- June 29, 2024
- by John Reaume
What is a square bash?
In the lingo of Ontario’s Breeding Bird Atlas a square bash is an opportunity to get together as a group of keen birders of all skill levels and collect evidence of breeding activity of Ontario birds! The province is divided into 10×10 km square grids that all require surveying over the 5 year Atlas project. Our target square this time is Square 17TNJ09 better known to us as the Allan Park Square.
Making use of a supplied topographical map we initially scouted different regions in the square to make sure we had a good variety of habitats to explore. This square has a generous supply of wetlands, small rivers, tall forested ridges and some wonderful uncultivated grasslands. The legwork completed with our route selected we looked forward to a great day of birding.
Saturday June 29 turned out to be an overcast day with intermittent light showers – a perfect day for birding (note that there could be an ice storm with tornadoes and floods and I would still say “a perfect day for birding”).
We managed to see 49 species that day and if we include some of the birds we saw on our scouting trip our total for this square was 58 bird species.
This includes 12 different species of warblers:
- Ovenbirds (screaming “teacher, Teacher, TEACHER”)
- Northern Waterthrush (singing from the wetlands “twi-twit-twit-sweet-sweet-sweet-chew-chew-chew”)
- Blue-winged Warbler (with its buzzing “beeee buzzzz” song)
- Black-and-white Warbler (with its squeaky wheelbarrow song)
- Nashville Warbler (2 parted song: “teebit-teebit-teebit, chipper-chipper-chipper-chipper”)
- Common Yellowthroat (calling from the cattails “witchity-witchity-witchity-wit”)
- American Redstart (singing “chewy-chewy-chewy, chew-chew-chew”)
- Yellow Warbler (singing from the wetlands “sweet-sweet-sweet, little more sweet”)
- Chestnut-sided Warbler (its friendly song “please-please-pleased to meetcha”)
- Pine Warbler (their song is a lot like a Chipping Sparrows’ trill but more musical)
- Yellow-rumped Warbler (there song is a musical warble “tuwee-tuwee-tuwee”)
- Black-throated Green Warbler (his song tells us where he is hiding “trees-trees-murmuring-trees”)
Bird song suggests possible breeding of these species as it is generally done by males on territory who are advertising for a mate and telling rivals that this is his area – go find their own slice of heaven! With a little imagination…perhaps a large amount of imagination we birders hear these beautiful songs and can learn to recognize the identity of the singer. Just recognizing that a song is different from the others is enough to help us focus in and discover a new bird for our count! What could be more fun than that?!
Be sure to joint us on future square bashes!
