After seeing multiple e-Bird alerts for the Dickcissel, we headed out in the morning on Friday for a short drive south to try and find this rare bird. We found the birds on McCallum Line just a bit west of Brigden Road.
The male Dickcissel was in a dead tree on the roadside signing his distinctive song. As we watched him, we noted the female was across the road in a small shrub. Eventually we observed a female with nesting material in her beak and also observed the male pursuing her in courtship behavior.
The Dickcissel is a grassland bird, which makes it tough for them to find habitat in a heavily agricultural area like Lambton County. If we had more tallgrass prairie areas in the county we might see more of these birds!
