Birds of the Cottage Country

BIRDS OF THE COTTAGE COUNTRY by William C. Mansell

Eastern Screech-Owl Gregory C. Mansell

DEDICATION To Blair's paternal grandmother

This page intentionally left blank

CONTENTS Introduction 1 1. The Loons, Grebes, Cormorants, and Petrels 7 2. The Herons and Storks 13 3. The Swans, Geese, and Ducks 18 4. The Hawks, Falcons, and Vultures 26 5. The Grouse, Quails, and Pheasants 33 6. The Cranes and Rails 40 7. The Shorebirds 42 8. The Gulls, Terns, Jaegers, and Murres . . . . 49 9. The Pigeons, Cuckoos, and Owls 55 10. The Nightjars, Swifts, Hummingbirds, and Kingfishers 61 11. The Woodpeckers 67 12. The Tyrant Flycatchers 73 13. The Swallows 79 14. The Jays, Magpies, Crows, and Ravens . . . . 84 15. The Chickadees, Nuthatches, and Creepers 90 16. The Wrens, Kinglets, and Gnatcatchers . . . . 94 17. The Thrushes 99 18. The Mimids, Larks, Pipits, Waxwings, Shrikes, and Starlings 116 19. The Vireos 124 20. The Wood Warblers 129 I The Nesting Dendroicas 131 II The Transient Dendroicas 137 III Other Tree Warblers 141 IV The Ground Warblers 146 21. The Tanagers and Cardinal Grosbeaks .... 152 22. The Buntings 159 I The Towhees, Juncos, Vesper Sparrows, and Winter Buntings 160 II Chipping, Fox, and Crown Sparrows 166 III Song, Lincoln's, and Grass Sparrows 174 23. The Troupials 180 24. The Finches 191 List of Birds with Migration Dates 201

Published by:

70 Otonabee Drive Kitchener, Ontario N2C 1L6 (519)894-4000

Copyright© William C. Mansell, 1985

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publishers—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Mansell, William C., 1908Birds of the Cottage Country

ISBN 0-920469-02-7 1. Birds—Ontario. 2. Bird-watching—Ontario— Anecdotes, facetiae, satire, etc. 3. Mansell, William C., 1908I. Title. QL685.5.05M36 1985

598.29713

C85-099957-X

Cover photo John McBain Cover signpost prop Art Simpson Central illustrations by William Blair Mansell Illustrations at chapter endings by Shelia Smith Manufactured in Canada by Allprint Company Limited

INTRODUCTION Birds are greatly attracted to the Cottage Country, that vast area of stately forest, scintillating lakes and rocky outcropping that lies on the southern fringe of the Laurentian Shield in Ontario. The region (Algonquin Park and the Districts of Parry Sound, Muskoka and Haliburton) is the center of breeding distribution for most of eastern Canada's softbills (warblers, vireos and other insectivorous species). Their number, colour and variety add to the joie de vivre of the region's oscillating human population. The fluctuation in numbers of humans is an honest phenomenon. While the full-time residents barely exceed 50,000 souls, each summer sees an influx of ten times that number as cottages, camps and resorts are reoccupied by seekers of one thing—fun in the out-of-doors. In addition, recent years have seen the fun-seekers making use of the country's physical attractions not only in summer, but also in spring, winter and autumn. The fun-lovers run the gamut of entertainment. Athletic activities from boating to hiking are high on the list, but culture is not ignored, as artists and photographers strive to reproduce the beauties of the region. The myriads of birds found in the area have attracted a growing number of followers, from the professional ornithologist through the serious amateur, the dyed-in-wool 'birder,' the enthusiastic naturalist whose interest may wane seasonally, to the individual who may curiously mutter, "Wonder what kind of bird that is?" 1

