Frontenac Bird Studies

July 22, 2009 • 10:23 pm 2

Project Whip-poor-will in 2009

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Project Whip-poor-will, our pilot study to examine protocols suitable for long-term monitoring of Whip-poor-will populations in Ontario, was successfully completed this summer by FBS staff. The Whip-poor-will is the latest bird species added to the COSEWIC list of Species at Risk having been recommended for listing in April 2009. The Whip-poor-will joins the Common Nighthawk as nightjar species with ‘threatened’ status in Canada.

As a group, nightjars are one of the least understood families of birds in North America, which is largely due to their strict crepuscular/nocturnal habits and cryptic nature. Much like bats, nightjars are entirely dependent on flying insects for sustenance-moths in the case of Whip-poor-wills. This species feeds exclusively at dawn and dusk and throughout the night under a bright moon, making short upward flights at flying insects back-lit by bright nighttime skies. While it is troubling that both Common Nighthawk and Whip-poor-will life histories remain “in the dark”, even more troubling is that we know even less about their respective population trends and systematics. This void places these two species at considerable risk for rapid decline. What is clear is an echoed sentiment amongst landowners and the public in the northeast region that Whip-poor-wills no longer fill the night with their distinctive song in places long inhabited by these enchanting birds. So what’s causing these retractions from historical breeding sites? Are birds in fact declining across the board or are declines localized? Are the declines attributable to breeding productivity or adult survivorship? All important questions but the first place to start is to generate scientifically rigorous and annually repeated assessments of populations across as much of the species continental range as possible.

This effort to index the status and patterns of Whip-poor-will populations has already begun in the United Status with the Northeast Nightjar Survey but as yet no parallel initiative has taken root in Canada. The Frontenac Arch, the most environmentally ‘intact’ region in Southern Ontario, remains a stronghold for Whip-poor-will populations in Ontario as reported by the recently updated Breeding Bird Atlas of Ontario. The Southern Shield ecotone in Ontario’s cottage country, which includes northerly sections of the Frontenac Axis landform, clearly represents an area of vital importance to Canadian populations of the Whip-poor-will.

For our part, a total of 35 point count station comprising three distinct routes were conducted in early July, 2009. Counts were conducted on nights when the moon was above the horizon and when greater than 75% of the moon was illuminated. Replicates of count stations with multiple Whip-poor-wills were also performed to assess effects of temperature, cloud cover and wind speed and also to compare dusk to nighttime periods for counting. There were some clear patterns of vocal frequency determined by these factors, which will be useful in designing a protocol to maximize detection in future years.

Over 50 Whip-poor-wills were detected on the surveys with abundance per station ranging from 0 birds (usually in wide open or closed habitats) to 5 birds countersinging in “good habitats”. Distance and compass bearing from station centre were recorded for each encounter. At the busy stations it was quite a challenge to keep track of ‘who was who’ as birds moved around and songs frequently overlapped from various directions and distances. I don’t think I’ve ever been so reliant on cupping my ears to sonar the location of a singing bird as their voice seemed to echo from a very general area unless the bird was within 75 meters. Whip-poor-wills were found in habitats of various types and forms but always with an association of open fields, meadows, outcrops and/or rock barrens.

I spent many evenings/nights with the Whip-poor-wills in July along Canoe Lake Road, Devil Lake Road and McAndrews Road among others-it was a rich experience and I’ve come away with a deep appreciation for this bird and many questions about its ecology and apparent plight. There is something about the moon and the dark and these strange and wonderful birds that made me believe volunteer citizen scientists from across the province would band together to monitor and ultimately protect this threatened species. Hopefully this can get underway for 2010 and beyond….

Filed under: Breeding Bird Studies, Project Whip-poor-will, Species At Risk

May 23, 2009 • 6:09 pm 0

Surprise Ceruleans at Maplewood

(Singing Cerulean Warbler-ZHEE ZHEE ZIZIZIZIZI zzzeeet)

Of the three MAPS stations we’re establishing for the Frontenac Breeding Birds project, I’ve definitely had the most difficulty finalizing a layout for the Maplewood Bog station to the north of Frontenac Provincial Park. This particular site seemed to have the most uniformly structured forest and the least number of readily identifiable edges. It was however, the closest thing to pure deciduous forest of the three, which presented our best opportunity to sample species typical of this forest type. My last visit on May 14th, just ten days ago, gave me a bit more confidence that a viable MAPS station could be conducted there but I still had some lingering doubts.

