Laura C. Martin, The Folklore of Birds, The Globe Pequot Press, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, 1993, p. 21.

A Rare Black Tailed Gull in North Sydney

On October 22, we drove to Indian Beach near the North Sydney ferry terminal and saw a Black-tailed Gull. We watched it for 15 minutes at a distance of 30 metres with a spotting scope and binoculars. It posed for us, turning so we could see various views—side on, back on, front on, on a pole, on the wharf, flying, and floating on the water. Only the 4 degree temperatures and wind curtailed our eagerness. This bird is about 19 inches in length, and has a black band on a white tail, dark wing tips, a yellow bill with a black ring and a red tip. It is described in the American Bird Conservancy’s Field Guide, All the Birds of North America, Harper Perennial, 1997 and The National Geographic, Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Third Edition, National Geographic Society, 1999.

What makes the Black-tailed Gull such a rarity is that it is an Asian Species that is native to coastal Japan and the Kurile Islands. Only in the last couple of years have Black -tailed Gulls been spotted in various areas in North America. Susann Myers and Richard Knapton from Louisbourg also saw the bird.

 On October 24, we saw a Brown Creeper in the backyard. The next day we observed an Orange-crowned Warbler. Gary Peck reported a large number of American Robins eating dogberries from the bushes in his yard. They were gone by October 29. He says when the berries are dried up the Partridge come for their share.

Gwen Lunn called October 28 to report half a dozen Evening Grosbeaks eating grit in her driveway early in the morning. She also had an immature Northern Shrike, Golden-crowned Kinglets, and several Juncos.

That week Doug Pearl saw the male Ring-necked Pheasant near Stella Maris Cemetery on Route 22. That’s the same pheasant that eats regularly at the home of Shirley and James Kennedy. Doug also saw Dovekies off Lighthouse Point and another off his wharf.

Sunday, October 31 it was windy and 10 degrees. We saw a flock of Pigeons (Rock Doves) on Carol Swander’s roof. Millie Creaser and her sister Ethel enjoy watching and feeding these birds. There were 15 Black Ducks at Jerrat’s Brook. Crows were on lawns digging up grubs.

On the pond across from Marconi Picnic Area we saw 2 American Black Ducks, a dozen Bufflehead, a dozen Lesser Scaup, and a female Red-breasted Merganser. At the Fortress there were 50 Starlings, and off Black Rock there were several Northern Gannets in flight. We also saw a Sanderling in a yard behind the De la Plagne house, Cormorants on Green Island, and 3 Red-breasted Mergansers bobbing about off Church Cove.

The Starlings at the Fortress are interesting because they have never been there in great numbers though we have a large flock of them here in town. What seems to be bringing them to the fortress is the animal feed. One day we watched the flock of starlings rooting for seeds in the horse droppings in the ditch in front of the King’s Bastion. A fellow in Sydney who told us that the gulls do the same thing at the race track.

November 2, I received calls from Susann Myers and Gwen Lunn. They reported a Brown-crested Flycatcher that was eating insects on the lawn and around the eaves of Gwen’s house on Havenside before 9 a.m. Unfortunately it didn’t show up for me.

On November 4, we saw 18 Pine Siskins in a flock flying over the home of Gordon MacLeod on Lorway Street.

My feeders were a veritable Grand Central Station on November 7. There were 3 Chipping Sparrows, a female Ruby-crowned Kinglet, a Pine Warbler, 18 American Goldfinch, 2 pair of Evening Grosbeaks, 2 Pine Siskins, a pair of Red-breasted Nuthatch, 5 Black-capped Chickadees, several Juncos, Mourning Doves, and 4 Blue Jays. We drove around the harbour and at Lighthouse Point we saw a Black Guillemot and 3 Black Ducks. On Havenside Road a pair of mature Bald Eagles circled the area. There were approximately 60 Herring Gulls by Lemoine’s Wharf. At the Government Wharf we saw a White-winged Scoter.

I met Ray Johnson at the Post Office on November 8. He reported a solitary bird that was in his yard for the last three weeks of October. He thought it was digging for worms or grubs. A look in the Peterson Field Guide - Eastern Birds, confirmed it was a Common Snipe.

Migration

Olive and John Spawn were talking with us a week or so ago and said that their daughter Kristy was curious about bird migration. Why do birds migrate? This is an excellent question. Birds migrate because it is inherited, a part of their natural programming developed over thousands of generations. Birds in our part of the world get ready to migrate south as their food sources disappear. They come back north for similar reasons - as the weather warms up and the food supply increases and because their ancestors did it. Some birds travel long distances. Bobolinks fly from Canada to southern Brazil and northern Argentina. Arctic Terns make a fantastic voyage each year. Those nesting in our part of the world cross the north Atlantic to Europe then fly along the coast of Africa to South Africa and on to the Antarctic Circle. That is a round trip of 22,000 miles.

Name Change

The Oldsquaw Duck (Clangula hyemalis), common in the area during the winter, is now called the Longtail Duck. This is the name that is used in Europe. 

That’s all for now folks. Be sure to get your feeders cleaned and hung out. A good place to look for bird food is the Farmers Co-op on Keltic Drive in Sydney River. They have an incentive program with rewards of free feed. Don’t forget that the seed with corn in it attracts pigeons, blue jays and crows. Sparrows love millet and it is relatively cheap. If you have any sightings be sure to telephone me at 733-2873

Helen O'Shea

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

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