It is for the latter groups that this book has been written, for while today's excellent field guides, when used intelligently, will answer identification problems, they give only a wretched idea of which birds occur in this region. Very little has been written of the area's bird life. All coverage, including one book with a semi-popular approach, have followed the concept of an annotated list, which is a list of the birds found in an area, (elaborated slightly), to give some idea of abundance and period of occurrence. While describing where, when and how frequently a species may be seen, this book departs from the established format of an annotated list by introducing little known, sometimes unique facets of a species' life. Further, while it focusses on Algonquin Park and the three Districts comprising Central Ontario, it will be of value to bird enthusiasts in the contiguous counties and districts, for they have much the same topography and plant growth. The following pages constitute a presentation of all the birds (310 species) that, to my knowledge, have occurred in the four districts listed previously. Boastfully, I will admit to having seen, somewhere in North America, almost all the species reported herein. The implication that there are some that I have not seen in the Cottage Country cannot be denied. They are, for the most part, those wayfarers and transients which have occurred here but a handful of times. Suffice it to say that the stories recounted here have been 2

drawn from my experience within the Cottage Country only. The format is simple. Each chapter includes all members of a related group that have occurred in this region. The group will be an order, family, genus or some subdivision of such—taxonomical terms that should be known even to the veriest tyro. Where a group is represented here by only one or two species, other small groups have been added to make a chapter of reasonable length. However, all species within such chapter will be distantly related or will have a superficial resemblance. Two groups, the warblers and the buntings (sparrows) are so large that they have been divided arbitrarily. The order of the groups follows, generally, the arrangement adopted by the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) in 1983. But, again, small groups widely separated by the AOU have been combined so that one of such groups will appear to be out of place. Each chapter begins with a list of the species to be found here, arranged according to their comparative abundance, the more common heading the list. The terms used to indicate abundance (more properly, ease and frequency of sighting) are: Abundant, common, rather common, rather uncommon, uncommon, rather rare, rare, very rare, occasional, and accidental, the last two referring to species that venture far from their normal range. The possibility of seeing them here in the future will be just as fortuitous as was the sight of them in the past. 3

Then, following the same order as listed in the chapter heading, I have recounted one or more incidents that have befallen me in the Cottage Country. At the beginning of each story I have used the official vernacular of the species in bold face, followed by the number of that species in the formal list as given in the Appendix. Later, I may use an abbreviation of the vernacular (as 'Robin' instead of 'American Robin'). Where I have nothing to tell in that way I have summarily dismissed the species, although I have given its vernacular name and number. In most cases, the species so slighted are birds which I have seen rarely, if at all, in this region, with the result that, in most such cases, I have nothing exceptional to add to their life histories. I have engaged in field study almost everywhere in the region covered, from Wilberforce, Haliburton, to the mouth of the French River, Parry Sound; and from Honey Harbour, Muskoka, to Kiosk, Algonquin Park. I might add that my peregrinations have also included the counties surrounding the area reviewed. Somewhat naturally, most of my unusual observations have been made when established in one or the other of two home bases. Thus, you will find frequent references to Tanglewood Cottage, which is on Springsyde Beach of Pen (Peninsula) Lake, about one mile west of North Portage. The other area is Rebecca Lake, situated in the former Sinclair Township (now part of Lake of Bays Township) in the northeast corner of Muskoka. On the small beach on the east 4

shore of the main body of Rebecca Lake are three family cottages, known as: Sunset Cabin, erected in 1915; Ama Tibi, built in 1946; and Oshogowigamatamack, constructed in 1918, enlarged in 1946 and acquired by me in 1958. All three have been home to me at various times, as was also the almost century-old dwelling on the family held Sunset Farm, on which farming was discontinued about 1945. Parenthetically, I began visiting Pen Lake as a babe-in-arms in 1909 and first saw Rebecca Lake in 1912, although my recollections of those visits have no more substance than a wisp of ectoplasm. Observations of birds began at an early age, but note-keeping, the basis of this book, did not commence until 1933. Where helpful, I have included in the text a description of the song of songbirds and one or two calls of all, while, in some cases, have commented on certain field marks. The appendix lists all species in AOU order, with the average dates of arrival and departure for each season. It must be realized that the fewer the records, the more inaccurate will be the averages. Note, too, that this book is not intended to be an annotated list with its disconcerting foot-notes and repetitive citations of references. It should prove a helpful addendum to the four major field guides (Peterson, Golden, National Geographic, and Harper and Row); and a last recourse to those arguments around the dinner table. William C. Mansell, Mississauga, Ontario 5

