Too Early Too Late

Winter Wren Troglodytes hiemalis

Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis

A frosty path - full magic not captured in a picture

(Life is a) Steaming pile of wood chips

NDG, October 23, 2026

-(Too early in the morning, too late in the migration cycle)

-Headed out to my patch predawn to catch migration by the tail (end)

-Cold and clear, below freezing, frost filled the topographical lows

-Ended up with 13 species in 90 minutes (32 species 2 weeks ago)

-Insectivores have had enough of the morning frost – one wonders if there would have been a bit more action a bit deeper into the morning as the sun climbed higher

-No warblers, and the species mix had a mostly wintry feel to it

-Best was a close encounter with a confiding Winter Wren in an apple tree on the way out

-Lovely morning out amongst the fall foliage and cerulean blue above...colours seem supersaturated right before they vanish for five months

-Something is off with my camera settings (white balance is a main suspect), but I’m too lazy to figure it out – I don’t know what most of those buttons do if I’m honest

NDG Quiet Spot, October 10

Yellow-rumped Warbler Setophaga coronata

Black-throated Green Warbler Setophaga virens

White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys

White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis

Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia

Scarlet Tanager Piranga olivacea

Ruby-crowned Kinglet Regulus calendula

-(The morning before the Brown Booby incident…)

-A 2-hour go-around just after dawn turned up 32 species, on a crisp and sunny morning that saw frost on the ground in the darkest of terrain folds.

-Finally found my first White-crowned Sparrow for this patch. This was personal species #88 for the site…shocked I haven’t found a Lincoln’s Sparrow there yet!

-A Scarlet Tanager had me scratching my head at first, when all I saw was olive yellow with flakes of red mixed in around the back end. Then I saw the dark wing. It must have been a male in the middle of its moult. Been a while since I’ve seen one in that plumage phase. The bird was feeding on wild grapes.

-Four Swainson’s Thrush lurked in a small woods.

-An Eastern Phoebe still.

-I heard what sounded like a triple White Wagtail call at one point at the edge of a field, but that makes no sense, so I’m wondering if it was some kind of odd Junco call. There were loads of Juncos, Chipping Sparrows, and White-throated Sparrows on the edges, as is tradition for this time of year.

-A Winter Wren protesting from below the tangles.

-Small numbers of Yellow-rumped, Black-throated Green, and Tennessee Warblers out in the sunny bits. One Tennessee looked suspiciously like an Orange-crowned Warbler, but better views were needed.

-Two Blue-headed Vireos.

-A Merlin knifed through at the end and took a Junco.

10 Seconds with a Brown Booby

I was going to clean up the sketches and chicken scrawl in a second draft,
 but maybe the first pass is better, as it was fresh in my memory.

At 1:23pm on Saturday, October 10, I was sitting on a swing/bench reading a book on the riverside trail at Blvd Lasalle near Av Orchard (In Lasalle - just west of the Couche-Tard that is now closed). In light of what happened, I was unfortunately in 'non birding mode' (no camera or binos). I happened to look up towards the water, through a gap in the riverside trees. My attention was immediately drawn to a large bird directly ahead of me and moving to my left (going southeast).

The bird was flying higher than the Mercier Bridge (from my angle) and cruising along the shoreline of the St Lawrence River. In the bright sunshine, I had clear but relatively brief looks at the bird. I saw it flap aggressively a couple of times then glide.

It took several seconds of puzzled panic for me to flip frantically through the pages of the Sibley in my mind and come to a conclusion.

Clearly not a cormorant or a loon...not a goose...not a grebe...BROWN BOOBY?!

This was a large bird whose most striking physical feature was a "long in front/long in back" body (tail and head about the same length), with head and tail (not trailing legs) both tapering to elegant angled points. The belly was white, which popped in the sun, while the head and tail appeared mostly dark, with a sharp line between dark head and white chest. There was a hint of a lighter face/bill from my angle. The wings were long and knifey, hooked at the ‘elbow’, and the underwing had a striking pattern of a white central wing fringed by dark leading and trailing edges (the wings reminded me superficially of the Streaked Shearwaters I’d seen in Korea).

By that time the bird was already headed towards the trees to my left. I fumbled to get the phone out of my pocket in hopes of some form of record shot, but the bird flew behind the trees, continuing southeast towards Parc des Rapides.