I returned to MABO (station codename) this morning with the hope that I might find some lovely rock outcrops, forest clearings or wetlands that I’d missed on previous visits and also that some new species had arrived since mid-May. Today was my day as I found both! The most notable change since the last visit was the rather sudden appearance of Cerulean Warblers at the site (second only to a mass irruption of Mosquitos!). I hadn’t encountered them previously at MABO but they have been numerous along Canoe Lake Road this spring. In Ron Weir’s latest edition of Birds of the Kingston Region, he makes note of a high count of 25 singing males along Canoe Lake Road on May 15, 1979. Cerulean Warblers seem to have a tendancy to aggregate into colonies, although the reasons for this habit are unclear. Each MAPS station is 20 hectares, inside of which standardized misnetting of breeding birds occurs within an 8 hectare plot. I was delighted to find a total of five singing males within the banding area itself, none of which were audible from the nearby road where the site is accessed. Some of these vocal males may be unmated bachelors but I was able to confirm two pairs and found some evidence of nesting. Ceruleans were located in younger portions of the woodland with an uneven canopy and open understory and seemed to be favouring spots with mature oak sp. protruding through the canopy. The Cerulean Warbler is one of the most heavily declining bird species in North America and is a species of Special Concern in Canada and Ontario.

In addition to the parade of Cerulean Warblers, I also found a great abundance of other deciduous species, the most conspicuous of which were Veery, American Redstart, Red-eyed Vireo and Scarlet Tanager. Other birds of note were Yellow-throated Vireo, Barred Owl, Wilson’s Snipe, Swamp Sparrow, Black-throated Blue Warbler and Magnolia Warbler. The foliage was markedly further along today than my last visit and this was a great help in finalizing the layout of the MAPS station. I didn’t have much time for nest searching but I was very happy to find a Scarlet Tanager nest about 10 feet above the ground at the edge of a blanket bog!

With the layout for MABO now having been properly visualized, we are set to begin site prep next week in advance of our first visit to all three sites in the first week of June. The MAPS work will operate in tandem with an extensive network of on and off-road point count stations throughout the 15,000 hectare study area. An intensive nest-monitoring effort will also commence during the first of June. It will be an eventful and probably very tiring two months of fieldwork but we are in an excellent position to deliver this exciting new initiative. I wonder how many Cerulean Warblers can be found in 15,000 hectares of forest in the northern Frontenac Arch?

Filed under: Breeding Bird Studies, M.A.P.S, Species At Risk, Videos , Cerulean Warbler, Maplewood Bog, Scarlet Tanager nest, Wilson's Snipe

May 19, 2009 • 2:03 pm 1

Waterfront homes at Hemlock Lake

Forest floor of regenerating coniferous forest

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Returned to the Hemlock Lake site yesterday to begin searching for mistnet locations and to get a better picture of the breeding bird community for our study. The visit was considerably more comfortable than my last when black flies were particularly menacing! This latest visit was cool with very few biting insects, which afforded me a great opportunity to get to know the site a bit better. What a difference a couple of weeks can make in the late spring! The emerging foliage was substantially further along, which created a much different looking landscape. Site visits in winter and early spring gave me a solid understanding of the scale, topography and structure of the site but I knew that it wouldn’t be possible to even consider positoning net locations until the canopy and understory had matured.

Upon entry to the site, I heard Eastern Towhee, Scarlet Tanager, Nashville Warbler and a concert of voice-battling Ovenbirds. Further along to where the forest turns from deciduous to mixed-coniferous, I encountered Black-and-white, Magnolia, Black-throated Blue and Blackburnian Warblers, all species we were expecting at the site. Also of interest were at least two territories of Winter Wren, one of the most vocally adept species on the planet! I was able to record a few seconds of one of our talented males holding territory in the site along with one of the unavoidable male Ovenbirds (click play to listen).

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Evidence of active nesting by many species included alarm calls, adults carrying nesting material and territorial disputes. I didn’t find a great number of nests but I did mark locations where a nest was suspected. I will have to return in a few days to a week to confirm presumed nest sites of Ovenbird, Black-and-white Warbler and Eastern Towhee among others.

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However, I did manage to find the nest of a Brown Creeper, which was discovered by patiently watching movements and behaviour of a pair in the standing dead timber at the edge of Hemlock Lake. After sitting quietly for about 45 minutes, I was finally rewarded with the observation of an adult entering a tree with nesting material. The Brown Creeper places its nest almost exclusively in dead trees, between a loose flap of bark and the trunk. They build a hammock shaped nest of sticks and fibres, which is secured to the bark with insect-egg casings and spider silk. The nest will now be monitored with the goal of deriving a nest outcome. The information will be important to our demographic studies of breeding birds in the FBS study area and will be submitted to the Ontario Nest Records Scheme and Project Nestwatch for province-wide monitoring efforts. A closer view of the nest site is provided below.

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Brown Creeper nest site

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The most exciting discovery of the day led to this short video of a waterthrush carrying material to a nest in roots of an upturned tree along a clear moving stream. Northern Waterthrushes were quite vocal in the vicinity but this particular pair were all but silent except for some occassional contact calls between male and female. The calls were diagnostic of Louisiana Waterthrush but I will have to confirm identify of the nest owners at a later date. Northern Waterthrush are very similar in appearance with some subtle differences. It is best to distinguish the two by song, which are distinct. The Louisiana Waterthrush is a Species At Risk and a specialty of the Frontenac Arch region where an abundance of mature forest and clear moving streams provide suitable nesting habitat. The video is of less than ideal quality but one can clearly see an adult entering the roots about halfway up the screen to the left of the small tree trunk. The bird is more clearly seen at the end of the clip as it cryptically runs through the stream and out of the frame. Click here for HD version of this video clip.