This page intentionally left blank

1. THE LOONS, GREBES, CORMORANTS, AND PETRELS LOONS — Common: Common Loon. Occasional: Red-throated Loon. Accidental: Arctic Loon. GREBES — Rather Common: Pied-billed Grebe. Rather Rare: Horned Grebe, Red-necked Grebe. CORMORANTS — Occasional: Double-crested Cormorant. PETRELS — Accidental: Wilson's Storm Petrel. The big common loon (3) is a favourite bird of mine, and for many reasons. Its weird, uncanny cries, sometimes the forlorn wail of a forsaken soul, sometimes the laughter of a demented one, sometimes chuckles apparently lifted from the sound-track of "Frankenstein's Monster," provoked the early query, "What was that, Daddy?" Uneasiness pervaded the Stygian interior of my room when, just before falling into the abyss of childhood sleep, the melancholy exchange of a pair of loons would assail my ear. When I was old enough to go with my parents on fishing trips we would sometimes have a loon for company, one convoying us from mate and inky young, sometimes diving to constitute a guessing game of where it would resurface (no one in our party ever won), sometimes warily circumnavigating our rowboat in a wide, watchful semicircle. The loon was usually the first swimming bird seen in the spring and the last in the fall; and sometimes was the first in winter as well, pro7

vided open water persisted into December. And it was frequently the first bird seen each day, one surpassing my early rising applauding my prebreakfast dip with sotto voce chuckles, it's curiosity in this strange amphibian bringing it so close to me as to refute the belief that it is a very wild bird. The loon was one of the first birds whose nesting habits I was able to study, for they were already nesting on our lake in our first year of establishment. I suppose that as soon as the last glacier retreated before the threat of a warming sun, a pair of loons nested at the east end of one of our three islands. There the tip is low, yielding to an off-shore marsh on one side, a rocky shoal on the other. It is an ideal spot for loons, whose awkward, labourious progress on land forces them to nest almost at the water's edge and therefore closer to the safety of their primary element. I never saw one on the land there but more than once caught the ripples and wash of one making its way to the security of deeper waters. The nest I invariably found on that point exemplified the primitive nature of the bird, being nothing more than an accumulation of soggy vegetation made soggier by the bird itself, which is seldom if ever dry. The large eggs, greenish or brownish, were invariably two in number, not always hatching in toto. One egg always seemed to have been ignored, abandoned, or even moved into the water. Twice I found an egg in the shallows off shore. The other hatched into a 8

downy, black chick that required no teaching of natatorial activities. But if its aquatic pursuits tired it, it would ride on the back of a parent with a smug countenance, suggesting it had finally worn down the patience of its parent and had overcome maternal objections. The swimming and diving ability of the young, while far from approaching that of its parents, is still considerable. With some difficulty, I have caught downy young by hand from the stern of a rowboat. While a friend propelled the craft backwards, steering at my commands, I knelt on the stern seat, following the underwater progress of the little thing, ready to scoop it up in my hands when it tired. The bird swam about a foot below the surface, using its wings as though flying. A faint stripe, like that of a spotted sandpiper, showed down each wing. One of the two chicks caught in that fashion was placed in a basin of water where, undeterred by the two-inch depth, it instinctively dived, doing its best to escape its captors. The anguished wailing of its parents ceased abruptly as soon as the chick was returned to the lake. The young bird, not much bigger than a plump robin, seems to be a ball of black fluff; yet, perhaps because of its constant dampness, yields every secret of its skeleton when handled. Its oily, almost hair-like feathering serves to protect it from the chill of water but not from exploratory fingers. The common loon, now hard pressed to find a wilderness habitat for propagation and ordinary 9

living, has seen its numbers on many lakes reduced to zero. While nesting on larger lakes seems to have been abandoned for the solitude and safety of the smaller ones they ignored, in my boyhood, congregations of adult loons will still be found on larger lakes in August. During those conventions flightless chicks will still be found on the smaller lakes, their parents visiting them from time to time to feed them. The food is, of course, fish, caught by the parents in the chick's native waters, but at least twice I have seen an adult flying toward a small lake with some object in the bill that could have been a small fish. These can only be isolated instances as the loon's rise from water is such a labourious effort that energy so expended would greatly outweigh the benefits of transporting food. I was able to study one pair nesting on a boggy island in Mansell's Lake (a small water back of our cabin), my movements on the lakeshore 200 feet away going unnoticed. What I took to be the male could not reconcile himself to the tedium of incubating, but plucked and pecked at surrounding grasses and sedges as if at the peak of boredom. The female, on the other hand, would remain quiet, neck outstretched on the ground, her whole body then resembling a rounded, shaded rock. It was on that particular lake that I observed the young being trained in the art of fishing. The parents would apparently catch, then release fish near the chick, which would then be required to 10

dive for them if it wanted its hunger appeased. In its younger stages, of course, it took food from the bill of the parent but in a manner so thankless I thought it deserved a clout on the ear. While the overtones of loon reviews are very pessimistic, I am not entirely in agreement with them. The species is in trouble, yes, but when up to eight adults congregate off our beach in August, it seems to be holding its own; and this, presumably, is because it has taken to nesting on the smaller lakes of the region. The red-throated loon (1) nests on the Arctic tundra, keeping more to salt-water on migration and in winter. With extreme luck you may see one on Georgian Bay or any of the larger lakes of the region. The Arctic loon (2) is also a tundra bird but more western than the other. Like it, it winters on salt-water and should be looked for in the same places visited by the red-throated on those few occasions it has occurred here. The pied-billed grebe (4) is a bird of mucky, weedy lakes and rivers, waters not favoured by humans for any purpose other than birding. It will keep to cover if at all suspicious. Horned grebes (5) nest in Algonquin Park but elsewhere are transients only, occurring on almost any body of water. The larger, longer-necked red-necked grebe (6), notwithstanding one I saw in flight on June 4, is wholly transient. The snaky appearing doublecrested cormorant (8) may be mistaken for a loon by the unwary. It nests on Georgian Bay islands but, so far as I am aware, has never ventured 11

inland, apparently following the shores of Georgian Bay when on migration. Wilson's storm petrel (7), once picked up dead in this region, is a marine bird whose flight suggests that of a whiterumped swallow. Such storm-blown waifs are usually too exhausted to exhibit flight characteristics.

12

2. THE HERONS AND STORKS Rather Common: Great Blue Heron. Uncommon: American Bittern. Rare: Greenbacked Heron. Very Rare: Least Bittern, Great Egret, Black-crowned Night-Heron. Accidental: Snowy Egret, Cattle Egret, Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, Wood Stork. Being in general a family of tropical persuasions, few heron species have penetrated the harsher environment of the Cottage Country for the purpose of propagation. The dominating one, in both size and numbers, is the great blue heron (11), one of North America's largest birds. In the haze of long and fond memories, I seem to recall asking the name of the big bird standing, motionless and seemingly forlorn, in one of the region's few marshes, perhaps the one through which the steamers sailed between Fairy and Pen Lakes. I was told it was a 'crane,' and 'crane' I called it until, a few years later, the ability to read the text accompanying the frequently examined pictures in Reed's Bird Guides told me the members of my family were greatly in error. They, however, had been led astray by others of their and preceding generations who, fancying the great blue heron was the same bird as the sandhill crane, grossly misnamed it. The great blue is, undeniably, great, standing four feet tall, slightly less than the quite unrelated sandhill and whooping cranes. It is, however, far from blue, being, generally, a dull gray which, in 13

