The Reluctant Twitcher (18 page)

— L
EWIS
C
ARROLL
,
J
ABBERWOCKY

N
EAR THE END OF
N
OVEMBER
, Margaret and I decide to make abortive trip number three thousand to Presqu'ile for Purple Sandpipers. The Cobourg waterfront is failing to produce even though they are being seen elsewhere in the province. She is stuck at 299 and is quite desperate.

When I arrive at her house, there is a flock of redpolls at her famous feeders, and she says to come and have a look. One of them is rather whitish and pale by comparison to the others. We have a pretty good look and see a whitish rump, little or no streaking under the tail, minimal streaking on the sides, and an overall paleness compared to the other birds. The whole flock whisks away before we are completely finished with bill and cap, et cetera. We both feel quite sure it was a Hoary, but decide it would be somehow unsatisfactory to count it as Margaret's number three hundred. We agree to count it if we don't get a different three hundredth bird, and if we do get another, we will consider Hoary Redpoll her 301st. Even when, shortly after, we see the photos of the two first-year female Hoaries banded on Leslie Street Spit and realize our bird was one of the same, we stick by our decision. Like me, Margaret does not want any soft birds on her list.

Photo by
Sam Barone.

“Southern” Hoary Redpoll (
exilipes
). Mississauga. A relatively pale,
rather faintly streaked bird with heavy feathering at the base of the small,
stubby bill.

Presqu'ile betrays us yet again. And it is so windy I practically have to load Margaret down with stones. When crossing the tombolo, I am glad she does not have an umbrella: Shades of Mary Poppins. Eventually I leave her in the duck blind at the beginning of Gull Island and fight my way around the whole island to make sure there are no Purple Sands rejoicing in some particularly devious hidey hole. Fortunately, I don't find any, because I don't know how I would get her out to see them, though we would definitely try. What with the metre-high waves, Margaret does not make me go out to Sebastopol Island as usual. Thank God for small mercies. We come home with our tails between our legs.

Over the next week we do everything possible to get her number three hundred. We even stay overnight in Niagara-on-the-Lake so we can have multiple tries at King Eider in Burlington, Hawk Owl at Port Weller, Purple Sandpiper at Niagara, and Black-headed Gull at Fort Erie. Swells nearly one metre high make it impossible to find the eider; the Hawk Owl flies the coop even though we are there fifteen hours after it was seen by Hugh; the Black-headed Gull is not seen by anybody; and they even go so far as to raise the water a foot at Niagara and flood the rocks and islands to deny us Purple Sandpiper. I'd like to get my hands on the person who tipped them off about our arrival. The dreadful ice-storm and weather warning is only an additional background irritant for us — one more minor cross to bear.

All our hopes are now on a planned Big Day with Doug McRae on December 4. As usual, Doug wants to start at least an hour before dawn to try for owls. Somehow we talk him into starting from his house only half an hour before dawn. After a short period of abortive owling, we decide to work Presqu'ile and the lakeshore before heading inland. Doug is well aware of Margaret's desperate
need
for Purple Sandpiper.

After a few good birds — the best of which is Fred Helleiner's personal Carolina Wren, which actually sings for us at minus ten degrees Celsius — we decide to go directly for Purple Sandpiper, not the least reason being the fact that Margaret has talked about nothing else all morning. She has them on the brain. They have been visiting her a lot of late in her dreams. Doug found four on Gull Island two days before, so we have a decent chance. The problem is logistical; everything is coated with ice after the storm — skating rinks are like sand by comparison — and the wind is absolutely raging at Owen Point. Margaret frequently goes up on her heels in preparation for takeoff on the way to the point, so we decide to leave her there on the point at a duck blind with the 60-power scope while Doug and I stagger out to the island over the tombolo.

Photo by
Doug McRae.

Purple Sandpipers (juveniles). Presqu'ile Provincial Park. We nearly got
killed approaching these birds over the rugged, glassy December ice.

It is slow-going and treacherous, but we both know there is no turning back. Who wants to spend the good part of a day with someone slashed by the sharp knives of failure and despair? Even without scopes it is tough-going. At one point I fear McRae is losing more than his footing when he inexplicably breaks out into a Celtic dancing routine in his hip waders. First time I've seen the sword dance in ages. I know he has a Scottish surname, but I had no idea he was so deeply into Scottish nationalism and culture. Dostoevsky wrote that “another's soul is a darkness,” meaning that you never know what lies beneath the surface in another person. Am I having a Dostoevskian moment? No, McRae is out of control and trying to stay upright. This is neither ebullience nor a display of nationalism.

