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December
6-9, 2002
Avids Foray into a Foreign
Land
by Joe Hammond
No one
ever said that being an Avid was easy or necessarily smart. We tend to
be people that find themselves at the center of attention at holiday
gatherings and family sit-downs. This is not because we are
attention-craving maniacs, it is because we are people that do not
typically conform to normal societal expectations when it comes to what
we do during the winter. I can hear it now, "So, Joe, are you going to
put up holiday decorations and one-million candlepower blinking
multi-colored lights around your house on Saturday? Are you going to
sit in front of the fire and catch the big game on Sunday?"
"Well, not really." I'd reply with reservation.
They immediately would ask, "Why not? Isn't it your responsibility as
an American homeowner to make your house look as obnoxious as possible
between October 15th and January 15th then sit around and enjoy the
fruits of your labors while watching 22 humongous men beat each other
half to death on television?"
Feeling myself cower a bit, "I don't know about that, but 15 other
people and I are heading up to the middle of Ontario just east of the
Georgian Bay this weekend to look at birds."
"Your going whe...to Cana...in Decem...to look at wha...on purpose?"
they would stutter. "Are you out of your mind?"
And it only goes downhill from there. I guess we're not meant to be
understood, and yes, we do tend to head north during the winter for
species that cannot be found at such pleasant latitudes as ours. It's a
burden we all must bear and we should do so with pride.
To further our image, 16 Avids in four vehicles did in fact go north
for a few days of whirlwind birding in Ontario during the first weekend
of December 2002. While the trip didn't officially begin until 8:00
p.m. on Friday night at Niagara Falls, everyone was able to do a little
birding on the way up earlier that day. In fact, one vehicle drove to
Mentor, Ohio on Thursday night to get a head-start on Friday's birding.
Speaking of vehicles, all of ours had nicknames, or handles, as it
were. One vehicle was named the Snackmobile and was composed of Joe
Faulkner, Linda Helm, Doreene Linzell, Becky Hatfield, and Gina Buckey.
Joe's van has a reputation of having more food in it than the main
Kroger warehouse. Another vehicle was deemed the Partymobile, mainly
because three of the occupants are part of the "party generation" while
the other belongs to a slightly different, but wiser, generation. I
realize I'm tiptoeing on thin ice here and I hope that Paul Gardner,
Randy Rogers, Brad Sparks, and Troy Shively forgive me. I did hear that
the youngest person in the vehicle asked the most experienced person to
turn down his music though. Is the party generation all talk and no
action? You make the call. Without going into a lot of details, the
third vehicle was called the Texas Express and was made up of Byron and
Joan Bossenbroek, Dan Sanders, and Bill Heck. The fourth vehicle really
didn't have a name that stuck too well. One suggestion was Three's
Company because there were two women (Julie Davis and Darlene Sillick)
and one man (myself) while another was Hot Seats because of the
vehicle's heated seats.
Friday,
December 6, 2002
We all birded our way up to Niagara Falls and everyone was able to
enjoy the immature male king eider at Mentor Lagoons, Ohio in between
snow squalls. In fact, half of the group was videotaped by some
officials from the city of Mentor because they were interested in
promoting recreational tourism there. They had the idea because they
were impressed with the fact that people from Columbus would visit
Mentor to look at a bird in a snow storm. From there some folks stopped
at Headlands Beach State Park, Ohio where the previously reported
purple sandpipers proved to be quite elusive in the high winds and
blowing snow and sand. Two of the vehicles also stopped at Fairport
Harbor, Ohio for a look at the female common eider and whatever else
happened to be around. In addition to some canvasbacks, redheads, and
scaup, three surf scoters and one black scoter were in attendance out
in the harbor itself. While most vehicles went straight to Niagara
Falls from there, at least one stopped at Conneaut, Ohio and Presque
Isle, Pennsylvania. One surf scoter was tallied at Conneaut, but little
else was found at either that location or Presque Isle.
Upon arriving at the Super 8 Hotel in Niagara Falls, we discovered that
there was an extraordinary number of people around. It turns out that
there was some kind of cheerleading competition, convention, or
something in town and it seemed like all of the over-caffeinated
11-15-year-old girls were at that hotel. Because it was quite loud and
crowded in the lobby, we had our orientation meeting in one of the
large bedrooms at 8:00 p.m. We talked about the itinerary, our
expectations and possibilities, and recent reports from the area.
Everyone was excited and ready to begin our first full day of Ontario
birding.
Saturday,
December 7, 2002
We had agreed to meet at the adjacent pancake house at 6:00 a.m., but
discovered that it didn't open until 7:00 (I had gotten some bad
information). So, we ventured to the local Denny's which turned out to
be quite expensive and fairly slow. They apparently weren't quite ready
for a crowd of 16 at 6:15 in the morning. While waiting on the food, a
few of the participants commented on how noisy the hotel was during the
night. Apparently the cheerleaders were practicing in the hallway
fairly late into the evening. Doreene's solution to that was to do the
Ross's gull cheer right back to them. Imagine that, Doreene in the
hallway choreographing "R-O-S-S-'-S, that's the best bird in the wide
wide west!" After a few laughs and more food than we could possibly eat
in two sittings, we gathered everyone up at 7:30 and went west along
the QEW to the town of Stoney Creek. We spotted a couple of gorgeous
rough-legged hawks along the way to the various Lake Ontario viewing
points in this little hamlet. Lake Ontario is known for its large
congregations of long-tailed ducks, scoters, goldeneye, and other
diving ducks and Stoney Creek provides a great place from which to view
them. Upon exiting the vehicles at the end of Green Road, we were
treated to numerous long-tailed ducks, some close and some farther
away. Looking out over the lake, we could see long-tailed ducks
everywhere. There must have been several thousand of them out there.
After enjoying the long-tailed duck spectacle we began scanning the
other species present. There weren't a lot of goldeneye around--we were
hoping for a Barrow's--but there was one large raft of greater scaup
and we were able to find all three scoters. There were numerous surf
scoters including many adult males sporting their gorgeous
black-and-white plumages and multi-colored bills. White-winged scoters
were also well represented, but we only saw a couple of immature/female
black scoters. We saw more ducks off to our west so we headed for
Sayers Park. This provided another nice lookout point where we got more
and sometimes better looks at the species we had already seen. Troy
went down to the water's edge, looked east, and found an adult male
black scoter sitting on something just beyond a pier. It poked its head
out at regular intervals, almost teasing us with its orange bill knob.
Eventually it got into the water and swam out into the lake with a
mallard. While its choice of company wasn't the greatest, it did
provide a spectacular view for everyone. Nine-thirty came and we
decided it was time to go back east to Niagara Falls. While putting my
scope into the car, I spotted a small bird fly to the base of a planted
spruce tree across from Sayers Park. As I knelt down, a Carolina wren
showed itself from just under the lowest branch of the tree. What a
hardy trooper.
 As we approached the Niagara River the
sky
became quite gray and the temperature became quite chilly. We
were prepared for cold weather and donned all of our outerwear above
the falls at the control gates. We saw many canvasbacks along the pier
by the control gates and there were a few gulls milling about. The
highlight here, though, was what appeared to be a possible first winter
glaucous x herring gull, otherwise known as "Nelson's" gull. It was
roughly the size of a herring gull, had the pink bill with a black tip
like a glaucous gull, the mantle, covert, and tertial color of a
glaucous gull, and dark chocolate brown wing tips with pale ends. The
digiscoped photo to the left shows the sleeping hybrid gull in front of
an adult herring gull.
Parking the vehicles north of the power building we scanned the rapids
above the falls. There were lots of birds but we were unable to find
the little gull that was reported earlier in the day. We ran into John
Odgers from Texas and Tom Bartlett from Ohio's Black Swamp Bird
Observatory. They told us about a couple of purple sandpipers way out
on the rocks and we were able to find the distant birds. Basically they
looked like dark-backed, white-bellied birds running around. We also
learned that we had missed a red-necked grebe at the control gates.
After jockeying around and making a nasty U-turn at an intersection
where the Snackmobile went over a curb, we parked at the Falls parking
area for $10.00 Canadian. Ouch. Some folks ate lunch while others
walked to the falls. We scanned the birds around both falls and Troy
turned up a nice second-winter Iceland gull at the base of the American
Falls. The Snackmobile occupants finally made it to the overlook area
and were able to take in this extremely handsome northern visitor.
After a few minutes, and realizing we were behind on time, we decided
to skip the whirlpool and the Queenston Boat Launch and go straight to
the Adam Beck Overlook. When we arrived a local showed us a gorgeous
adult Thayer's gull that posed on a rock at the point. We all got great
looks at it and were able to study the various subtle field marks. In
the mass of gulls there we were also treated to a first-winter Thayer's
gull, three adult Iceland gulls, two first-winter Iceland gulls, and an
adult lesser black-backed gull. This stop produced quite a few lifers
for participants and provided some good study time.
