July 29th 2017
Location: Near Brantford
Weather: Hot & sultry
As summer progresses it gets exceedingly more difficult to locate birds to photograph, but some days you call it correct. Today was one of those days ... Along with a fellow birder/photographer we headed to Oak Park Road near Brantford and followed the trail down to the pathways intersection about 300M (or so) from the parking lot, and hung out there for a couple of hours and were rewarded with several Orchard Orioles and a Clay-coloured Sparrow ... neither of which I managed a photo off, but did photograph the birds below, including Warbling Vireo, Willow Flycatcher, Yellow Warblers and a House Wren. Not shown, but photographed was a juvi Black-billed Cuckoo ... Good day :)
July 28th 2017
Location: near Hespeler
Weather: Seasonal
| | A good friend called me up and asks if I knew where to find some Pied-billed Grebes. "Sure I say" ... so next morning, we headed over early to Neibours Pond between Hespeler & Guelph. Unfortunately the Grebes were too far out for photos, but a couple of Marsh Wrens cooperated... as a consolation prize (so to speak) |
July 18th 2017
Location: At home in Kitchener
Weather: Sunny & Hot
Bird activity has certainly wained somewhat over the last few weeks, but birds around the house have not. Our Trumpet vines have came out in full bloom (must be a 100 flower heads or more) and are attracting both Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Baltimore Orioles. I look forward every year to this time slot (the flowers last about 4 - 6 weeks) and gives me a chance to practice hummingbird in-flight shots of these amazing birds. We also have a Mulberry tree that is attracting it's own group of birds ..mainly American Robins, but also Cedar Waxwings, Northern Cardinals, Northern Flickers and of course American Goldfinches. This year we mounted a decorative bird house on one of our evergreens and were delighted to discover that a House Wren has taken up residence in it. Robins and Cardinals, as usual, have also nested around the yard.
July 13th 2017
Location: Kearney, Ontario
Weather: Dull, with occasional sunny breaks
 Common Loon & chick | A good friend had done a bit of research and came up with a location where a local guide had discovered a Common Loon family. We traveled up the 4 hours north to Kearney Ontario, and met our guide for the day at the boat launch at 05:30 (yes I was up REALLY early). We headed out into the lake and soon found the family (male female & a single chick) foraging in a small inlet. The group were extremely tolerant of our presence and so we were able to get a good quantity of decent shots. Challenges were the poor light and the bouncing of the boat, but a good day nonetheless . |
July 9th 2017
Location: Dundas Valley Conservation Area
Weather: Bright & Sunny
All images are clickable to go full size, and hovering over will display species or description
Along with good birding friend Jamie, we checked out some of the trails in Dundas Valley Conservation Area. Lots of good birds were spotted and some of them photographed. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo nest that I had last visited about 2 weeks ago in this area, was now empty and deserted - whether that was because it was abandoned or simply the offspring had fledged, I'm not sure. Cuckoos are one of, if not the fastest, birds to lay their eggs and fledge their young, so I have to think the reason for the empty nest was that the fledglings were gone. I hope that this was the case .....
July 5th & 6th July 2017
Location: Sunridge, Ontario
Weather: Hot & generally sunny
All images are clickable to go full size, and hovering over will display species or description
During July things go a little quiet down here in SW Ontario as our spring/summer songbird visitors have fledged their offspring and slow down on their foraging activities. We were up in the west side of Algonquin a couple of weeks ago and were aware that the season, 4 hours north of Kitchener, is a little later. It would seem then that songbird activity was also a bit later. With that thought in mind we headed up yet again to the same general area we were in mid June. On that 2 day trip our sightings were predominantly Blackburnian, Nashville, Parula and Canada Warblers, but on this foray we were seeing mainly Black-throated Blue, Black & White, Magnolia and Chestnut-sided... pretty much everywhere we stopped to check. We also had saw a few others including Canada Warbler, but Not at the same places we saw them 3 weeks ago (oddly enough). The light on day 1 was horrible (bright harsh sunshine) making it difficult to get decent images, but on the morning of day 2 the light was perfect with very hazy shadow-less sunshine. We setup at a likely looking 2nd growth clearing and almost immediately we were seeing warblers foraging on berries & bugs in the low growth. That first 3 hours was probably the easiest and best songbird photography I had encountered in several years.