When we finally get to the island, we realize the birds are either going to have to be at the first point, or we are going to have to leave them be like the Ruddy Turnstone reputed to be out on Sebastopol. Walking the whole of Gull Island is out of the question. Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for a bird and all that, but there are limits.

Rounding the point is treacherous and, as we gradually see farther and farther around it, we both figure we're out of luck. But lo and behold, magically, on the edge of a limestone rock formation, are four fat Purple Sandpipers feeding merrily and utterly unconcerned by our arrival.

I turn and signal to Margaret, hoping she is watching and can see me, and begin pointing down in front of me. No reaction, though she appears glued to the scope. Then we move forward and the birds make a little two-metre flight up from the water's edge and land on top of the flat rock. I look back, frantically pointing, and see a diminutive figure in the distance glued to a scope, right hand raised triumphantly in a closed-fisted victory salute. I tell Doug, “I think she's seen them.”

At this point Doug slips and slides his way to the water and gets around behind the birds in his waders to take some smashing photos of the birds (one of which is later presented to Margaret), after which we leave them to feed undisturbed.

Purple Sandpiper is Margaret's bird number three hundred and Hoary Redpoll becomes 301. As for me, I count
Hoary Redpoll
as my number 299 seen and
Purple Sandpiper
as my number three hundred seen, sealed, and delivered. I love these portly birds — a wonderful choice for my true three-hundredth. Watching them feed and swim about like phalaropes in icy seas is an incredible sight. I take my hat off to them.

The rest of our Big Day seems joyous and unstrained. Even the owls treat us better and we have an Eastern Screech-Owl flying all around our heads at dusk just before calling it a day. Sadly, Hugh is not there when we find Bohemian Waxwings in the very tree we took him and Bruce Falls to several days before.

Oddly, getting my three-hundredth seen bird was not as thrilling for me as getting number three hundred ABA style, and I understood why Margaret was so ecstatic about her three-hundredth bird.

The pressure, entirely self-imposed to be sure, but nonetheless real, was suddenly off. Birding could be sheer pleasure again. New species would be the gravy now.

Oh, joy!

19
Gravy Birds

Onwards, ever onwards!

— F
AST
E
DDY
P
HIBBS

T
HE INNOCENT JOY OF SEEING
three hundred birds does not last as long as I expected.

“Sure hope they don't lump Thayer's Gull with Iceland,” says Carley darkly after I mention getting my three hundredth.

I suddenly realize that just as easily as the powers that be had given me a bird — Trumpeter Swan — they could take one or two away. I had remembered splitting, but forgotten lumping. In police and underworld jargon, lumping and splitting, I'm led to believe, is used when a criminal whacks someone over the head and then flees the scene of the crime. Lumping, though perhaps not splitting, I would submit, is a crime in the birding world. I'd like to get my hands on the guy who is going around claiming all white-headed gulls are really the same species. We could all lose a pile there. These damn bird committees have too much power. I lost Cassin's Vireo on my Ontario life list two years ago because of a committee — in this case the OBRC — not that I am bitter or anything. It becomes clear to me that I need a cushion of at least one and perhaps two birds to make sure my three hundred will stand. Oh, dear. And here for five whole days I had been trying to have a life again. Now it's back into the breach, dear friends.

Hugh still
needs
some birds to make three hundred. He is substantially behind because of his four weeks in Peru. We decide to head to Niagara on December 10 with five target birds in mind: Hawk Owl, King Eider, Black-headed Gull, Purple Sandpiper, and Little Gull. He does not
need
Hawk Owl, but I do, having missed the Port Weller bird. I don't
need
Purple Sandpiper, but Hugh does. Things start brilliantly, at least from my point of view. We get the
Northern Hawk Owl
(301) easily at Stoney Creek, right on the telephone wires beside the road. Even at this early stage, the bird is already being harassed by idiots who have not yet discovered digiscoping. Ironically, it later turns out that this is the very bird Margaret and I missed at Port Weller, which has moved on to better voling country.

We should have gone straight home after this little victory.

Photo by
Mark Peck.

Northern Hawk Owl. Welcome. In my opinion this is our fiercest-
looking owl.