At 3:45 p.m. the group arrived at the Nelson Street Gazebo in
Niagara-on-the-Lake to watch the evening spectacle of Bonaparte's gulls
heading out of the river to spend the night on Lake Ontario. While we
were waiting, an absolutely knock-your-socks-off male long-tailed duck
put on a 30-minute show about 20 feet in front of us. Folks, including
myself, could not get enough. Two horned grebes and a couple more
long-tailed ducks also lounged around inside the marina and a belted
kingfisher surprised us when it flew past. As is began to get a bit
darker, the Bonaparte's gulls began flying by sporadically and in very
small groups. Suddenly, Dan yelled out "little gull!!!" and there it
was flying near the New York shore showing its distinct black
underwings. Somehow everyone managed to get on this bird and watch it
fly past the fort and into the lake. A little time went by and Troy
found another good trip bird in the form of a red-necked grebe over by
the New York shore. Everyone was able to view this bird in the dimming
afternoon light as well. We continued watching the Bonaparte's gulls
fly out of the river until it was quite dark. By then everyone was very
cold and in need of a restroom. So, at about 5:15 p.m., we left
Niagara-on-the-Lake for Barrie, stopping at a McDonald's on Route 55
for a pit stop.
Getting through Toronto was a nightmare due to the traffic. We should
have taken Route 407 all the way around, but instead went right through
the middle of town. I'll know better next time! At any rate, we got to
Barrie at 8:00 p.m. and found that The Keg was packed. After making
reservations for Sunday night, we went north to the next exit and had a
great meal at the Red Lobster. When we came out of the restaurant, we
discovered that at least 2 inches of snow had fallen just during the
time it took us to eat. We made it back to the Comfort Inn to find that
we would once again have a problem with a large group occupying the
motel. This time it was a sports team of some sort. Were they following
us? There were minor difficulties with a couple of the rooms, but
nothing overwhelming. We finally got settled in and off to sleep in
anticipation of the next day's journey.
Sunday,
December 8, 2002
After a short night's sleep, we all gathered in the lobby at 6:00 a.m.
to discuss the day's activities. In addition, John from Texas joined us
on today's excursion. The weather had turned nasty and they were
calling for up to 12 inches of snow along the road we were to travel up
to Algonquin Provincial Park. It had already snowed 6-8 inches at the
motel, but we decided to give it a try anyway. Route 11 was not in the
best condition and we stopped at Orillia to eat, get gas, and check on
road conditions. The Provincial Police had no information to give and
we weren't able to reach the Ministry of Transportation. We continued
northward, slowly, and hit a line of snow squalls that brought us to a
crawl. By 8:45, we had emerged into sunshine once again and the squalls
were over. We stopped at the junction of Routes 11 and 60 to relax a
bit and take in some much needed nutrition. The Tim Horton's doughnut
from earlier just didn't cut it. Realizing that the weather could only
get better, we continued east on Route 60 to the West Gate of the park,
arriving at around 10:00. The roads were still snow-covered, but we
were able to traverse them without too much difficulty.
As we piled out of the vehicles at the West Gate, we realized that it
had gotten quite cold. In addition, it was still very windy. We paid
our fee and investigated the feeder only to find a black-capped
chickadee and a white-breasted nuthatch. We did hear a couple of
crossbills fly over us though. Our first destination inside the park
was the KM-8 post. We parked alongside the road and began looking and
listening for birds. Our targets here in the mixed forest were
black-backed woodpecker and boreal chickadee. Soon after getting out of
the vehicles, we began hearing white-winged crossbills. Finally, we
spotted two of them at the top of a spruce tree and everyone was able
to get great scope looks at the birds. Occasionally the sun would hit
the male just right and he would glow with a radiant pink beauty. We
continued looking for the other two birds and were able to call in a
small group of chickadees. Unfortunately, no boreals were among the
bold black-cappeds. We did have a pileated woodpecker here, but no
black-backed. Realizing we could work this area again on the way out,
our group continued east to the Visitor's Center.
To
utilize time wisely, we ate while traveling to the Visitor's Center
which was approximately 35 km to the east along Route 60. In addition,
Brad spotted a large bull moose along the side of the road. Everyone
got turned around eventually, but by the time people got to the area,
the moose had vanished. So, only one person in the entire group got to
see the wary animal. After arriving at the Visitor's Center, we
investigated both the restrooms and the feeders out back. This is often
a good place to find gray jays, but today just wasn't the day. Both
downy and hairy woodpeckers graced the large suet feeders and a couple
of black-capped chickadees dined on the provided seed. A few blue jays
came and went, but no gray jays were around. Getting our fill, we
loaded back up and went the short distance to the parking lot for the
Spruce Bog Boardwalk. As soon as we arrived, two gray jays appeared out
of nowhere and investigated this odd lot of 17 souls. It didn't take
long for people to whip out the unsalted peanuts and take in the unique
experience of a wild bird landing on your hand. An informal survey
discovered that two out of two gray jays prefer fresh walnuts over
fresh peanuts. Of course, many photos were taken and people were amazed
by the event that had just transpired. It was a first for many.
