Point Pelee Part 3: The Places
May 20th, 2010
Eastern
Towhee at Rondeau Provincial Park
Day one: Oshawa Second Marsh (was supposed to be Hillman Marsh)
Day two: Point Pelee (the point itself in the morning, Tilden Woods in the afternoon)
Day two, early evening: Hillman Marsh
Day three: Rondeau Provincial Park, morning and afternoon
Day four: Thickson Woods (near Toronto), briefly, en route to home
The decision of whether to take camera or binos, on any given birding outing,
is often a difficult one. The binos are far better for in-the-moment enjoyment
and for spotting, while the camera gives me more tangible memories to enjoy
afterwards, and more to share with friends. This time the decision was
agonizing. I can't do both and do justice to both: one must take priority,
with the other stowed at my side or, ideally, left back at the hotel room.
(They are just too unwieldy to carry them both around my neck.)
I ended up deciding to use binos for the first two days, and camera for the
last two. On the binos days, the camera stayed on the bus or in the hotel
room. What I didn't realize is that none of the other locations we birded
could even hold a candle to Point Pelee. There was no comparison. Not just
because there were far fewer birds and less variety of birds, but because,
especially at Rondeau, most of the birds were breeders, not migrants. Breeders
go about their business, often in the very tops of trees, and aren't
necessarily that conspicuous unless you catch them singing--and again, they
often sing at the tops of trees. Migrants flit around visibly, forage
actively, as they fuel up for the next migration step, sometimes coming down
much lower than they would during breeding time. They aren't "settled in", as
it were. So, in sum: got a few good pictures, but not as many as I was hoping
for.
If I had realized all that, would I have done things differently?
Well...probably not. Point Pelee was a visceral thrill, and if I'd been in
photographer mode, that thrill would have been seriously dampened. I would
have missed a lot of birds, the ones I didn't miss, I probably wouldn't have
seen as well, and I would have been too busy focusing on the work of
photography to have all the "oh my god, that's my very first [x], it's
beautiful!" moments.
All this means, of course, that I must go back. I must go back so I can take
pictures, and I must go back just because. Because Point Pelee was
breathtaking. I've never heard so much birdsong at once, as soon as I got off
the bus. I've never seen anywhere near so many different species in one day.
And all that said, one of the most thrilling moments was not about birds or
not
just about birds: it was when I came out onto the very tip tip of
southern Ontario. Vast expanses of open water all around me, and a thick
morning mist hanging over it. No far shore visible anywhere, not even after
the sunrise burned the mist off. Everywhere I looked the world dropped off.
Just off the point, huge swirling flocks of gulls and terns and cormorants
dove for fish. It was magical. It felt like being at the ocean. The Great
Lakes should be called freshwater seas.
Let me just cut to the chase and give you the full species list. Here are the
birds I personally found during the four-day trip--including en route. Lifers
are starred; birds that were only heard, not seen, are marked with carets.
(
Cut as a courtesy to non-geeks )
That's 96 species seen, 10 heard, and 10 lifers. Of those, 70 were
seen/heard at Point Pelee in one day, including all 21 of the warblers.
Point Pelee is a place where migrant birds have just finished their trip
across lake Erie. Assuming they're songbirds, that means not stopping once
across the whole stretch, because songbirds can't swim (except for the rare
oddity like the American Dipper). So when they arrive on the far shore, they
crash--the way we all did at the hotel at 10:45pm--and they stay put for
awhile. That's why Point Pelee rocks.
There is another reason why this whole region is famous with Canadian birders
and Canadian naturalists: it comprises the far-northern tip of the Carolinian
forest region. That means a very different assortment of trees, wildflowers,
insects, reptiles, and last but not least breeding birds than we see up in
places like Ottawa. Having grown up in Virginia, I was particularly amused by
the big to-do about ticks. Far-southern Ontario has ticks. There was a lecture
about it on the bus--what they look like, how to get them off once they've dug
in, how to do tick checks--and the awed reverence with which people treated
the subject made me smile. Just wait'll you meet chiggers, folks. You ain't
seen nothing yet.
There are a number of interesting birds whose breeding range extends into
Point Pelee but not much further north. Birds who are basically linked to the
Carolinian forest. So while we come to Pelee for the migrants, we also come
for those southern breeders that we can't find (or can only find with great
difficulty) back home. Rondeau Provincial Park is one of the top places to see
them. The one disappointment of the trip was how few of them I saw--in
particular, I saw not a single one of the many southern warblers (to wit,
Golden-Winged, Blue-Winged, Brewster's, Prothonotary, Hooded, Worm-Eating,
Prairie, Kentucky, Yellow-Breasted Chat, Louisiana Waterthrush) that I had
been hoping and rather expecting to see, all of whom would have been lifers.
