One of my passions in life is animal-watching, and most of my travels involve some amount of searching for birds, mammals, or herps (reptiles & amphibians). I was very much looking forward to this spring, my first in Toronto since graduating high school, so that I could try to find some of the amazing birds that pass through this area during migration. Unfortunately, I’ve had to put most of those plans on hold due to the viral pandemic that’s got the entire world shut down for the moment.
My work-from-home set-up, perfect for being distracted from work by birds. The pictures below are taken through these windows.
Given our collective circumstances, I’m fortunate to be isolated with an excellent work-from-home set-up where I face a wall of windows behind my computer screens, perfect for working and birdwatching simultaneously. I’m also lucky to be living at a place with a large backyard that has a lot of vegetation, including some huge old oak trees. So now, with the great wave of migratory birds about to arrive, I thought I’d start my list of birds that I’ve seen while birding from home. I’m going to keep adding to it as long as the pandemic keeps us locked up. We’ve all got to keep busy somehow!
Update #2: It’s now May 2021 and not only is the pandemic ongoing, but here in Ontario we’re back in a lockdown just like this time last year. So I guess I should update this list. This year wasn’t nearly as good for backyard birding as last year, but so far I’ve seen three species this year that I didn’t see in my yard last year:
62-Willow Flycatcher
61-Baltimore Oriole
60-Canada Goose
Honestly it’s inexplicable that I didn’t see any last year from my hard. This year several migrating flocks flew over the yard.
Update: It’s the end of June and Toronto is into Phase 2 of its reopening. I’m back at the office for 12 strictly-controlled hours a week, which means quarantine is over, I guess? Anyway, it’s time to end this list. One last bird to add that I saw today and then I’m done at the very unsatisfying 59 bird species in my yard during quarantine. Oh why couldn’t I have seen some Canada geese flyover???
59-Cedar Waxwing
I’ve been hearing them for a while, but I finally managed to see three of them feeding.
58-Great Crested Flycatcher
It’s June now and things have settled down, but the occasional new bird still pops up!
57-Mourning Dove
Flyover
56-Cliff Swallow
Flyover
55-Northern Grackle
Flyover, and not one I was expecting to take so long to show up!
54-Red-eyed Vireo
53-Canada Warbler
52-Common Nighthawk
Flyover
51-Cape May Warbler
50-Red-headed Woodpecker
What a spectacular and rare bird for my fiftieth species!
49-Red-tailed Hawk
48-Tennessee Warbler
47-Swainson’s Thrush
46-Chimney Swift
45-Least Flycatcher
44-Magnolia Warbler
43-Black-throated Blue Warbler
42-American Redstart
The last seven species were all first observed on the same day!
41-American Goldfinch
40-Lincoln’s Sparrow
39-Veery
38-Chipping Sparrow
37-Rose-breasted Grosbeak
36-Ovenbird
35-Brown Thrasher
34-Blue-headed Vireo
33-Brown-headed Cowbird
32-Blackburnian Warbler
31-Blue-grey Gnatcatcher
30-Palm Warbler
29-Black-throated Green Warbler
28-Philedelphia Vireo
27-Black-and-white Warbler
May’s started and the birding is ramping up!
26-Red-winged Blackbird
Flyover
25-Nashville Warbler
24-Yellow-rumped Warbler
First warbler! Seen the last days of April
23-White-throated Sparrow
A flock of at least 30 descended on my backyard one afternoon, seemingly out of nowhere. Spectacular!
22-Mallard Duck
Flyover
21-Ring-billed Gull
Flyover
20-Brown Creeper
This was the last of the widespread Ontario birds for me to finally tick off my lifelist, so it was a real pleasure to look up from my computer and notice one creeping up a tree about 3m from where I was sitting.
19-Northern Flicker
18-Ruby-crowned Kinglet
17-Golden-crowned Kinglet
My garden seemed to be filled with these for a couple days mid-April; they were even hopping around quite close to the ground. Very beautiful little birds.
16-Eastern Phoebe
15-Double-crested Cormorant
A strange backyard birding tick since there’s no water in my yard, they were a fly-over.
14-Hermit Thrush
13-Blue Jay
12-American Crow
Surprisingly rare in my yard, considering how common they are in Toronto in general. I’ve only seen them once this spring, mobbing a Cooper’s hawk.
11-Cooper’s Hawk
10-Turkey Vulture
Flyover
9-White-breasted Nuthatch
8-Red-breasted Nuthatch
Seen for the first time ever in my yard early this spring, when there was still plenty of snow on the ground. Not seen since.
7-Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
6-Hairy Woodpecker
5-Downy Woodpecker
4-Dark-eyed Junco
3-Northern Cardinal
2-Black-capped Chickadee
1-American Robin
I also have a list of mammals seen from my backyard since the start of the pandemic, but it’s pretty pathetic:
4-Eastern Chipmunk
3-Raccoon
2-American Grey Squirrel
1-Eastern Striped Skunk
An excellent account of the wild mammals of Toronto is here. I’m hoping a few more of these are around my yard, like Virginia Opossum and White-footed Mouse.