Birding in 2019, and another Boreal Chickadee

A new year brings new birding goals, and once again, it’s all about exploring new places to go birding and adding new species to the Life List, both at home and, this year, in Ecuador.  We leave on February 5 for Quito and a week of birding some of the most incredible places on the planet.  We had originally planned just somewhere warm for our winter birding trip, say California, away from the frigid cold of Toronto, but I wanted Lifers, and since we are planning a trip to The Galápagos Islands in November of this year, I figured that doing the mainland first would be an amazing appetizer.

Speaking of birding all over the hemisphere, in 2018 I took photos with my iPhone in every location I visited and ended up with a map of my entire year. From British Columbia in the North West to Trinidad in the South East and New Brunswick in the North East to Nevada in the South West, I certainly got around in 2018.  Cool!

Meanwhile, I am still here in Toronto and will limit most of my birding travel to chasing Lifers for both ABA and Ontario, but I still love to just go birding too and plan on continuing my everyday eBird listing, so chasing the more uncommon birds within a short drive is still always fun.  I began the year in a local haunt, James Gardens and Lambton Woods, where I got 21 species on Janauary 1.  But the very next day I heard of a Boreal Chickadee in Whitby, at Darlington Provincial Park, which is more of a paved path behind the GM offices, and went the next morning.

After getting the Boreal last year in Col Sam Smith Park, it was fitting that another one showed up in a park in Whitby at the end of Sam Smith Drive, near Oshawa Second Marsh, home of Little Gulls in the spring.  It wasn’t much of a walk, which was good, as it was a cold day, but after about 20 minutes some other birders found it up the path and we all had nice looks at another Boreal Chickadee that was far south of the Boreal forest.

A few days later a Ring-necked Pheasant was seen in Morningside Park, but I was too late and my consolation prize was a Wild Turkey:

Next up was a Northern Pintail.  I missed seeing one in 2018, so it was nice to get one early this year at Sedgewick Park, in the warm waters of the water filtration area:

A week later a huge flock of Common Redpolls was seen out near Whitby, not far from where the Boreal Chickadee was seen, but in a field in a housing development.  Amongst them, was a single Hoary Redpoll, that was easy enough to see with binoculars, but evaded my camera, as they were flying in a flock from place to place without sitting still very long.

Another species I haven’t seen much of in the past couple of years was Bohemian Waxwings.  I heard of a flock about an hour and a half from home at Fleming College in the town of Lindsay, so took the day to go and was rewarded with a flock of at least 37 birds, on a very cold day.

I even found a Redpoll as a bonus bird:

The past week, almost all my birding has been through my windows at the bird feeders, as it has been so cold in the minus 30’s Celcious with the wind!

I did have a little thrill at James Gardens, when an Eastern Towhee was coming to the Lambton Woods feeders.  And the one time I forget my phone and don’t birding my camera, so missed a nice photo opportunity.  But there were other birds.

Immature male, Common Goldeneye: