Once believed to be well on their way to extinction, trumpeter swans are now enjoying some re-introduction success in Ontario, and across North America.
Less than 90 years ago, only a few dozen trumpeter swans remained outside of Alaska, and the birds had long been extirpated (locally extinct) in eastern Canada. Thankfully, with careful planning and re-introduction programs trumpeter swans now have a fairly stable population base in various wetlands and marshes across the US and Canada.
In Ontario, one such place is the Wye Marsh. A re-introduction plan began in the 1980’s, and the first baby (cygnet) trumpeter swan was born here in 1990, thanks to introduced birds. A few years later, and wild trumpeter swans were nesting at the marsh and calling the area home!
These are large birds, the largest waterfowl found in North America. To see them in the wild is a real treat, and to watch them take off, with their huge wingspans (up to 10 feet!) was a great experience.
The trumpeter swans at Wye Marsh are mostly found further away from the trails and lookouts, but with enough patience, a good camera lens (this photo was taken at full zoom) or binoculars, you should be able to catch a glimpse of these impressive creatures. I cam across these trumpeter swans as part of a 3-hour kayaking excursion deep into the lakes and marshes at Wye Marsh.
This funky looking bird can be found in the north Pacific as well as along the coast of far east Russia, including Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands.
I had seen many of these crested auklets flying around, and some diving in the water in search of krill or other food, but hadn’t been able to really get up close to many of them until I made it to Yankicha Island in the Kurils.
There were many bird species here, but the crested auklets were in huge numbers here, thanks to it being a big nesting area. With thousands of them flying about, I spotted a few that were still hanging out on land as we toured the island by Zodiac.
This guy was nice enough to pose for the camera. If you’re a crested auklet, the size of your crest is a big deal, as in both male and female aucklets prefer mates with large crests!
Some of the most interesting looking birds out there, peacocks are famous for their big, colourful feathers that are typically green and blue.
The encompassing term for them is peafowl, with peahens being the brown, dull coloured females and peacocks being the impressive colourful males.
The males display their feathers out in a fan to help attract females. This guy was displaying his feathers towards a female at a park in Sri Lanka. There were many peacocks around Sri Lanka, as the Indian Peafowl are common here. Two other subspecies exist, the Congo Peafowl and the Green Peafowl in Burma, which is an endangered species.
Andean Gull photographed at Limpiopungo Lagoon in Cotopaxi National Park
There really are a lot of different gull species out there aren’t there?
My days of just calling every gull I see a “sea gull” are long gone, but they’re still fairly boring looking birds to me, plus I’ve never forgiven that one that once pooped on my lip when I was a kid.
This one at least had some nice colouring, a distinct black head and white body, somewhat streamlined and elegant compared to the noisy squawkers back at home by Lake Ontario.
This Andean Gull photo was taken at Limpiopungo Lagoon in Cotopaxi National Park, Ecuador. These gulls tend to stick to mountain lakes and rivers all along the Andes, from Chile in the south to Colombia in the north.
They’re not endangered at all, due to their widespread habitat.
Storks and flamingoes, parakeets and pigeons, bee-eaters and eagles, peacocks and darters.
Simply put – Bundala is for the birds!
Visiting Bundala National Park, on the southern side of Sri Lanka was a last-minute decision. I had been travelling around the country for nearly a month already and Bundala hadn’t stood out to me as one of the top parks to visit. It was actually my driver and guide who sort of made the trip happen. He was a decent birder and insisted we visit Bundala as it is a famous stopover area for migrating birds.
A Painted Stork in Bundala National Park, Sri Lanka
He wasn’t wrong either, any birders I’ve talked to about Sri Lanka bring up Bundala as a top place to visit in the country.
Sold more on the possible elephant and monkey sightings more than anything, I soon found myself being schooled on birds in Bundala. As much as I resisted and tried to avoid getting pulled into the birding world, my guide Nandana was simply too passionate and eager to show off his birding knowledge that I soon came around and started to play the “what bird is it” game.
A Peacock in a Tree, Bundala National Park
The first bird I managed to identify correctly was a peacock. Trying to stump me, Nandana asked if was a male or female bird, but luckily I knew it was only the males who had the bright, flashy feathers (to impress the ladies of course).
Then I thought I saw some small parrots, but it turned out they were rose-ringed parakeets. I should have known better, as I’d seen such birds in pet stores in Canada when I was a kid. The small birds proved to be quite tricky to photograph and even spot before they flew away, so I stuck to the bigger birds for the most part.
A Crested Hawk Eagle in Bundala
Flamingoes were an easy one. Plenty of them around, often mingling with some storks, or painted storks, to be more precise.
It turned out that it wasn’t good enough for me to call a bird an eagle or stork, I had to know which specific species it was. Was that a painted stork or an Asian open-billed stork? Like this eagle above. I spotted it first, before our safari driver or my “eagle-eyed” guide Nandana, who was sporting his big binoculars. But when I proudly pointed out the eagle, he was unimpressed as it was a mere crested hawk eagle also called a changeable hawk eagle – nothing special apparently.
I took a picture of it anyway.
While I was happy looking at the big, colourful birds, the biggest excitement of the day came from Nandana spotting a pigeon. Yes, a pigeon. Apparently the Ceylon, or Sri Lanka, wood pigeon is listed as a vulnerable species. It looked like a regular old pigeon to me, but I took a picture anyway.
The Ceylon, or Sri Lanka, Wood Pigeon!
Then there were the bee eaters. I’d seen these type of birds in Africa before and wasn’t totally clueless about them. Nandana was impressed when I knew they were bee-eaters, but of course then he asked me what type of bee eaters they were and I had no idea.
They have cool colours, that is all I cared about, but apparently blue tails and green bodies and purple heads and such all mean different species. I managed a picture of the blue-tailed one, which we saw many of. I also snapped a red-headed one, which may be a chestnut-headed bee eater, but I really don’t know for sure. These little birds were a bit beyond my interest and I didn’t feel the urge to look them up in any of the bird books my guide was lugging along on the trip.
Blue Tail Bee Eater in Bundala National Park
Another Bee Eater in Bundala
The sheer number and variety of birds in Bundala was what impressed me most. I had no idea which ones were rare and which ones were residents or just passing by on their migration routes. I’ve seen big flocks of birds at home and on my travels, and I’ve seen plenty of weird birds around the world, but nowhere else compared to the variety I saw in one single day at Bundala.