While the entire encounter lasted no more than 10-15 seconds, the bird was seen in clear sunlight and at relatively close range. I’m confident about the identification, and have ruled out more obvious confusion species.

I called George, hoping he was at Parc des Rapides, but he was out of town. I then hoped one of the many birders that were surely at Parc des Rapides would have spotted the bird, but it either flew past unobserved or perhaps changed course.

The normal range of the Brown Booby is the Caribbean, with vagrants usually spotted along the eastern seaboard of North America.
This is apparently Quebec’s 10th record of a Brown Booby (Fou brun), after a 9th record on September 30. That sighting involved an adult bird spotted at Rimouski, heading Southwest (same bird?!).

https://ebird.org/checklist/S397763726

One wonders if recent weather patterns facilitated such a vagrancy - a nor’easter recently blew up the east coast, and a hurricane came ashore on the Gulf Coast last week.

While selfishly I’m hopeful that this bird turns up somewhere in the area to corroborate my sighting, I’d rather it makes it back down to the sunnier shores of home.

Birdsfall

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Sphyrapicus varius

Blue-headed Vireo Vireo solitarius

Eastern Phoebe Sayornis phoebe

White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis

find the Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia

American Robin Turdus migratorius

Nashville Warbler Leiothlypis ruficapilla

Brown Thrasher Toxostoma rufum

Brown Thrasher Toxostoma rufum

Blue Jay Cyanocitta cristata

Canada Goose Branta canadensis

Clouded Sulphur Colias philodice

Geese over Sherbrooke, NDG, Oct 6

Partial lunar eclipse from way back in late August

NDG, October 3, 2026

-It’s been ages since I’ve checked out my patch in NDG, so I dragged myself out there for a taste of early morning autumnal migration.

-Sunny and crisp (could see my breath, and gloves were needed but not necessarily packed).

-Left with a stiff warbler neck, with plenty of drab fast-movers up high.

-Respectable warbler trickle: single digit number of Nashville, Tennessee, Cape May, and maybe a Blackburnian (late?). I'd forgotten how confounding fall warblers were.

-I went into statue mode in a small woods, and after a few minutes a jawbreaker-sized Winter Wren bounded up through the underbrush and tisked past me at such close range my camera was useless, and I could have booped on the beak, but of course I didn’t.

-Two skulky and chattery Brown Thrashers were an unexpected treat, found in the same spot as a single bird in April 2025.

-6+ Blue-headed Vireos, active, vocal, and scrappy.

-Ruby-crowned Kinglets flitting up high throughout the walk.

-Several Pine Siskins overhead.

-Eastern Bluebird heard in two different locations, possibly the same bird on the move. Have had them at this location a few times, on migration only.

-An Eastern Phoebe still hanging around.

-I was hoping for a White-crowned Sparrow, after randomly seeing one through the back window at work the previous day. No such luck, but there were sparrows out in force. The scrub edges were absolutely littered with White-throated Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos (~40-50 of each).

-30 species in 2.5 hours.

-Damn, the lighting sucks in most of these pics.

Scotland, Early September 2026 (Haggis, Highlands, and History)

European Robin Erithacus rubecula

Common Blackbird Turdus merula

Common Wood Pigeon Columba palumbus

Common Wood Pigeon Columba palumbus

Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus fuscus

Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus fuscus

Hooded Crow Corvus cornix

Hooded Crow Corvus cornix

Hooded Crow Corvus cornix

Carrion Crow Corvus corone

Carrion Crow Corvus corone

Carrion Crow Corvus corone

(Western) Jackdaw Corvus monedula

Common Magpie Pica pica

Common Magpie Pica pica

True

The 'Brah

Greyfriars

One of many 'closes' in the old town

Dean Village

Irn Bru and the Scott Monument - Peak Edinburgh

Elixir of the gods

Harry Potter something something...

Edinburgh Castle

Doune Castle (Ni!)

We wanted a Skoda hatchback and they gave us this dumb thing instead.
Highland roads are white-knucklingly narrow...

Lovely skran at the Clan Macduff Hotel

Cullen Skink

The only grouse I saw in the highlands

Popped over to Scotland for a wee September break with Evelyn. It wasn’t a birding trip, but I encountered a few birdies anyway. Nothing ‘new,’ but it’s always nice to see Eurasian commons. Was raining heavily in the highlands, so I wasn’t able to get much birding done up in the hills.

My kingdom for a cold pint of Magner’s. Can't get it here, damned dirty Quebec apple barons.