Birds of Ontario Book

Introduction.

When I decided to put a book together on birds, I wanted to come up with a selection which is a good mixture of images of well known and lesser known birds here in Ontario.
There are bird images in this book that are familiar to almost everyone, such as the Northern Cardinal and Black-capped Chickadee, while other pictures are of birds that are less well known, such as Common Yellowthroat and Indigo Bunting, though they nest in Southern Ontario.
I also included birds that you will have to go to places like Algonquin Park or Manitoulin Island to see.

Each bird picture comes with a short description, relevant to the species.
All the birds in this book are free flying birds, with one exception; the Barn Owl.
Barn Owl is still breeding in Ontario, however, those locations are shrouded in secrecy.
This is the reason I had to go to Mountsberg to capture this species, in order to complete the Owls of Ontario project.
This book now has all the Owl species of Ontario.

I wish to thank Marienna who has been my wife and my best friend for more than forty four years and has been a great help in birding and bird photography.
She has been instrumental in finding the birds.
Her encouragement and gentle criticism helped me to become a better photographer.

Many thanks to my birder and photographer friends.
Without their help I would not have been able to find and photograph some of these beautiful birds.

I also would like to thank to Gabor who did the proof reading and final editing of this book.

I love mornings. They are full of promise. They promise that anything, even miracles can happen.
By late afternoon you know that it is just an other day. But tomorrow there is an other wonderful morning is waiting for you full of promise.
We are camping at Wheatley P.P. It is a great mixture of Carolinian forest, marsh and lakeshore.
I wake up at night. It is still dark, only three o’clock. I open the door of the trailer and peak outside. It is a beautiful quiet night. The moon is almost full. Then I hear the hooting of the great horned owl from across the marsh on the other side, where there is a stand of old trees.
I go back and listen to the hooting until I fall asleep. I want to get up early to go to Point Pelee to meet the warblers when they cross Lake Erie.
I know that I don’t need an alarm clock. The birds will start singing as they always do in May, just before the sun comes up. The choir of robins start first. Soon other birds join. I get up and look outside. It is still dark but the bottom of the sky across the marsh starts brightening up. First there is a blue hue with a little pink in it. Then it turns red. The song of the birds gets more loud by the minute. They know that if they sing very hard, the sun will come up. And it does. It peaks out from the lake and then rises very fast. The song of the birds gets muted down now. Almost everybody stops singing. They have a job to do. It is middle of May. Some of them have already nested and have little baby birds to feed. They go to look for worms and bugs. A Baltimore Oriole now starts preening diligently. He knows that he looks good but he wants to look great. He has already established his territory with his song and now he needs a mate. They are coming soon, maybe today. I hear the first warbler song of the season His song is sweet, musical. As I look around, I find the singer. He is a Magnolia Warbler. He shines like a piece of gold from the evergreen. The warblers are funny. They can sing and catch the flies at the same time.
They have a rhythm to it; one song followed by a bug being caught. We, Marienna and I get ready very quickly. We are going to Point Pelee and we are full of anticipation. We might see a Canada Warbler or a Cerulean Warbler today. There is always a chance to see some rarities or a lifer, a bird that we haven’t seen before.
The mornings are full of songs in May, the songs of the greatest songsters of the world. They are the Songbirds.
We are ready to go. Come and join us and listen to the birds. They have a song for you. They will sing to you about how important it is to have trees. They will tell you that they are in trouble. They are losing their forests, marshes, grasslands, riverbanks and lakeshores.
They are losing their habitat. The song is still heard and there is still hope, if we listen.
It is the morning song and the mornings are still full of promise.