December - Winter Bird Edition

Here are a few seasonal goodies - the last is the best

There is a tendency to draw a line under much of our wildlifing once the world outside gets really cold and the snow begins to pile up. Very understandable, too. But while many birds have migrated south, insects are overwintering in cocoons or even as eggs and mammals are hibernating, or at least in torpor, there is nevertheless a surprising amount of activity to be watching and enjoying. Birds in particular - the many resident species are the hardy types and we can at least watch them coming to our garden feeders (so long as they are kept topped up) or sheltering from the wind in our trees and shrubs.

In fact, while we spend time with our garden birds we can all contribute to a very important citizen science project by taking part in FEEDERWATCH … this link will help you get started.

https://www.birdscanada.org/you-can-help/project-feederwatch

You don’t need to be an expert birder. You also don’t need to make a huge time commitment – you decide how much time you spend. Even if you count birds only once during the season, that is a helpful snapshot of the birds in your location. It is is a joint research and education project of Birds Canada and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that depends on volunteers to help us all learn more about bird populations and how they change from year to year.

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An Unexpectedly Special Bird

A few days ago, we were on the way to the nearby bird banding station to do a walking bird census and to top up the feeders. On the way there the road crosses some flat farm fields on the McGill U campus and then takes a bridge crossing the TransCanada Highway. On the bridge approach there were lights marking road works - one direction at a time only. As we pulled up to the red light, a large, really large, grey hawk flew across the road very close and at just above head height, did a slow circle in the air and landed at the top of the only tree for miles … a beautiful, light-morph Rough-legged Hawk. These are birds we only see in winter, rarely and at a distance so there was much excitement in the car.

And then a couple of minutes later, another Hawk, flying a bit higher, followed it while above that was a small flock of Euro-Starlings. This second raptor was a Red-tailed Hawk (photo below) which are here all year and relatively common in this location. Then the lights turned green and the cars lined up behind us urged us to get a move on. Didn’t they realise this was an important moment?

Red-tailed Hawk

Now the sad thing is that I was in a line of traffic and I didn’t have a camera and even if I did have one, I was supposed to be the driver anyway and paying attention to other road users, so the the picture above is one of mine but from a different date while the one below is not even one that I took but placed here just so you know what I am talking about. C’est la vie.

Rough-legged Hawk (Photographer not known - apologies)

To quote from Cornell …

Rough-legged Hawks breed in open country of the arctic, both in North America and Eurasia. They nest on cliffs and outcroppings in low-lying boreal forest, treeless tundra, uplands, and alpine regions, both inland and coastal. During years of abundant prey their breeding range extends south into forested taiga. In tree-covered areas they hunt over open bogs and other clearings. They winter across southern Canada and most of the United States. They hunt on the wing either by pursuing prey or by hovering into the wind and dropping down on prey. They also hunt from elevated perches such as utility poles, trees, fence posts, and haystacks, particularly in winter. They sometimes feed on carrion or steal from other hawks and ravens. Populations appear to be stable, but a leading cause of mortality in winter is car strikes while hawks are feeding on roadkill.

Small Wintery Birds

Much as we enjoy spring, summer and fall birding with the songs and bright colours it has to be said that we really get most pleasure from winter birding. Not only because in the absence of leaves the birds are easier to see but because there are so many visitors form the north that, if you can locate them, you can pretty well have to yourself to enjoy. Hardy birds that view a Montreal winter as a balmy change to be enjoyed - like many people would view a trip to Florida. We still don’t know if Christmas will be white this year ( a white Christmas requires >2cm snow on the ground) but it has been very cold, especially when wind-chill is factored in. But, it is certain that “birding winter “is here whether the world is white, brown or muddy and there are birds to be seen if we look in the right places. Not only Cardinals and Goldfinches and Woodpeckers either, nice as they are. Here are three from the area west of Montreal that we have already, or should soon, be able to meet up with.

Horned Lark

Resident to short-distance migrants and not so common as Snow Buntings but a few will often flock alongside them, sharing the same food resources. They are found year round pretty much all over the continent, but in our area they are members of populations breeding in the far north which move south for winter.

Snow Bunting

Truly one of the hardiest of small birds. Most winters groups come to the Montreal area because this is actually mild weather compared to the tundra they breed on. A week ago we were at the bird banding station when a flock of over fifty flew over and later in the morning a second flock were finding food alongside a country road. Last year we saw few to none but this year is shaping up to be a good one - very much a favorite species. The only place we have seen them in summer plumage was a few years ago in Iceland - rather smart.