Many of them were around; I was just unlucky. Some in my group had better
luck--some even saw the ultra-rare, endangered
Kirtland's
Warbler that showed up at Point Pelee on Friday--but I never happened to
be in the right sub-group at the right time.
I choose to look on the bright side. If I tick off every possible lifer at
high speed, I will soon get to the point where I have to go on long trips to
the western provinces, or even other countries, to see something new. I have
my whole life to enjoy this hobby. There's no rush.
And there will--I repeat, THERE WILL--be future trips to Point Pelee in May!
And I will be awake and ready at oh five four five in the morning to go see
the birds at Point Pelee in May!
In the remaining parts, I'll talk about some of the interesting species I saw,
and share the rest of my photos.
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My cup runneth over...
May 19th, 2010
...with CUTE BABY GOSLINGS!
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All the Canada Geese parents at Mud Lake have hatched their young and formed a
creche in the usual place, along the north shore.
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Point Pelee Part 2: The People
May 18th, 2010
Tree Swallow on a nest box at Thickson Woods. Itchy scratchy!
First, all about our two leaders: Roy and Ken.
Roy was sort of a drill sergeant for a good cause. He's the fellow who said,
"the bus will leave at oh five four five point zero zero zero" and "rule
number one: do not stand in the door of the bus. There are almost forty people
on the bus and none of them can get off if you stand in the door. Rule number
two: do not stand in the door of the bus. Rule number three: if you stand in
the door of the bus,
I will push you out."
Helpful, knowledgeable, and dedicated. An absolute ace at bird ID, even when
all he got was a glimpse. As for his stickler rules, they were all for our
sake--to insure that everyone had a great time, that no one person's
carelessness sabotaged other people's enjoyment.
Ken was the type B to Roy's type A. The good cop to Roy's bad cop. The guy who
exuded good humor and patience and generally had fun with it. The guy who
said, after I and another woman arrived on the swamp boardwalk about fifteen
minutes later than the rest of the group, all of us searching for the
beautiful nesting
Prothonotary
Warbler, "you missed it." And then waited just a few moments for that to
sink in before breaking into a grin and adding, "so did we."
Equally helpful, knowledgeable, and dedicated. Obviously an experienced
naturalist, maybe a career naturalist. Always trying hard to maximize
everyone's experience. After a bunch of us had been watching some interesting
bird for a period of time, and we were about to move on, he'd ask a question
like, "has anyone still not seen the [species name] who wants to?" And if
someone said yes, he'd maneuver them into position, point, and give
treasure-map-esque directions ("okay, see that fork in the big pine tree?") to
the bird.
In case you can't tell, I really liked both of the leaders: they were an
excellent team and the way their personalities played off each other was a
source of amusement, at least to me.
I also overwhelmingly liked the group as a whole, and made all sorts of
connections with all sorts of people. I constantly seemed to be ending up in
mingle circles, chatting freely about various birdy things. Yes, really. Me,
in mingle circles! The strong common interest, I guess, is what made it
happen. It just came naturally.
There was a rather thrilling moment, socially, on the bus going home, when Ken
stood up at the front and we all helped put together the communal trip list.
He listed off all the species of birds in all the various categories (herons,
warblers, sparrows, etc.) that he knew of that we had seen, and for each
category, if someone had seen a bird in that category that wasn't listed, they
spoke up. He sometimes mentioned likely omissions, e.g. "has anyone actually
seen a
Wood
Thrush?" (Answer: no. We heard plenty, spotted none. Typical!)
It was thrilling because all that systematic, geeky, science-y stuff that I've
always done privately--making trip lists, marking which birds I actually
spotted and which I only heard, etc.--was now being done as a group.
(Although, of course, I also maintained my private list which I will share
with you in due time.) And they were as keen to get it down and get it right
as I was. It was a thrilling sense of belonging, of having found a community.
I've been to a few other OFNC events, but none that worked nearly as well,
socially, as this one. Now I want more. Now I want to spend more time with
these people. Go on more events. Maybe even go to the monthly meetings.
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Point Pelee Part 1: The Bus Trip From Hell
May 17th, 2010
Male Red-Winged Blackbird photographed at the Thickson Woods marsh. Also, what
my mood looked like around midday Thursday.
I'd call the trip to Leamington a "comedy of errors" except that there was
nothing funny about it. It started in the parking lot of Lincoln Fields. Our
driver discovered a problem with the brakes on the bus. It was a dangerous
enough problem that we couldn't leave without getting it fixed. We ended up
waiting over an hour before the replacement bus got there.
