One sunny spring afternoon when I was eleven, I rode my bike down the road to my grandparents’ farm.  As I coasted down the laneway and entered the farmyard, I was startled by a sudden explosion of small, black birds erupting from every nook and cranny of one of the empty poultry barns.  Intrigued, I hopped off of my bike and retreated to a nearby shed to await their return.  One by one they reappeared, clinging momentarily to the barn wall for a wary look ’round before vanishing into their cavity nests.  They were glossy and short-tailed and yellow-billed, and I had no idea what they were.

At school the next day, I took a trip down to the library to peruse their small collection of bird books, where I found a copy of the Golden Birds of North America.  Taking it with me down to my bedroom that evening, I flipped through its crowded pages until I came across an illustration of a glossy black bird with a bright yellow bill — making the first of what would become many bird IDs from that trusty guide.

That’s right.  My spark bird was a European Starling.

No, really.

Starlings are not well loved here in North America.  The first starlings were introduced in 1890 in New York’s Central Park, by an organization seeking to bring all the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare to the new world (or so the famed story goes).  From that initial group of 60-100 individuals, the population exploded to over two hundred million in a single century, making them one of our most common birds — the quintessential ‘junk bird’ of North American birders.  They are noisy and gregarious, building their messy nests in attics and barbecues and commonly congregating at enourmous urban roosts that plaster the vehicles below in droppings.  As aggressive cavity nesters, they frequently out-compete native birds and have severely contributed to the decline of numerous passerine and woodpecker species.

And yet, I continue to have a strong affection for the birds.  There are comparatively few species that can survive in urban environments, and fewer still that prosper.  In a world where many creatures have been squeezed out of their ancestral homes, starlings have found their niche among us.  Cheerful and adaptable, they can always be relied upon on even the most bitterly cold winter mornings to greet the sun with an exhuberant performance that most birds would save for warmer seasons.  Their massive roosts are accompanied by astonishing displays of synchronous flight, thousands of birds moving as if they were one.  And, years later, I still fondly remember them as the species that sparked what would become a lifelong interest in birdwatching.

Oh, and I never did return that Golden field guide.

I’d been looking forward to the weekend, as I’d planned to spend most of it outdoors getting some watercolour studies done for an upcoming painting, as well as attend several lectures at the Quantum to Cosmos festival in Waterloo. Unfortunately I ended up coming down with a case of the flu, which kept me cooped up indoors for the entire weekend (although my inner science geek forced me to suck it up and get out for last night’s World’s Beyond Earth panel, with the help of some ibuprofen).  So here’s some of last weekend’s work instead.

On Sunday morning I hit the Arboretum, where I found numerous late fall migrants. I’ve always found Grackles to be such sleek and elegant birds, with their long, wedge-shaped tails and iridescent plumage (though most people seem to regard them as nothing more than a common nuisance).

I snuck out during a small family gathering at my parents’ in the afternoon to check out the old stomping grounds. I flushed a Northern Shrike while walking up the trail — I’m always glad to encounter shrikes, but not so glad to witness so sure a sign of the approaching winter. He stuck around long enough for a single sketch (featuring the back of his head).

An aging Quaking Aspen near the edge of the willow marsh (the only one remaining of four old aspen that used to exist around the property) has always been a magnet for migrant blackbirds, and I found a mid-sized flock of Red-wings and Rustys in its branches. Fall female Rustys sport my favourite blackbird plumage — dark masks and glossy burnt sienna feather fringes against a fierce yellow eye.

And lastly, a colour study of late fall milkweed from along the trailside — my favourite botanical subject.

Red-breasted Merganser

Late last month, I took a week of holidays up at the family cottage near Wiarton.  Birding wise, I definitely could have made a better choice when scheduling my vacation.  We’d just finished three weeks of gorgeously sunny, calm weather and not a drop of rain, the sort of conditions that let migrants stream south unhindered.  Only a handful of warblers remained, and it was just a little too early for the sparrows and thrushes to start coming through in number.  The woods were deathly silent, and the smattering of passerines I did manage to find spent their time high in the canopy and well out of view.

Black-throated Green Warbler

I was lucky enough to encounter a pair of displaying male Ruffed Grouse while slowly driving my car down the bumpy lane that leads out of Bruce Caves Conservation Area.  After a brief tussle, the two went their separate ways and meandered off into the woods.

With little else going on along the trails, I took my equipment down to the shoreline, where the loons were beginning to gather on the bay.  I’ll take them any day.

Regardless of how the birding is … it’s always so hard to go home again in the end.