The Spruce Bog Boardwalk is a favorite location for locating spruce
grouse and boreal chickadees; we had seen both here in 1998. So, we
took to the trail and birded it at medium speed the first time
through--I was trying to get lucky. Luck apparently wasn't with us, but
we enjoyed walking the trail and seeing this northern ecosystem. We did
locate more white-winged crossbills though. The second time through the
trail we birded very slowly through the first half looking at every
little thicket and spruce tree. We still had not heard or seen any
passerines other than the crossbills. We couldn't even get a chickadee
to come in. Tired bodies and cold weather forced a retreat so we headed
back to the vehicles. John bid us farewell at the parking lot and
headed back to Barrie. Our group went over to the Visitor's Center for
a restroom break and then went back to KM-8. We arrived at a little
after 3:30 and gave the woodpecker and chickadee another chance. By now
it was 3oF and the wind was still blowing. Standing around alongside
the road proved to be quite chilling and we weren't having any luck
with either species. By 4:00 we decided to drive back to Barrie and
give ourselves enough time to clean up before going to dinner at The
Keg.
The roads back to Barrie were much better during the evening than they
were in the morning and we were able to travel at normal speeds. We
made it back to the motel at 6:00, got cleaned up, and met at The Keg
at 7:00. We found a little surprise when we arrived as John had left us
a thank you note and had arranged for two bottles of champagne to be
served at our table. What an outstanding gesture. We had a wonderful
dinner and enjoyed sharing stories of combined interest. We plotted our
strategy for the following morning just before we left and all were in
agreement that we should try for the gray partridges around the
Brantford airport. So, we agreed to meet at the Country Kettle
restaurant for breakfast at 7:00 a.m. before making our way south.
Monday,
December 9, 2002
It was an odd feeling to wake up a little later than usual this
morning. It surprisingly didn't take too long to pack up all of our
vehicles and make our way to the Country Kettle. They were ready for
our arrival and we were soon seated for a nice hot breakfast. By 8:30
a.m. we were on our way south around Toronto and then west toward
Brantford. It was a fairly pleasant drive and traffic wasn't nearly as
bad as it was on Saturday night. I think we counted about 15 red-tailed
hawks along the road between Barrie and Brantford. The partridges had
been seen on Saturday near the airport buildings and upon arrival it
didn't take long to find the line of cedar trees where they were
reported. We scanned the area from behind the fence, but were unable to
locate any birds. We walked west toward the terminal building and
scanned the fields and buildings from there, but again came up empty.
We did get to observe a female northern harrier hunt over the fields
and we were all hoping that she would scare up a gray partridge for us.
Troy checked with the airport staff and they reported that they had
seen the birds right around the terminal a few days ago. In addition,
they gave us permission to walk out to the cedar trees where the birds
were reported on Saturday.
We weren't the first people to investigate those trees as we found
numerous footprints in the snow around them. We also found some other
footprints which told us that the partridges were no longer there. It
was clear that they had fed extensively below a small maple tree with a
heavy seed crop then walked north across the runway into the thick
matted grass. We scanned the fields again, but an elephant probably
could have been camouflaged in there, much less a small gray bird with
a broken pattern of darker stripes. Realizing this was an exercise in
futility, we headed back to the cars and decided to drive the road that
borders the airport to the north.
We drove slowly along the road which was bordered on both sides by
fencerows and agricultural fields. A woman taking her morning walk said
that she had seen partridges in her yard in previous years, but not yet
this winter. As we stopped and scanned the various fields and brambles,
we turned up a solitary golden-crowned kinglet working the branches of
a small lone tree in the roadside fence row. In addition, an American
tree sparrow put in a brief appearance in an adjacent fencerow. Making
things exciting for a moment was a flock of about 25-30 horned larks.
We were hoping for a snow bunting or Lapland longspur, but it was not
meant to be. Neither was the gray partridge. It was now noon and we all
needed to get back home. So, we said goodbye to the elusive partridges
and made our way back to the freeway.
The four vehicles were soon separated and everyone ventured home on
their own. Our vehicle experienced a minor delay just across from
Windsor as it was searched by immigration officers and a dog. We were
released in good time and were soon back on the road south through
Detroit and on into Ohio. Everyone arrived home safely and has now had
a truly northern experience. Will people still wonder about the sanity
of us birders? Sure they will. However, we know in our minds that these
out-of-the-ordinary trips to far-flung places at odd times of the year
make us appreciate what is really out there in this small world that we
live on.
"Did you at least stop at the casino and duty-free shop in Windsor?"
"No, we really didn't have time."
The following list represents the 57 species of birds seen while the
group was together beginning on the morning of Saturday, December 7th
and ending at noon on Monday, December 9th. Including birds
seen on the
way to Ontario on Friday, December 6th, the group tallied an
impressive
32 collective life-birds on this trip.
Page
updated 04/04/05
©
Columbus Audubon 2005
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