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The Hemlock Lake MAPS station will begin operating in early June and continue with one visit per ten-day block through the final visit in late July. We will also be conducting a standardized nest monitoring study at this and the other two MAPS stations in the FBS study area. The site is turning out to be a terrific find and hopefully a long-term home for our research and monitoring programs.

Notable Species at Hemlock Lake (May 18,2009)

Great Blue Heron
Red-shouldered Hawk
Eastern Kingbird
Brown Creeper
Winter Wren
Wood Thrush
Swainson’s Thrush (migrant)
Northern Parula (migrant)
Nashville Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Cerulean Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
Ovenbird
Northern Waterthrush
Louisiana Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Scarlet Tanager
Eastern Towhee
Field Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Baltimore Oriole

Filed under: Breeding Bird Studies, M.A.P.S, Nest Monitoring, Species At Risk, Videos , Brown Creeper nest, Frontenac Breeding Birds, Hemlock, Hemlock Lake, Louisiana Waterthrush, Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship, waterthrush nest

April 30, 2009 • 7:08 pm 0

Red-shouldered Hawks on Canoe Lake Road

Incubating Red-shouldered Hawk

The Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) occurs across much of the eastern half of North America with a northern limit of central Ontario and Maine. Formerly Ontario’s most abundant hawk species, Red-shouldered Hawks declined sharply in the last century due to habitat loss and fragmentation and resulting inter-specific competition with the Red-tailed Hawk. Red-shouldered Hawks are an area-sensitive species, preferring large tracts of mature, contiguous and primarily deciduous forest cover. This species also prefers a closed canopy of 70% or greater for successful breeding (Badzinski 2005). Territory size for the lineatus subspecies averaged 192 hectares in a Maryland study with distance between nesting pairs ranging from .37 km to 1.27 km (Steward 1949). Interestingly, this species is considered a partial migrant as it is only those individuals that breed in the northern portion of the continental range that are known to migrate south. These migrant Red-shouldered Hawks that breed in Ontario migrate relatively short distances to the United States.

The rather unimpressive photo above was taken of a incubating parent, probably a female, along Canoe Lake Road on April 27, 2009. A pair returned to this nesting location from previous years in late March and were highly vocal during the first two weeks of courtship. The male and female were often observed together coasting on thermal updrafts around mid-day near the nest site. The pair have been nearly silent since that time and are much more inconspicuous in general since eggs were laid in the last week or so. The nest itself, compacted and disheveled by the winter, was extensively renovated by the pair in the first few weeks, and has nearly doubled in overall size since late March. It is located in a mature ash between two small ridges. The presiding male has been observed on multiple occasions bringing food (mostly small mammals) to the incubating female. The incubation period is about 33 days, which suggests that young will hatch around late May (Palmer 1988).

Cruising Red-shouldered Hawk

The Red-shouldered Hawk was listed as a Species At Risk (Special Concern) in Canada (COSEWIC) and Ontario (COSSARO) until 2007 when it was delisted largely based on results of a pioneering citizen science project. Bird Studies Canada (BSC) and Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) completed a thorough assessment of the population status of this uncommon raptor species by conducting annual roadside counts in southern and central Ontario from 1990-2006. The Red-shouldered Hawk and Spring Woodpecker Survey concluded that populations during that time period seemed to be stable in regions of Ontario with suitable habitat (central) and that the species was expanding northward. Of over 141 survey routes conducted during the project, there were a few that stood out in terms of the average number of hawks per route. Canoe Lake, Opinicon Lake, Otty Lake and Christie Lake, all routes located within the northern portion of the Frontenac Arch, had significantly higher counts of this species than anywhere else. This pattern of high population density in this region as well as The Land Between ecotone is also indicated by abundance and breeding evidence maps of the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas.

Protecting the ecological integrity of the Frontenac Arch and the Southern Shield region of Ontario is important to a vast array of species, including the Red-shouldered Hawk. The contributions of the Red-shouldered Hawk and Spring Woodpecker Survey and the continued efforts of the Kingston Field Naturalists have been of considerable significance to our understanding of this species in the Frontenac Arch region. While not a focal species at this time, Frontenac Bird Studies will be conducting surveys and nest-monitoring to lend further support for this remarkable hawk in Ontario’s woodlands.

Filed under: Breeding Bird Studies, Nest Monitoring, Species At Risk , Frontenac Breeding Birds, nest, Red-shouldered Hawk

Frontenac Bird Studies is a new initiative of the Migration Research Foundation