Peregrine Falcon visits Port Hope

Nature Notes for January 20, 2012

We were standing near the mouth of the Ganaraska River checking out the gulls roosting on the

jetties that bracket the river mouth. For no good reason, I looked down at the ground. There beside my husband’s right toe was the carcass of a Long-tailed Duck.

All that was left of the duck was the breast bone and the wings, with one foot lying nearby. This was a sure sign of a Peregrine kill. Peregrines feed almost exclusively on birds which they capture in flight. Before eating them, they pluck the breast feathers. They typically feed by stripping off the breast muscle.

Although we didn’t see the Peregrine that day, one had been seen in the area the week before. It was probably the most interesting bird seen during the Mid-winter Waterfowl Inventory on January 8.

Perhaps it will spend the winter here. There is certainly adequate prey. Downtown Port Hope has a good supply of pigeons and there are many ducks of a variety of species on Lake Ontario around the river mouth.

In winter 2010/2011, a satellite tagged Peregrine spent most of the winter at Prince Edward Point, the far southeast corner of Prince Edward County. This bird, named Quest, hatched in Rochester and was fitted with a satellite transmitter there when she was banded.

Because of the transmitter, she could be tracked. Over the course of several years, she made a trip to the east coast, but spent most of her time wandering around southern Ontario. In summer 2010, she could often be found around the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. The tall buildings there were suitable “cliffs” for hunting perches and there was some hope that she might find a mate and nest there.

She wandered quite widely. I saw her myself on two occasions, in June 2009 and 2010, at the Wesleyville Ontario Power Generation property.

She had her own ideas about setting up housekeeping. In 2011, she found a mate and settled into a ledge on an office tower in North York. The best views of the nest were from the headquarters of Harlequin Romance novels in Don Mills. Her mate was also a young bird, nesting for the first time, so observers on the ground were a bit anxious as to whether they would know what to do.

This pair did nest successfully in 2011, fledging one chick. It was named Harley (for Harlequin).

Peregrine Falcons were decimated during the middle of the twentieth century when DDT use was common. Because they range so widely and some winter in South American where DDT and other toxic chemicals are still used, the recovery of this species has been quite slow.

They do not breed until they are four or five years old and they don’t have very many young per year. This also makes for a slow population recovery.

The natural nesting habitat of Peregrines are cliff faces. This provides some protection from predators on the eggs and young. Humans have provided an abundance of artificial cliffs in the form of high rise buildings. Now this falcon is nesting in places that it didn’t ever nest historically. Along with these artificial cliffs, urban areas often provide an abundant supply of food in the form of pigeons.

People really like this species, so are quite willing to volunteer to mount “fledge watches”. Newly fledged Peregrines need to practise flying and have been known to crash onto streetcar tracks or busy roads and need rescuing.

Perhaps the Port Hope bird will stick around and one day find a mate and a nesting site in the area. It would be quite exciting to have this bird present on a regular basis.

For more information about Peregrines, check out the web site of the Canadian Peregrine Foundation, www.peregrine-foundation.ca

Smew in Whitby, Ontario, Canada treat for local birders

Nature Notes for January 6, 2012

The last week of December brought a real rarity to our area, not to Northumberland, but to neighbouring Durham Region. On Tuesday, December 27, Ontbirds, the listserv of the Ontario Field Ornithologists, reported a Smew in Whitby harbour. The report came complete with a photograph.

What is a Smew you ask? It is a small duck, native to Eurasia. It is a fish-eating duck which seems to fill the same ecological niche in Eurasia as the Hooded Merganser does in North America.

Most North American records of Smew are from the outer Aleutian Islands. The Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Ontario (1991) lists only two records of this species in Ontario, most recently in 1973.

Smews breed across the taiga zone of the Old World from Scandinavia to the Kamchatka Peninsula. They nest in old woodpecker holes and will readily use nest boxes, such as are erected here to encourage Wood Ducks.

They winter on sheltered seas and lakes in eastern Europe, chiefly in the southwestern Baltic Sea and coastal waters of Black and Caspian Seas. In the east, it also winters around the coasts, lakes and rivers of China, Korea and Japan.

On December 28, it was still being reported so we decided to chase it. Despite the cold, icy paths and a biting north wind, our party of three had lots of company at Whitby harbour. At least 25 other birders were at the harbour while we were there, but no one stayed very long because of the cold wind. For most of them, this was probably a “life bird”.

The adult male Smew has a very distinctive plumage. It is mostly white with a black eye patch and small amounts of black on its back.  The Whitby bird was not an adult male. It had a black eye patch, chestnut cap and mottled gray-brown and white on the rest of the body. There was some discussion as to the sex of this bird. The consensus of our party was that this was a young male. It seemed to have more white on the body than a female should have.

Despite the company of 1000+ Red-breasted Mergansers, and smaller numbers of Common Mergansers, Common Goldeneyes, Long-tailed Ducks, Gadwall, American Black Ducks, Canada Geese, Mute Swans, and Trumpeter Swans, the Smew was quite easy to find. It was swimming and diving quite close to the observers on the harbour breakwall. Although we had a spotting scope, it was possible to get quite good looks at this bird with binoculars alone.

Because waterfowl are often kept in private collections, frequently there is dispute as to the origin of unusual ducks and geese. Did it arrive on its own or is it an escape from a zoo? There didn’t seem to be such discussion about this bird. It will be interesting to see what the Ontario Rare Birds Records Committee decides.

The Smew was seen on only two days. The evening of the 28^th was cold. The huge merganser flock departed, and along with it, the Smew.

Since I am not planning a trip to Europe, Asia or the Aleutians, it was a great treat to see this duck so close to home. The annual Mid-winter Waterfowl Inventory is being held on Sunday, January 8. It will be interesting to see if the Smew may have relocated to somewhere else on Lake Ontario.