Thrushes and Blue-Winged Teal

I must admit that I am no expert when it comes to thrushes in Ontario. I am well acquainted with thrushes in the UK, but these guys have completely different names. I will do my best to hopefully identify correctly.

There are I believe two possible candidates,  Swainson's thrush and the hermit thrush. Very similar-looking birds. One outstanding difference between them appears to be a white ring around the eye of the hermit thrush compared to a buffy eyering on Swainson's thrush. Another distinguishing detail is the colour of their tailfeathers. The hermit thrush has more of a cinnamon colour to its tailfeathers, and this photo does show that. A white eyering and cinnamon tailfeathers, I'm going with a hermit thrush.

This photo also shows both the cinnamon tailfeathers and the white eyering. There were many of these thrushes working their way through the leaf litter of the woodland on the far side of Shoemaker Lake. They were very sensitive to any movement. I had to circle through the woodland quite a few times to obtain these photos.

Another member of the same thrush family (Turdidae) is this American robin, pictured as it looked out from its nesting site.

I also have to include this photo of an American robin from a few days ago. It was enjoying the bounty of worms I'd turned up while digging our vegetable patch.

Back to Lakeside Park, and as I followed the hermit thrushes, I chanced upon white-throated sparrows and this song sparrow who was foraging through the leaf litter, surrounded by the woodland's violets, just starting to wake from their winter slumber.

I uploaded so many photos of kinglets in my last post, and I'm going to have to do it again, as they were simply everywhere! I found ruby-crowned kinglets working their way through the vines and bushes on the side of the lake.

Their close relatives, the golden-crowned kinglets would also occasionally drop down to feed in the undergrowth.

The golden-crowned kinglets appeared to be congregating in the top corner of Lakeside Park. They really like to be close to the fir trees, and perhaps that is for their safety.

This golden-crowned kinglet posed for a few seconds with its mohawk blazing.

I feel privileged to be able to get so close to these birds which are normally only seen for a split second as they disappear out of sight. I'm sure that it won't last, so I'll make the most of it while I can.

One more photo from home. It was taken a few days ago in our garden which is not as densely wooded as Lakeside Park or the Borden Wetlands, but our few trees did attract a brown creeper. I really like how the brown creeper and the rough bark of the tree stand out against the background in this photo.

Forward to April the 21st, and I cannot believe how hard it is snowing outside at the moment! It had been raining very early this morning and that was soon followed by broken clouds. I thought I'd take a chance at hopefully not getting wet and my resolve paid off with another first for me at Lakeside Park.

These ducks are blue-winged teal, much smaller than the mallards that they were keeping close to, but at a distance, they could easily be confused with mallards. The drake on its own does stand out though with a vertical white stripe on its face.

The bright blue is apparent on the wing feathers of both the male and female blue-winged teals. It's particularly noticeable when the ducks are flying.

The female's colours are designed more for camouflage than presentation. This pair of blue-winged teal is another welcome addition to my list this year, joining the goldeneye and buffleheads: https://wildlakeside.blogspot.com/2020/04/buffleheads-goldeneyes-and-common.html.

As I was taking the photos of the pair of blue-winged teal it was hard not to notice the northern flicker directly in front of me. It was getting really excited over whatever it was digging into the ground for. Stopping periodically to call out.

One final photo before the snow squall started this morning. A common grackle catching some welcome sunlight, and looking anything but common, its feathers appearing to be cut from sheet metal.

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