Eastern Bluebird

Yes, by rights these beautiful birds ought to have left for the south but so long as they can find food it is surprising how hardy they can be. These were part of a group of maybe a half dozen perched in a tree beside a horse farm … horses make dung, dung steams in the coldest weather, contains seeds and attracts insects and Bluebirds are partial to such offerings so that is a sensible place for them to hang out until they are forced to finally leave for the south.

American Tree Sparrow

I dithered about including these enticing little birds, a few of which have appeared here in recent days, but had decided to stick with the three examples above to avoid swamping readers. Then late on Friday night I encountered the article linked below - not my words, but a really interesting read and some appealing photographs. It would be a shame not to draw it to your attention.

The Crystal Performance of American Tree Sparrows

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Old-Fashioned Natural History

This is rather nice … (quote): “old-fashioned studies such as this have both scientific and aesthetic value. They are not the bland, lifeless productions of hundreds of anonymous white-coated lab workers, but are the result of the work of one idiosyncratic, very human individual. Someone like you and me. And that humanity has relevance far beyond the specialized field in which the author worked.”

Old-fashioned natural history

One of my greatest mistakes as a young student was to think that I could study entomology at college and still be able to publish this kind of work. I soon discovered that times had changed. The ‘rural Victorian vicar’ style of entomology, which had lasted well into the 20th century, has been replaced, in professional circles, with the same emotionless ‘lab culture’ that has swamped the entire field of biology. Well, I would have been quite happy as a Victorian vicar, and I much prefer the field and the musty old collection cabinet to the bright lights and humming machines of the lab.

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Birdsong Matters

Our natural soundscapes are falling silent as bird populations decline. Humans are interacting less with nature, in what is sometimes referred to as an “extinction of experience” … The world we experience today is unlike what our grandparents experienced. We are increasingly disconnected from nature, and nature’s benefits on our wellbeing are lessening as a result. What is most concerning is that these changes are accepted as the new norm, a concept termed “shifting baseline syndrome”.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/12/why-birdsong-matters-more-than-you-think

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Remembrance of Lost Species.

A Remembrance Day for Lost Species - an opportunity to raise awareness for lesser known and less conventionally appealing species, and consider how we can distribute funding more equally. But, ultimately, people who observe it can use this day in any way they choose. It can simply be a day on which you learn about something entirely new to you; about a snail whose shells once adorned the crowns of Polynesian nobility, or a rare rodent that lived out its life on just a tiny patch of shifting sand, or perhaps a little brown bat with a fuzzy face that petered out of existence on your birthday.

https://onca.org.uk/projects/lost-species-day/

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To finish - something scary from the south

https://rabble.ca/environment/trumps-first-hostile-move-will-come-at-canadas-northwest-border-with-the-u-s/

Serious consequences for Canada’s environment, wildlife, and northern communities are on the horizon as a second Trump presidency looms.

… we can all be sure the minute he is back in the oval office, Donald Trump will be proceeding to revive drilling and exploration in the fragile Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, just over the border with Canada. Environmentalists and a small and politically weak handful of Indigenous communities will object. They will not succeed.

Canada might even raise its voice, though few in Canada will see the threat to a caribou herd and other wild species, and to the still-enduring way of life of a few thousand Indigenous people in a remote part of the country, to be anywhere near as urgent as the threat of 25 per cent tariffs on everything we sell to the U.S.

The North Slope is an environmental zone we share with our Americans neighours. Now, they seem to be ready to permanently despoil it in the interests of one highly polluting industry. Sadly, that fact is not likely to carry much weight in the halls of power in Ottawa or the provinces.

For Trump, it will be an easy win, with virtually no downside. But the oil drilling on the North Slope will just be the beginning. We will all have to worry about what comes next.

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‘These are magic books’: bringing imaginary works of literature to life

A whimsical new exhibition assembles a range of books that don’t exist, from Byron’s destroyed memoirs to Shakespeare’s lost play

This has nothing to do with the usual theme of the newsletter but serendipitously crossed my path this morning and I know that at least some of my friends of a more literary taste will greatly enjoy it. It’s a lot of fun.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/dec/11/imaginary-books-exhibition-byron-shakespeare

Imaginary Books is, as Byers will concede, a true and sincere gag, down to its listed “sponsorship” by the Mountweazel Foundation in Faraway Hills, New York. (A mountweazel being, of course, a term for a fake entry in a reference work, usually planted to catch copyright infringement.) But that doesn’t make this collection of 114 works – well, 113, as Juan Villoro’s self-descriptive The Wild Book has escaped – any less real. “It feels real in a very different way,” said Byers. “And that’s why some of them can give you a little stand-up hair at the back of your neck. It’s the feeling of ‘oh, how I wish I could open that’.”