some lights, has a faint bluish cast. The great blue heron frequents the shallows of lakes of any size, seeking marshy outlets, reedy shores, the marshes themselves and nearby wet swales in pursuit of finny prey and frogs, from which it is easily diverted by a small marsh bird, a meadow vole or a snake. It is one of our wariest species. I doubt if I have ever been closer to one than 100 feet, and on most of those occasions was that near only because my silent progress in a canoe surprised the bird (and me as well) as I rounded the entrance to a small marsh. The result was a boring constant. A harsh, flat quok, ungainly flight with long neck outstretched to be withdrawn later, the spat of a jet of excrement as it hit the water, and the gradual transformation of an awkward pterodactyl into a bird of grace and majesty as it entered the classic heron flight pattern of retracted neck, trailing legs and powerful wing-beats. In full flight its characteristic shape is easily identifiable, yet I have seen one so high that I required binoculars to determine the bird's identity. Sometimes when performing my matutinal ablutions on a calm morning, I would see the dinosaur-like imprints of its toes on the sandy bottom. Always an early fisherman, one frequently explored the shallows before late-rising humans drove it to more secluded fishing grounds. One morning there was indisputable evidence that such a bird had approached our dock from the north, disdained an upward step of 14

two feet to the platform and instead continued in a crouch to pass under the structure, the clearance being a mere twelve inches. Another bird on a similar prowl entangled itself in a fish line and was quite ensnared when discovered by my uncle and his family. Mindful of its formidable spearlike bill, and suspecting, rightly, that the eye is a favourite target, they prudently tossed a blanket over the bird before arranging for its release. Great blues nest from the ground up to near the tops of tall trees, with terrestrial nests usually resulting from necessity. As trees are in good supply in the Cottage Country, heronries here are almost invariably tree-top affairs. That presupposes the four-foot, long-legged bird perches in trees. I think it goes farther and sleeps in them. One evening toward dusk, three approached a majestic lakeshore maple and, with much flapping and croaking, began to settle for the night. It seemed, though, that as fast as one approached serenity, another became dissatisfied, flapping and shifting position with consequent boughshaking while all three joined in harsh protests. This game of (hardly) musical chairs was still in progress as I paddled around a bend, wondering if any of them would rest that night. The American bittern (9) is more often seen in flight than on the ground, but sometimes a lucky observer will see one in the classic pose of bill pointing skyward, eyes somehow focussing around it as it outstares the intruder of its private 15

domain. One of the last I saw in this region was north of Aspdin, vainly trying to emulate a reedclump. As the sharp eyes of my wife spotted him (or her, both sexes look the same) it was not a success-dodge. I stopped the car and reversed, as the sight of a bittern on the ground is an event not to be lightly dismissed. My wife's eyes have truly sharpened with age because thirty years previously she had been unable to see a motionless one to which I was trying to direct her. Not until we were within twenty-five feet of it was she able to see it. Rather than discredit her vision, I must admit that that particular bird was taking greater advantage of its cryptic plumage. In the Canal marshes many years ago one had me wavering between admiration for its versatility and berating its clumsiness. It was treading a boggy island in the marsh when it either misjudged a step and fell in or entered the waters of its own volition. As it swam very well, I generously conceded the bird had more than one talent. The normal range of the green-backed heron (15) ends just above Lake Couchiching. Users of the CNR may see it in one of its most northern haunts as their train swings around a large wetland, plentifully grown with dead trees, just north of Washago. Occasionally, birds have been seen farther north. Paradoxically, I advise looking for a least bittern (10) in marshes where you will not be able to see it, so well does its plumage blend with its long-grass surroundings. The best time of year is early spring, before marsh 16

growth has developed. You will scarcely overlook the all-white great egret (12), whose northern peregrinations are becoming more numerous of late. The crepuscular flights of black-crowned night-herons (16) are usually more evident than the birds themselves, as their aerial progress is punctuated by an occasional flat quok. Snowy egrets (13) and cattle egrets (14) are just as conspicuous as great egrets, all three being completely white, although the cattle egret is marked with a rustiness in the nuptial season. While the three egrets feed about water edges, cattle egrets are more inclined to frequent the grazing grounds of and with live stock. The yellow-crowned night-heron (17) is, like the three egrets and the wood stork (18) following, a southerner. The occurrence of all four is because all members of the heron tribe scatter widely after nesting, thus delighting birding enthusiasts north of their breeding range.

17

3. THE SWANS, GEESE AND DUCKS Common: Hooded Merganser, Common Merganser. Rather Common: Canada Goose, Wood Duck, Ring-necked Duck. Rather Uncommon: American Black Duck. Rather Rare: Brant, Green-winged Teal, Mallard, Oldsquaw, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead. Rare: Snow Goose, Blue-winged Teal, American Wigeon, Lesser Scaup, Surf Scoter, White-winged Scoter, Red-breasted Merganser. Very Rare: Tundra Swan, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Gadwall, Greater Scaup, Black Scoter. Occasional: Mute Swan, Canvasback, Redhead, Barrow's Goldeneye. Accidental: Eurasian Wigeon, King Eider, Harlequin Duck, Ruddy Duck. The myriad of lakes in the Cottage Country suggests that ducks would be generously represented, a supposition endorsed by the lengthy list above. Note, though, that rarities swell the list and that species met commonly are few in number. It is the very nature of the lakes that makes them so unappealing, duckwise. The pond, puddle or surface-feeding ducks, such as the black, teal, mallard, and the like, want reed-grown shallows whose mucky bottoms abound in microorganisms, or where wild rice is the principal emergent. The diving ducks (scaups, canvasback, redhead) look for something the same for nesting 18

purposes but where deeper waters are adjacent for feeding. The sea ducks (goldeneyes, buffleheads, scoters, and so on) would like to see more mussels on the lake bottom. Few lakes in the Cottage Country meet those requirements. While almost all ducks found in Canada occur here on migration, they do so in such small numbers that they are spotted only by the more fortunate observers. One group of ducks, though, the mergansers, are part and parcel of the lives of cottagers. The three kinds found in North America occur here, with the common outnumbering the hooded, while the red-breasted is a distant third. I probably met the common merganser (49) on some early fishing expedition and, on asking that the bird be named, was given the coloquial common throughout North America if not the northern hemisphere, as the species also occurs in the Old World. "Fish duck," I was told. In some localities, loathing would transmute the term into an epithet, for the mergansers once had the reputation, since disproved, of taking the fish most sought by the angler. Perhaps because of the superabundance of bass and trout in my early days, the bird was tolerated in my immediate vicinity. I do not recall any member of my family wishing for its extermination. The only scurrilious remark pertained to its rank flavour on the table. "Fishy!" was the usual scornful comment. Many, many times have I exchanged matutinal greetings with mergansers. Up in advance of my 19

fellows, perhaps to fish or to bird or to swim, I would quickly spot a mother merganser leading her flotilla of young along shore, a sinuous wake trailing on the mirrored surface as she guided them around protruding rocks and jutting snags. And always, motionless as I might remain, she would lead the brood in a broad semicircle around our dock, on or near which I would be standing. The little flock would tighten rank and speed up a bit in acknowledging this potential danger. Once, returning from fishing, I found I had such a brood apparently trapped in a shallow bay. Wondering what means they would use to escape, I made to head them off. The wily mother led them only inches from shore, all stumbling over stones and logs. There was considerable splashing, stealth having been abandoned as a worthless endeavour. Yet, had I not known the birds were there, I'd have taken the splashes for wavelets breaking on the shore, the dun-coloured appearance of young and mother being far from eye-catching. An instinctive gambit or one carefully thought out? Anyway, the whole troupe made a successful end run, crossing the goal line far from me. Working alone, it has always been difficult for me to census the population of the mergansers on our two connected lakes, Bella and Rebecca. At times I feel sure that the brood I see at one point is the same that I saw at another not long previously. At other times, I am puzzled. The brood, to judge by the size of the birds, looks the same 20