Then, some hours out of Ottawa, the air conditioning broke down. And the
driver refused to go on without it. I didn't think the temperature was that
bad--it was mid-May, after all, not mid-July--but apparently at least a few
people did and the matter was not put to a vote. The replacement bus had to
come all the way down from Gatineau; as you can imagine, that took awhile. In
fact if I remember correctly it was something like five more hours before we
finally boarded bus number three.
The good news is, our excellent leaders came up with an excellent "plan B":
while we were waiting for the second replacement bus, instead of standing
around in a parking lot, we would go to nearby Oshawa Marsh and bird it. We
had a fine time there and some good birding, including my first two lifers of
the trip:
House
Wren and
Trumpeter
Swan. Then, when the replacement bus still hadn't arrived, we stopped next
to several fast food restaurants and had dinner.
We finally made it to the hotel, tired and bedraggled, around 10:45 pm. And I
promptly turned in for a 4:15am wake up the next morning. As is my wont
anytime I'm spending the night in a new location, I got not a single wink of
sleep. (Didn't help that something in the sheets gave me an allergic
reaction.) Add to this the fact that the night before, at home, was also
virtually sleepless, and that was some pretty impressive sleep dep I racked
up. I had serious doubts as to how well I would be functioning on this trip
and particularly on the next day.
As it turns out I did just fine, more than fine, I did great. Throughout
Friday, on zero sleep, I burned my candle at both ends--not merely a solid
morning of birding, not merely a solid morning and solid afternoon of birding,
but a morning, afternoon, AND early evening of birding! About twelve hours all
in all, twelve hours with breaks but still twelve hours. By the end of it, a
double whopper and onion rings were only
just enough to fill the hole
in my stomach. I think I got to the point where I was substituting food for
sleep.
The following two nights I slept well. I never even began to make up for the
sleep dep, yet I thrived in spite of it (except for a lingering bronchitis,
which came back on me with a vengeance during this trip.) And there were no
more snafus, for the rest of the trip.
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A quick shout out from a public terminal
May 15th, 2010
Day 1 of the Point Pelee trip: "Comedy of errors" does not even begin to cover
it. The bus was schedule to leave at 6:00am. The trip was to be about 8 hours,
plus about 2 additional hours of birding en route at Hillman Marsh. We checked
into the hotel at 10:45pm. You do the math.
Seriously, we're famous here now. We run into random people on the trails and
they're all "oh, you're the Ottawa group. We heard about that."
Day 2: Point Pelee is unbelievable. Incredible. Astounding. Awe-inspiring. And
many other adjectives. In one morning + afternoon, I racked up five lifers and
a downright dizzying full species list that included something on the order of
twenty different warblers. (It was an incredible place for other reasons too,
which I'll describe in a later, much more detailed post.) I will go back
someday. Oh god, so help me, I WILL go back someday.
Day 3 (today): Rondeau Provincial Park was nice, but does not deserve to be
mentioned in the same sentence or even the same paragraph as Point Pelee.
Unfortunately, not knowing that, I took the camera out today instead of
yesterday. Still got a few good pictures though.
Day 4: The trip home with a birding stop at Thickson Woods. I plan to be
camera-enabled, if weather permits. Wish me (and all of us) luck that the trip
home will not be as much of an "adventure" as the trip here.
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Mud Lake, May 10th
May 12th, 2010
As the early nesters bear, raise, and even fledge their young, other species
are only just beginning. The next big wave of spring migration has hit.
Baltimore Orioles are back--three flame orange males at various locations
around Mud Lake, all of them camera shy. American Redstarts are back and
singing. Cedar Waxwings have returned from wherever they wandered to last
winter (it's variable), and are now present in flocks throughout the BCA.
Catbird songs emanate from every other bushy thicket. And Warbling Vireos and
Yellow Warblers are singing their little hearts out.
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On Tuesday afternoon, insect swarms by the Ottawa River attracted an
impressive mixed flock of literally hundreds of swallows and swifts, whizzing
through the air at high speed as they snapped up whatever they could. I love
swallow-watching, though I don't usually attempt it with a camera--they just
move too fast. I guess I was a glutton for punishment that day, because I
tried it anyhow. I was rewarded with a surprisingly well-focused shot of a
Chimney
Swift.
Swifts are the most aerial class of birds in the world--and Chimney Swifts are
no exception. Unless they have young to tend, they spend literally the entire
day in the air. They are incapable of perching. They're common birds, but
unless you find a nest/roost site inside a chimney or hollow tree (where they
cling to vertical surfaces), the only way you'll ever see them is in flight.
Swifts remind me of bats--their strange nesting habits, their irregular,
fluttery flight--but they're birds, most closely related to the hummingbird
family.
