Hawks in Our Yard

Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

With the heavy snows and extreme cold that we are having here in New Brunswick our yard bird feeders are very active. We have many birds coming to feed including Black-capped Chickadees, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, White-breasted Nuthatches, American Goldfinches, Common Redpolls, Mourning Doves and even Bohemian Waxwings. Heavy bird traffic attracts other birds including hawks. Yes, hawks (and eagles) have been watching our yard periodically all winter.

There is a Red-tailed Hawk hanging around the community.  He visits our yard now and then.  He is a fine specimen and seems to be making it through the winter well so far.  In the photo below notice the dark band across the cream-coloured breast.  The red on the tail is not always visible but is often seen on a flying adult.  The red colour is muted on the underside of the tail but a nice rusty brown on the top side.

Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawks eat mostly rodents but would take a song bird in the winter.  Red-tails migrate south in the fall but a few overwinter here.

Another common hawk here in winter is the Sharp-shinned Hawk.  It is a fast flyer and has streaked through our yard many times this winter.  It has taken a Mourning Dove twice that we know about.  It flies through very fast and grabs its prey before it has a chance to escape.  The picture below is borrowed from the Internet.  'Sharpies' are so fast it is difficult to get a good photo.

Sharp-shinned Hawk [Internet photo]

These are the only two hawks species we have had in our yard this winter but last winter we had a really rare hawk visit us.  It perched in one of our trees for most of the afternoon.  It was sunning itself and seemed to enjoy watching the bird activity around it.  This was a Red-shouldered Hawk and it is not normally here especially in winter.  It normally spends the winter from southern New York State southward.  We have a few visit us in summer but it is not a common hawk.

Red-shouldered Hawk

Red-shouldered Hawk

 Another hawk that sometimes visits feeder yards in winter in New Brunswick is the Cooper's Hawk. The Cooper's is much like the Sharp-shinned but is larger.  It can be difficult to tell from the Sharp-shinned so look closely if you have a small, fast hawk fly through your yard!  Generally the Cooper's is bigger than the Sharpie, has a more well-defined cap and has a rounded tail.  Size is a difficult determinant.  A large female Sharpie can be as big as a small male Cooper's.  See the photo below to see the difference in the two species.

Hawks in winter are interesting to watch.  They do take the occasional bird  but they need to survive the winter, too.  They are part of the balance of nature.

Eskimo Curlew

Eskimo Curlew

Eskimo Curlew

A recent trip to the New Brunswick Museum gave me an opportunity to view mounts of the Eskimo Curlew. This species has always interested me because I still hold some hope that a few may still exist. We birders should be aware of it especially in our fall shorebird trips here in Atlantic Canada.The Eskimo Curlew formerly bred in the far north from Alaska to Nunavut. It wintered in the grasslands of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. It migrated north in the spring through the Central flyway and back south in the fall through northern Quebec, Labrador, Atlantic Canada and out over the ocean to South America. Preferred habitats were grasslands, tundra, burned prairie and meadows.

Eskimo Curlew (A Thorburn painting) 

Eskimo Curlew (JJ Audubon painting)

We do not have good photos of this species, hence see the paintings above. The Eskimo is a small curlew. It is so much smaller than our Whimbrel that it would not be mistaken for it unless one had no means of comparison. The decurved bill makes it a curlew. Significant field marks include its size (36 cm/14 in) [compared to Whimbrel which is 45 cm/17.5 in], more muted head pattern than the Whimbrel with indistinct crown stripe, entirely dark lores, dark upper parts with buff-edged feathers giving a mottled look, underparts buff with steaks on the neck and prominent chevrons on the sides, wings projecting beyond the tail, underwings cinnamon. It is distinguished from the Little Curlew by the dark lores, darker underwing, more heavily marked flanks, more curved bill and it is slightly larger. The Whimbrel and Bristle-thighed Curlew are much larger and the Eskimo Curlew has a more muted head pattern and cinnamon under the wing.

Long-billed Curlew, Eskimo Curlew 

The photo above is of museum specimens. Note how much smaller the Eskimo Curlew is than the Long-billed Curlew.

Eskimo Curlew 

In the photo above note the streaking on the neck and the heavy chevron pattern on the sides. The dark lores distinguish it from the Little Curlew.

Eskimo Curlew 

The central stripe on the head is much more muted than on the Whimbrel.

