The Reluctant Twitcher (12 page)

“Do we need a better look?” I ask. We agree we should vacate quickly, and begin to backtrack. The second pass is less aggressive and not as close. We retreat with a modicum of dignity.

“I brought a helmet for you but couldn't find it,” says Hugh. Thanks, pal.

Barred Owl
(265, July 16, Straggle Lake, Haliburton). I wonder, is this to be the first time in thirty-five years I have missed Barred Owl on my own property? Finally one flies ahead of me and lands just down the road. I now know I will see Barred Owls constantly all summer, and I do. They no longer need to hide from me.

Eurasian Collared-Dove
(266, July 20, Stoney Creek). Hugh and Andrew Don and I scream to a stop on the corner where the bird is supposed to be. Before Andrew is out of the car, I hear the bird and tell Andrew. Andrew assumes I am kidding him but looks up anyway and finds the bird practically on top of us. It is a first in Ontario for Andrew and me. It's the Laughing Gull all over again — too easy — but I'll take it. As Hughie would say, it's a tick.

Acadian Flycatcher
(267, July 20, Spooky Hollow). As always, Hugh has “exact” instructions for an active nest, right to the branch. “Take trail X, you can't miss it, go several hundred yards ‘or so,' take the first left and then immediately go right, go on for a bit, take two lefts and then a right, proceed for a while and look up, and Bob's your uncle.” We never even find the no-miss trail X. We try the instructions on numerous trails, but nothing fits. Hugh “just can't understand it,” though my heart sank the minute he read out the instructions. We fan out in despair and try to find our own bird.

Hugh yells, “I just heard one.”

Yeah
, I think,
you couldn't hear it if it were on your head
. It is an unchristian thought. But to humour him, Andrew and I go over, getting our feet soaked in a boggy patch. Hugh says it hasn't called again. I don't say that I didn't think it would. This is fortunate, because right above us an Acadian Flycatcher suddenly calls and flies out of one leafy maple top into another even more impenetrable one. After a prolonged chase, we all finally get satisfactory looks at the bird. Never underestimate the
Reisefuehrer
. His hearing can be quite good when he wants it to be. Try whispering “doughnuts” or “Tim Hortons” at ten metres in a wind.

Stilt Sandpiper
(268, July 20, Jarvis Sewage Lagoons). Andrew and Hugh and I are on a roll. We immediately find a dark breeding-plumaged adult, heavily striped from neck to tail underneath. There are no other birds at the lagoon that I
need
, but three new species in one day is pretty good going. It won't happen often again this year.

Sanderling
(269, July 26, Cobourg Harbour). Home sweet home; an easy one.

Baird's Sandpiper
(270, August 19, Presqu'ile). No new birds since July 26 — a long, seemingly endless, doldrums period — so this is a welcome bird, the first of a very high number of Baird's Sandpipers I will see this year at Chatterton Point in Presqu'ile Provincial Park.

Red-necked Phalarope
(271, August 19, Nonquon Sewage Lagoons). Ron Pittaway posts these birds on Ontbirds and I rush up immediately and score. Yes!

Willet
(272, August 19, Cranberry Marsh). Another Ontbirds posting and I get it on my first attempt. I arrive late in the day and, risking imprisonment and possible water boarding, I drive down the road for authorized vehicles only. I have a story ready if I'm arrested. After finding the bird and successfully sneaking back out, I find that I feel only the slightest guilt. This is not like me. I am usually a law-abiding rabbit who worries himself sick at any minor illegality. I am becoming venal and corrupt.

Olive-sided Flycatcher
(273, August 26, Cobourg). This has become my nemesis bird. Remember, Hugh and I drove two thousand kilometres looking for one on the way back from Rainy River with no luck. All summer I stare at appropriate perches and rack up a huge count of Eastern Kingbirds, Cedar Waxwings, and Starlings, but no Olive-sided. We are now into prime time — their migration week. As with many other birds, there is only a short time period within which you have a fairly good chance of seeing this bird not on its breeding grounds. Others are starting to see them. Jean Iron is suffering sleep deprivation because one sings madly outside her window at five in the morning from an unnaturally visible perch. Doug McRae told me in the spring that Olive-sided should be in the dead cottonwoods in the Fingers at Presqu'ile on August 22 or 23. I search the cottonwoods for several days. Not a hint of one when I'm there. McRae probably sees several hundred of them. I don't ask. I am profoundly discouraged.

Hugh steps up to the plate and says we are going to Presqu'ile to find this bird. He comes to my house in Cobourg. We set off. Two blocks later, at the intersection of King and D'Arcy streets, as I am turning left, I see a bird at the top of a dead branch in a huge white ash. I point it out to Hugh and stop the car.

“Probably my two millionth Cedar Waxwing, but check it out.”

“Looks pretty good,” says Hugh.

