Birding Bidgood's Park in Goulds

This is my first year to bird Bidgood's Park. I don't know what took me so long to find it but there are  just so many great birdwatching places to discover.  I think the timing was right for me to enjoy this park this year. Now, I can identify more birds and am just learning to recognize the sounds as well as distant identification of birds.

Since Spring I have visited the park at least a dozen times at different times of the day. There is very little foot traffic in the park, especially during the day. I did find quite a few walkers and fishers arrived after supper time.

I understand that the Bidgood family donated 38 acres of land for the park development about ten years ago. Approximately four years ago work began to develop a network of trails, boardwalks and bridges throughout the wetlands. This work was done in such a way so as to protect the natural wetlands and was very successful.

The original plans included a full-scale park development model to include a museum, swimming pool, etc. Frankly, I am glad that this further development has been scraped, at least for the time being.

As it is, this natural walking park is a haven for many different species of birds and bird watchers. I have never found such a diverse collection of birds in any other area that is easily accessible from the city. Let's hope that this natural habitat remains.

There are many wonderful aspects of bird watching to enjoy in this park: It is accessible. It is quiet and easy to hear the birds from a distance. Many birds move into the area including song birds and wetland birds. There is little human activity in the park. There seem to always be surprises at this park such as the Red Crossbill pictured above. I didn't expect the find this bird and was delighted when I looked up and saw this one perched atop a dead tree.


Over the last three months I have generated a pretty good bird list for this park:

Eastern Kingbird
American Bittern
American Redstart
Tree Swallow
Common Grackle
Cedar Waxwing
Northern Flicker
American Robin
American Crow
American Black Duck
European Starling
Dark-eyed Junco
Pine Grosbeak
Purple Finch
Belted Kingfisher
Swamp Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Fox Sparrow
Northern Waterthrush
Yellow Warbler
Black and White Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Red Crossbill
Blue Jay
Black-capped Chickadee
Boreal Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Osprey
Brown Creeper

I have listened as these birds moved through an extremely vocal period when the woods were filled with bird song, and I have experienced dead silence in the woods where I had to rely on movement to find the birds. This area is like a bird watching lab where much can be learned. It would be an ideal place for Girl Guides and Boy Scouts or any other youth group to learn about birds.  There is even an open-air classroom at one end of the park. Sounds like a perfect day camp experience to me.

Let's hope that the area remains as natural as it currently is so that it can continue to be a safe stopover for the many birds that spend their spring and summer there.

The Mute Swans of Newfoundland

Before I download all of my new whale pictures, I decided to flip through shots that I had planned to post and clear up some space for the new shots on my old computer.

Among the pleasures of bird watching this summer is the routine encounter with Mute Swans around the city of St. John's. I had thought that these swans were gifted by Queen Elizabeth II, but it seems that is not the case.  Researching their origin took more time than I anticipated. I'm sure there must be a historian in town that knows the full story down through the years.

 It seems that there were two Mute Swans released on the pond in Bowring Park in the early 1940s but they didn't survive due to roving dogs.

In 1946 Harry Hamlyn, Bowring Park Superintendent at the time, travelled to England and acquired six Mute Swans (three males and three females) from King George. It seems the acquisition was made possible by Cyril Bowring. I don't know what that means. Did he fund them? Did he have connections? Someone knows, I'm sure. My reading tells me that the Monarch owns all the Mute Swans and they have been given to many different locations over the years. Did we eventually have some given to the park?

 It seems that the birds of the 1940s were not reproducing well and there was concern that they would die off. I couldn't find any info beyond this.

Now, the last time that I saw all of the swans together in the winter quarters at Bowring Park, I counted nine. Since it is thought that the early swans in the park were all genetically related which led to the poor breeding, where did the new line come from?

Two years ago a pair of Mute Swans had two young ones on the pond at the park. These birds are breeding so well now that it is a practice to oil the eggs shortly after laying to prevent them from hatching. However, that doesn't prevent the birds from carrying out their breeding rituals until the park staff remove the eggs and dismantle the nest. That is really sad after watching the pair care for the eggs and each other during the incubation period.

This year a pair of swans released on Virginia Lake managed to have four young. Was this by design or was it because the park couldn't find the nest? With these four new swans added to the count, there should be 13 Mute Swans in the city.

Only a couple of years back, one Mute Swan was given to Corner Brook to replace one of their swans that perished. Whether there are swans in any other community in the province, I don't know.

One never grows tired of watching these beautiful birds. However, the pictures that I chose to share today speak more to their behaviour than to their looks.  The first three photos show a male swan grooming. He starts in an upright position and within moments it folded itself down until it was almost flat.

The fourth photo shows a Mute Swan racing to get in on the food being offered at the wharf at Kenny's Pond. It was amazing how much speed it attained as it lowered its head between its wings and seemed to use the wings as sails as it propelled itself with its big feet under water.

The last image speaks for itself. While watching this pair, the male was cleaning up the area. He picked up a few pieces of paper trash and moved them out of the house to make the area more tidy. The absolute best time to photograph these birds is during breeding season. It is then that they often fluff up their wings and bloat up the body to look huge. Once the breeding season passes, they seem to shrink in size.

I will continue to try to gather info about the history of the Mute Swans in NL.

Cape Spear - Whaleathon!

Don't have time to add any pictures right now but, yet again, today there is a spectacular whale show going on at Cape Spear.  I don't know how long this can last but it has been happening for at least five days now. Pictures to follow.....

Tree Swallow Family - 2011

 This is my third and final installment of the family of Tree Swallows that have lived in my nesting box for almost two months.

During their time in the box, they remained ever-vigilant of all activity in the yard. They became quite comfortable with me moving about the garden and didn't flinch when I worked on the yard underneath the box.

 This was not the case with other birds. When one would dare to land on top of the box, the pair would dive bomb them until they left. They claimed the power line within a 10 yard radius around the box. No bird was allowed to land on this area without consequence.

It was very interesting as I took pictures throughout their stay that it never seemed to cause any distress. I think they had already come to terms with my presence before they moved in, reliasing that I was quite harmeless.

 Days and weeks came and went and the male kept watch and waited patiently.  Then one day a group of about five Tree Swallows showed up and took turns looking in the box and flying around. I believe that this was the day that the babies hatched. It was like a baby shower with friends and extended family came to see the new ones.

For more than two weeks I could hear cheeps coming from the box and both parents were very busy flying out and back in again with morsels of food for them. Once I began seeing the babies show up in the nesting box hole, I decided to try to get a picture inside the box. It seems that there are only three when resources say that there would likely be four to six eggs.  I don't know if they all didn't hatch or if this was just a small brood.

 I watched as the babies got stronger, noiser and bigger. They seemed to take turns placing their huge mouths in the opening awaiting their next meal.

They got stronger and bigger by the day.

 On Saturday they seemed to be ready to fly. I, of course, couldn't spend all day watching them which is too bad because by Sunday, yesterday, I noticed that they were all gone.

I don't know where they might have gone, but I'm sure that the adults are still providing them with their sustainance for a while yet to come. I am finding a lot of little birds that have flown the nest that are still being fed by their parents. These include White-throated Sparrows, European Starlings, Dark-eyed Juncos and American Robins.






It is likely that this same scenario has played itself out thousands of times around the province over the last two months. This little Tree Swallow was keeping watch at its nesting box at Nevile's Pond in exactly the same way as those in my yard.

This was the first brood of any species that set up house in my yard. I have read that Tree Swallows will often have two broods in a seasons. I will have to read more to see if I should leave the existing nest for this or if I should clean box out for them to start again.