Eskimo Curlew

Eskimo Curlew 

Both illustrations above show the mottled feathers on the back. The buff edging to the feathers is very evident.

The Eskimo Curlew is probably extinct but is still listed as endangered. Its population was once very large but declined because of over-hunting during the late 1800s and loss of habitat and food sources (grasshoppers, berries). The last confirmed report was of one shot in the Barbados in Sept., 1963. Prior to that a few were seen on the upper Texas coast in the fall. IBirdPro reports reliable records from the 1980s.

The Eskimo Curlew was first described by Johann Reinhold in 1772. It most likely was one of the two species mentioned by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage as he approached North America, the other being the American Golden-Plover. Although a sighting is very unlikely today, we need to be watching our blueberry fields, the plains on Miscou and our east coast shorelines in September in case a few of these birds still exist.

Nova Scotia Birding Trip

Fieldfare

On Sunday, February 8, 2 friends and I went to Nova Scotia to see a rare bird.  A FIELDFARE had been coming to a yard in Apple River, NS.  This is another mega-rarity for birders.  We found it feeding on apples still on the tree in their front yard.   

The Fieldfare is a bird normally found in Europe and Asia.  It breeds in northern Europe and Asia and winters in central and southern Europe.  It is also found in Greenland and Siberia.  Its preferred habitat is woods and woodland edges in summer and open country, fields, and agricultural areas in winter.  Being a thrush, it is related to our American Robin and looks somewhat like it, although just slightly bigger.  We heard it vocalize and it sounded a bit like our robin but was more like a "shak-shak-shak".  It has a gray head, nape, and rump and red-brown on its back and wings.  The breast is orange or sometimes buff with black arrow-shaped spots.  The belly is white.  It is a striking bird and a delight to see.

In the pictures below you can see some of its multiple colours.  It was very actively feeding as you can see.

Also at the place where we found the Fieldfare, there were very active feeders with lots of bird activity. There were the usual Black-capped Chickadees, White-breasted Nuthatches, Downy Woodpeckers, Starlings, American Goldfinches and also Pine Siskins and Common Redpolls which are shown below.

Pine Siskin

Common Redpoll

We stopped at a couple of active farms en route where there was much bird activity.  There we found crows along with a group of gulls.  These included Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Ring-billed Gull (one only), and Iceland Gulls.  Shown below are a 3rd winter and a juvenile Iceland Gull.  These gulls winter here and usually spend their summers in the far north.

3rd Winter Iceland Gull

Juvenile Iceland Gull

We also found some interesting winter finches at these farms.  Horned Larks come here in the winter and spend their summers in the far north.  Lapland Longspurs do the same and these two species often hang out together.  They like to feed on the ground and eat seeds and insects.

Horned Larks

Horned Larks

Lapland Longspur

Winter Birds

Snow Bunting

Birding has been especially difficult this winter with the heavy snows and deep cold.  It has been difficult to get around and at many times not safe to be stopping along the roads.  It does, however, make the feeders more active.  Birds need food to survive this extreme weather.  They need more energy to keep their bodies warm.  And, often the natural food sources are covered with snow and ice.  

Above and below we see a Snow Bunting.  There are small to large flocks flying around our province feeding on weed seeds from plants poking above the snow or on seeds blown by the wind.  I have seen flocks ranging in size from 5 to 150 this winter.  They move around a lot and when the flock flies it looks like snowflakes.  Sometimes when it is very cold the snow buntings will burrow in under the snow to keep warm; a good idea!

Snow Bunting

Sometimes we are lucky enough to see Horned Larks flying in flocks during the winter.  They like open areas and are sometimes found around active farms.  They are about the size of the snow buntings but have yellow on them and sport feather tufts on their head if seen closely.

Horned Lark

Our feeders are very active with Black-capped Chickadees, American Goldfinches, White-breasted Nuthatches, Mourning Doves, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Crows and Ravens.   We have a special feeder for the crows and ravens and they wait everyday for their meal.  

Common Redpoll

This winter we have an eruption of Common Redpolls.  They have been coming to our place to feed with the other finches.  We also had a rare holdover from summer, a Robin who has been hanging around feeding on whatever natural fruit it can find in our trees.  I hope it makes it through this cold spell.  We are putting out fruit for it but it does not seem to be able to find it.

American Robin

American Robin