We get out. It looks
very
good. I get my scope out. We have excellent looks and indulge in mad high-fives. Only now do I begin to perceive horns and angry yells as cars swing around my vehicle which is stopped diagonally with the doors open in the middle of the busy intersection in mid-left turn. Some drivers lack both a sense of humour and the milk of human kindness.

I tell Margaret immediately, even though she doesn't
need
Olive-sided. “We have the perfect tree for next year,” I tell her. Two days later she calls and tells me they have cut down the big ash. It turns out to be true, even though it was sound as a hound's tooth right through. I guess they didn't want me seeing one two years in a row.

Long-billed Dowitcher
(274, August 26, Brighton Wetlands, “Chez Tiny” — please note that this is not a sewage lagoon, certainly not. It is a “water polishing facility.”) Hugh and I find this early migrant and have to wait weeks before the others begin to arrive.

Red Knot
(275, August 27, Presqu'ile). I meet Maureen Riggs with her husband at the Beach Four parking lot. She is very disappointed to have missed the Whimbrels, about which I, for once, care little.

“Only saw a Red Knot just at the end of the path.”

Hoping I remembered to thank her, I tear off like one possessed. Of course, when I arrive the Red Knot is gone and a small group of Whimbrels are serenely feeding. Such is birding. Dejectedly, I trudge on to Owen Point and the gods decide to humour me. I find the Red Knot in gray fall plumage; a far cry from its spring splendour, but it's a Red Knot just the same and still a very nice bird. I am pleased. You can't have everything. I have not become like Joan Winearls, who only really countenances male warblers in full breeding colours. I have not sunk that far. Oh, all right, possibly with hummingbirds.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper
(276, September 8, Beeton Sod Farms — you have to be careful and explain to English people what a sod farm is. It can raise eyebrows.) After much chasing around and enriching various oil sheiks, Hugh and I finally find these birds just as a Merlin nails a hapless Killdeer beside them and flies off to consume it nearby. I have a crummy look at the panicked Buff-breasteds, and every shorebird within miles flies high into the air and heads south. Do I count them or not? I shouldn't, but … Later we find them again and have long, satisfying looks. I return home triumphant and call Margaret.

“Oh,” she says, “Buff-breasted. They've been all over our harbour today.”

I am glad she has had such good looks and gotten them so effortlessly. Glad. Yes, glad.

Photo by
Mark Peck.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper. Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. These birds touch
down in Southern Ontario only briefly during the fall migration.

Sabine's Gull
(277, September 8, Van Wagner's Beach). I am disappointed today to have to settle for one unidentified jaeger — I'm not going the “jaeger sp.” route (which allows you to count one jaeger species until you definitely identify one later), unless I'm at 299 on New Year's Eve. But just before leaving, Barry Cherriere yells, “Sabine's Gull.” I suddenly know I'm going to miss this bird. I can't find it as Barry methodically describes its flight path. Worse still, Hugh finds it easily and immediately. He eventually puts it in my scope for me. Oh, well, at least I see it and have a good look.

Eastern Screech-Owl
(278, September 18, Cobourg). Nobody can believe I haven't seen one yet. Even I can't believe it, and I've
looked
for them. None of this waiting until I stumble on one. Remember, I'm trying to make things happen these days. Margaret gets tired of this and decides to take me to her secret spot
di tutti
spots where it is impossible to miss screech-owls. She calls her friend first; they are everywhere. What colour do you want? So we go, and … nada. Not even a response. It is a dreadful humiliation for Margaret's screech-owl guru, to say nothing of Margaret herself. We go on to a spot Doug McRae has told me about and get all kinds of responses to our tape (it goes on my heard-only list), but no owl manifests itself, even in a flyby.

Photo by
Andrew Don.

Eastern Screech-Owl. Bronte. Though their quavering call is often heard,
these nocturnal birds are seldom seen.

Margaret calls several days later. Bruce Parker has one in his backyard that reliably comes in to a tape. Reliably? Yeah, sure. I'm over there that evening, trying not to look needy. I don't want Parker to think I'm a complete rookie. Nor do I wish him to be humiliated. He doesn't know there is some kind of conspiracy afoot. Bruce takes me out back, plays one call, and I'm practically bombed by a gray-morph owl that comes right in and sits above me, gawking. Parker takes it in his stride and I try not to look too thrilled. Eastern Screech-Owl comes off my heard-only list.

11
Revelations

Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.

— G
ORE
V
IDAL

I
AM NOT A VERY
nice person. Oddly, before my Big Year, even while pursuing it at the beginning, I had thought I was a nice fellow, full of the milk of human kindness. But now I know the bitter truth. I am a malicious and spiteful person, an ingrate, a scoundrel — in short, a knave. Yes, a knave.

When Margaret and I are tied at 279 in mid-September, I call to tell her I will be away for several days in Stratford with my wife.

Silence. Then a small voice. “You won't have time to try for the Ruff at Harrington, will you?”