Fort St. Joseph BioBlitz

Over the weekend, there was a BioBlitz run by Parks Canada at Fort St. Joseph National Historic Site.  I had been on the organizing committee for this event for the past few months as The Kensington Conservancy had been asked to participate.  Once they found out I was a bird guy, I was tasked with leading some birding hikes during the BioBlitz.  The Kensington Conservancy, as well as other organizations that were involved, had booths up the participants could visit.

Fort St. Joseph was an important site during the War of 1812 and that is what it is mostly known for, but the Parks Canada property is also federally recognized as a Migratory Bird Sanctuary.  It is located on the very southwest corner of St. Joseph Island.

The morning of the first day of the BioBlitz, I was there early to set up my booth and start birding!  I had 33 species before my first birding hike was scheduled to start, but nothing of note. 

The first bird hike that I was leading started at 1:30pm.  To my surprise, this was a very popular hike for the BioBlitz participants and I had 20 people join me for it.  It started out pretty good as a Red-shouldered Hawk came out of nowhere and was doing circles above us.  That got a lot of the people in the group excited.  Unfortunately, that was the highlight for the first 50 minutes or so of the 1 hour hike.  We got many of the usual suspects for that I had already recorded for the BioBlitz.  However, with only a few minutes until the hike ended, we got our highlight species.  Christine Drake, a Parks Canada employee from Pukaskwa National Park, who was down to help run this event, heard a strange call from the trees.  Then another member of the hike point up into the top of a tree.  Black-billed Cuckoo!  It hung around for a few minutes, giving everyone a great opportunity to see and photograph this cool bird.  I had seen this bird last week when I was doing some scouting, so I'm glad it showed itself again for the group.  Apparently staff at the fort have been seeing it around as well.  In total, my first bird hike produced 26 species.

Black-billed Cuckoo

For the rest of the afternoon, I hung around the booths and talked with people who came up to my booth.  The fort closed to the public at 5:00pm, so it was just BioBlitz participants left.  The evening bird and bug hike, being lead by Christine, didn't start until 8:30pm, so I had lots of time for birding until then.  My friend Christopher Zayachhowski and I drove down Fort Road and walked a few of the hiking trails that the fort has.  We got 29 species in total in about 2 hours.  Red-bellied Woodpecker, Northern Cardinal, Common Goldeneye and Eastern Wood-Pewee were the only new additions for the BioBlitz.

A group of seven of us walked the length of Fort Road in search of cool bugs and birds for the 8:30pm hike.  We hoped to call in a Barred Owl after it got dark, but we had no luck.  We did hear a couple American Bitterns and a Wilson's Snipe though.  We got 21 bird species in total for the hike.

I went back to my parents' house for the night and was back down at the fort at 5:30am for my 6:00am bird hike.  Despite the rain, a few hardcore participants made it out.  A few of the new ones we got were Red-breasted Merganser, Caspian Tern, Wood Thrush, Northern Waterthrush and Golden-crowned Kinglet.  The rain stopped and we dried out a little before heading out on the next birding hike at 9:00pm, this time lead by Jennifer Foote of Algoma University.  It only ended up being Christopher, Jennifer and I as the rain scared away the participants from the public and others decided to go on other non-bird hikes.  We got a couple dozens species or so in the hour hike, but nothing new for the BioBlitz.

In total, 74 species of birds were recorded during the 24-hour BioBlitz at Fort St. Joseph National Historic Site.  This was great as the current list of birds that Parks Canada had for the site was only about 10 birds long.  Despite the bad weather, it was a great weekend and everyone involved had lots of fun!

The Island Clippings, St. Joseph Island's weekly newspaper, wrote a front page article on the event, which features a photo of the group looking up at the Black-billed Cuckoo.  Read it here.

All species recorded during the Fort St. Joseph National Historic Site BioBlitz:

