Blue Sky Birding – by Martin and Kathy Parker

A weekly column on bird watching in the North Bay Region which appears in the North Bay Nugget. This column was published in the August 7, 2009 edition. © Martin and Kathy Parker

First Report of Yellow Rail in Region

On the evening of July 28 members of the Birdwing Group of North Bay under the leadership of Dick Tafel conducted their monthly meeting, a field outing to the open country of Chisholm Township is search of interesting field birds.

In a wet meadow along River Road in Chisholm Township, west of Alderside Road, in response to tapping of stones and play back of a taped call they heard a call which they identified as a yellow rail. The call of this very secretive wet meadow species is a rhythm tic-tic tictictic, tic-tic tictictic. The yellow rail is the smallest of the rails which occurs regularly in the province, and this is the first time one had been reported from this area. This species of bird is very secretive, very difficult to flush and is as easy to find in a wet meadow as a mouse. It is easiest to detect after dark when it will respond to the use of a tape recording or tapping of three quarters or pebbles together. One quarter is tapped against the other two which are held together. It is alleged that American quarters work better as their metal composition is different from a Canadian quarter.

They are abundant in the wet meadows in the area which borders Lake of the Woods. One can stand in the wet meadow and hear a number of males calling and even after hours of searching never be able to observe an individual. They do not wish to be observed.

The adult bird is only 18 cm long and is buffy all over, resembling in some ways a week old chicken. The back is striped and checked with buff and black. When it flies it had buffy wing patches. It does resemble an immature sora, another species of rail, which occurs throughout the area in wet meadows as well.

The Atlas of the Breeding Birds on Ontario, 2001-2005, documented the occurrence of this species in only seven locations in Ontario south of the Canadian shield. There were two sites along the shore of Georgian Bay south of the outlet of the French River. There were also several locations along the north channel of Manitoulin Island, and in the Sault Ste. Marie area.

The main breeding locations for this species are along the shorelines of James Bay and Hudson Bay and around Lake-of-the-Woods. Is also occurs in the Thunder Bay and Lake Nipigon region. Until this observation by members of the Birdwing it had not been previously documented in the Blue Sky Region. It is a difficult species to find and much prized by Ontario birders. The yellow rail is the 2,000 species of bird which Tafel has observed or seen in the world. It is also a special birding highlight, because it was found in is home birding area instead of an exotic location elsewhere in the world.

Brent Turcotte was able to capture the call of the individual heard on July 28 on his digital camera. Numerous other birders from the region have visited the location to listen for the yellow rail. On August 4 Steve O’Donnell and Martin Parker visited the site and heard one individual calling about ten times. A group of birders from Pembroke are already preparing to visit the location to see if they can hear the yellow rail.

The location where the yellow rail was found was the same location where sedge wrens and LeConte’s sparrows have been found for the last few years.

Tafel reported that he has been informed that a raft of about 20 common loons has been observed on Trout Lake. This is early for loons to start congregating on the larger lakes in the region. The wet weather has probably resulted in a poor breeding season so the loons have departed their nesting areas on the smaller lakes in the region..

O’Donnell and Judy Arai on July 30 visited a number of wetland areas in Chisholm Township looking for rails. At one wetland on Adams Line they played a tape of sora (rail) calls and about ten individuals responded.

On July 31 O’Donnell observed a northern cardinal in Burk’s Falls. Barbara and James Barrett reported that they have been observing a group of about six or seven sandhill cranes along Highway 234 and Maple Hill Road, west of Powassan. They have also observed the pair of birds with a juvenile along Highway 11 just north of Trout Creek, which has been reported earlier.

With the advent of August, the breeding season is drawing to a close for all but a few of the regular breeding species in the Blue Sky Region. Soon some of the summer residents will be departing. The earliest departing species will be some of flycatchers with the yellow-bellied being the first. As the fall migration progresses during the next few months there should be a number of special and interesting bird observations in the region.

We welcome your observations of the fall migrants for future columns. Please submit your observations to mkparker@ontera.net