Trivia point: authentic
Bird's Nest Soup is
made from the saliva of
Cave
Swiftlets. As if they weren't batlike enough, some cave swifts use
echolocation to find their nests in the dark.
All three of Mud Lake's breeding herons (Great Blue, Green, Black-Crowned
Night) are back on territory. Great Blues have been back for awhile, but this
one on Tuesday was my first of the year.
I've seen little variety of migrant warblers so far this year--haven't been
out at the right times and places, I guess. That's fine, since tomorrow I'm
off to Point Pelee, migrant warbler capital of the world!
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A Time For New Life
May 11th, 2010
Yesterday at Mud Lake, something I'd never witnessed before: Red-Winged
Blackbirds mating! In my years as a birder it's one of the most charming
things I've ever seen.
(
Cut for the bashful )
For others, there's already new life.
Specifically, two very yellow, very fluffy, and very newborn Canada Goose
goslings. I don't know if they've even been in the water yet--that bit of
wetness on his down may be from hatching. The parents are still very
protective, hissing if I get too close. (Later on, they'll warm to humans
again and even teach their young how to solicit handouts.)
Elsewhere around Mud Lake, patient mothers continue to brood. Once all the
goslings are hatched, the parents will gather them together into a creche for
communal protection.
A very few are further along still. Ravens lay their eggs as early as
February. The raven's nest at Mud Lake already has fledged young. The teenage
ravens are flying around in the canopy near the nest, calling back and forth
to each other and generally making an ungodly racket any time of day.
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South-of-the-airport birds
May 5th, 2010
Tree Swallow,
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I heard far more than I saw, south of the airport today--and saw far more than
I photographed. The birds were active but elusive.
As were the butterflies. They're out in good numbers now--
Spring Azures, migrant
Red Admirals, plus, a
new one for my unofficial "butterfly lifelist": a
Black Swallowtail.
None of them would stay still for a picture.
Though it was afternoon, not morning, there was lots of birdsong. Field,
Vesper, Savannah, Song, Chipping and White-Throated Sparrows all going at it,
plus a
Warbling
Vireo or two--a recent arrival in Ottawa as of the past week. A
Brown Thrasher joined
the chorus as evening moved in.
Emanating from a fenced-off field, I could hear the sweet, plaintive song of
an
Eastern
Meadowlark. It was almost enough to tempt me past the fence--meadowlarks
are as beautiful as their voices are sweet--but there are signs posted, and I
don't know if they're "no trespassing unless you mean well" signs or "NO
TRESPASSING" signs, so I didn't. I also saw and heard a
Bobolink in
his ecstatic flight display, which marks my first Ottawa sighting of that
species, and glimpsed a
Northern Harrier,
both in the same fenced-off field.
The one species that was available for as many photographs as I cared to take
was
Tree Swallows. Oh
my goodness, the Tree Swallows. Tree Swallows left, right and center. Tree
Swallows in the air, in the fields, on the lines, and on the nest boxes. And
they look like they have every intention of taking over as many of those boxes
as they can.
There was much squabbling. "My nest!" "No,
my nest!" "Oh yeah?!" Um,
guys? These boxes were intended for bluebirds. And while you are, technically,
blue birds, I'm pretty sure that's not what was meant.
As for the actual bluebirds, they were around, although not nearly as numerous
nor as noisy as the swallows, nor were they showing any interest in the nest
boxes. Perhaps there are boxes elsewhere that they favor. Must do more
exploring.
(
More )
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Where's Waldo?
April 29th, 2010
A treat at Mer Bleue this afternoon:
Actually, Waldo's not so hard to find in this picture. But when I first saw
him, with naked eye, he looked only like a cattail that was a little darker,
and leaning a little more to the right than the others. I twigged to it only
because I'd been expecting it. I'd been listening to him call for the last
half hour!
This is an
American
Bittern, a shy, stealthy and well-camouflaged marsh heron. American
Bitterns are so shy that, if startled, they usually won't flush. Instead
they'll stand erect with their bill straight up and sway in the breeze to
imitate a cluster of reeds. Only my second sighting ever of this species and
my first opportunity to photograph one, so it was pretty exciting.
Click on the link above to hear this bird's very unusual "water pump" mating
call.
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Recent Arrivals At Mud Lake
April 25th, 2010
To me,
Northern
Flickers are the most beautiful of all Ottawa woodpeckers, beating out
even the magnificent Pileated and the rare Red-Headed. They're also one of our
few migrant (rather than year-round) woodpeckers. They're quite skittish--it's
not often I get a close-up like this one!
I only regret the bird's undertail is in shadow. It's actually a strikingly
vivid yellow, as are the undersides of his wings.
(
More )
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