Canada Goose - Branta canadensis

Mallard - Anas platyrhynchos

Common Goldeneye - Bucephala clangula

Common Merganser - Mergus merganser

Red-breasted Merganser - Mergus serrator

Ruffed Grouse - Bonasa umbellus

Wild Turkey - Meleagris gallopavo

Common Loon - Gavia immer

Double-crested Cormorant - Phalacrocorax auritus

American Bittern - Botaurus lentiginosus

Great Blue Heron - Ardea herodias

Turkey Vulture - Cathartes aura

Osprey - Pandion haliaetus

Bald Eagle - Haliaeetus leucocephalus

Red-shouldered Hawk - Buteo lineatus

Sandhill Crane - Antigone canadensis

Wilson's Snipe - Gallinago delicata

Spotted Sandpiper - Actitis macularius

Ring-billed Gull - Larus delawarensis

Herring Gull - Larus argentatus

Caspian Tern - Hydroprogne caspia

Common Tern - Sterna hirundo

Black-billed Cuckoo - Coccyzus erythropthalmus

Ruby-throated Hummingbird - Archilochus colubris

Belted Kingfisher - Megaceryle alcyon

Red-bellied Woodpecker - Melanerpes carolinus

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker - Sphyrapicus varius

Downy Woodpecker - Picoides pubescens

Northern Flicker - Colaptes auratus

Merlin - Falco columbarius

Eastern Wood-Pewee - Contopus virens

Alder Flycatcher - Empidonax alnorum

Eastern Phoebe - Sayornis phoebe

Blue-headed Vireo - Vireo solitarius

Red-eyed Vireo - Vireo olivaceus

Blue Jay - Cyanocitta cristata

American Crow - Corvus brachyrhynchos

Common Raven - Corvus corax

Tree Swallow - Tachycineta bicolor

Black-capped Chickadee - Poecile atricapillus

Red-breasted Nuthatch - Sitta canadensis

White-breasted Nuthatch - Sitta carolinensis

Brown Creeper - Certhia americana

Winter Wren - Troglodytes hiemalis

Golden-crowned Kinglet - Regulus satrapa

Veery - Catharus fuscescens

Hermit Thrush - Catharus guttatus

Wood Thrush - Hylocichla mustelina

American Robin - Turdus migratorius

Gray Catbird - Dumetella carolinensis

Cedar Waxwing - Bombycilla cedrorum

Ovenbird - Seiurus aurocapilla

Northern Waterthrush - Parkesia noveboracensis

Black-and-white Warbler - Mniotilta varia

Nashville Warbler - Oreothlypis ruficapilla

Mourning Warbler - Geothlypis philadelphia

Common Yellowthroat - Geothlypis trichas

American Redstart - Setophaga ruticilla

Northern Parula - Setophaga americana

Blackburnian Warbler - Setophaga fusca

Yellow Warbler - Setophaga petechia

Chestnut-sided Warbler - Setophaga pensylvanica

Yellow-rumped Warbler - Setophaga coronata

Black-throated Green Warbler - Setophaga virens

Chipping Sparrow - Spizella passerina

White-throated Sparrow - Zonotrichia albicollis

Savannah Sparrow - Passerculus sandwichensis

Song Sparrow - Melospiza melodia

Swamp Sparrow - Melospiza georgiana

Scarlet Tanager - Piranga olivacea

Northern Cardinal - Cardinalis cardinalis

Rose-breasted Grosbeak - Pheucticus ludovicianus

Red-winged Blackbird - Agelaius phoeniceus

Common Grackle - Quiscalus quiscula

 

Birding in the St. Marys River IBA

Over the winter, I came across the IBA Canada website and noticed that there is an Important Bird Area just south of Sault Ste. Marie along the St. Marys River.  I contacted the Ontario IBA Coordinator to find out some more information on it.  It turned out that no formal bird surveys had ever been done for the IBA.  All their data came from sources like eBird.  In order for an area to by considered important, it has to have certain trigger species present.  If a certain threshold is met for a trigger species, then it meets the criteria for being an IBA.  Rusty Blackbird (2003, 2009, 2014-2016), King Rail (2007) and Chimney Swift (2012) have been the IBA's trigger species that have met the threshold so far under IBA Canada's current criteria.  Black Tern (1991 and 1996) triggered the threshold under the previous criteria, which was in place circa 2000.

Ken McIlwrick and I teamed up to organize some formal surveys so that some real data could be submitted for the IBA.  However, it turned out that we were both so busy this spring that we ran out of time to properly recruit volunteers and set up survey dates.  Therefore, we decided that we would do the surveys on our own and turn it into a trial run so that we totally knew what to expect for 2018.

The surveys I completed this spring within the IBA were definitely a lot of fun and a great learning experience.  I was able to get a few new birds for my life list, including a local rarity, a Yellow-headed Blackbird.  Every single species of waterfowl that you could commonly expect to find within the IBA for the spring was recorded.  All the usual gull and tern species were found as well. 

Stan Phippen, another birder in the area, recorded 860 Rusty Blackbirds at the Echo Bay viewing platform, meaning a threshold has been met for at least one trigger species within the IBA for 2017!

Now that spring migration is wrapping up and birds are starting to breed, there is a lot less action at the hotspots within the IBA.  Hopefully the excitement picks up again when fall migration starts!

AUGUST 4, 2017 UPDATE:

To date, I have personally recorded 134 species within the St. Marys River IBA with a total of 85 eBird checklists under the IBA Canada protocol since January 1, 2017.