but as the number is one or two less, I have never been sure if it is a different family or if it is one already seen, its complement having been reduced by some predator. As I once saw a female with twenty-six young in tow, obviously beyond her physical capabilities, amalgamation of two broods evidently takes place, adding to the confusion. The ten young seen today might easily be the two broods of six and four seen the day before. One day I watched a mother come up from the south leading three young, imperceptibly smaller than she, to meet two more mergansers, fully as large, that swam up from the north. There was an interchange of merganser gossip, interspersed with some billing on the part of the mother and the two newcomers. Then, as the mother's young swam off in a body, my impression was that they had been told to run along and play while mother visited with her friends. I can imagine her final injunction: "But don't go near the shore!" Once I thought a relative of Ogopogo had surfaced on our lake but use of binoculars disclosed a brood voraciously following a school of fish, splashing and diving like a bunch of kids down by the old leaning willow. Their ragged crests added to the illusion that the head of a sinuous monster bore a horselike mane. They come by their splashing honestly. Surprise a mother with her flightless young and she will lead them in a drenching race, a tumultuous passage where feet and wings kick up a spray as good as any thrown by a water-skier. The trough 21

created will be almost as deep as the one that divided the Red Sea on one historic occasion. That mode of escape has earned them the name "Flappers." The ring-necked duck (36) was originally an inhabitant of the prairie sloughs and potholes. In the middle of the nineteen-thirties, one Howard L. Mendel noted and wrote of the spread of the species eastward all the way from the prairie region to Nova Scotia. The birds restricted their pioneering to a narrow belt that crossed eastern Canada and that encompassed Rebecca and Bella Lakes. I have never seen the birds on those waters but only on small, isolated lakes in that vicinity, and proudly relate that Mansell's Lake, just a quarter of a mile back of our cottage, was one of the stepping stones in the eastward march. Until the early nineteen-fifties, access to Mansell's Lake was accomplished, by me at any rate, with the same disregard for silence as an entry in the Indy 500. By the time I negotiated various tangles and windfalls, all ducks would be on the far shore a half-mile away. With no telescope (in the earliest days, no binoculars either) the birds would have become just distant, tantalizing forms. But one day I was close enough to recognize the ducks as some kind of scaup or relative thereof. Lesser scaups they remained for a year, when one of a passing trio of young displayed the vertical white bar that is on the side of the breast just in front of the wing of the adult male ringneck. Subsequently, I found a fully adult male 22

consorting with a female and young. And ever since have recorded broods of varying size and number, while son Dan has uncovered nests and eggs. One fall day no less than seventy-five gathered on ManselFs Lake, a convention, I suppose, to finalize plans for the trip to the south. I have found broods on other, nearby lakes of similar nature, the bird seeming to like, in summer, small, secluded, wood-rimmed, muckybottomed waters with a complement of water lilies and other such vegetation. Now, anytime I see a ring-neck away from either the prairies or the Cottage Country, I wonder if it is one of ours. The decorative male hooded merganser (48) keeps to the smaller, weedier waters and, while far from rare, has never provided me with an outstanding observation. The sonorous honking of the Canada goose (23) is heard chiefly in fall, when V's of various size and eccentricities pass southbound. Wood ducks (24) prefer the small, closely hemmed, hidden lakes as well as rivers such as the Big East. American black ducks (26) nest here, exhibiting a wildness absent from the ones you may feed on Lake Ontario. A few brant (22) flocks may pass over but singles, alone or with Canada geese, are the norm. Green-winged teal (25) will keep to small lakes and beaver ponds, according to my observations. I have found the mallard (27) to seek the same sort of waters. Oldsquaws (41) are ducks of the far north that do not seem to care whether they winter on salt-water or fresh. They are very numerous at that season and on migration on the Great Lakes, 23

including Georgian Bay, but are apparently not enamoured of even the larger of our Muskoka Lakes. The common goldeneye (45) once nested here in very small numbers but has been reduced to transient status by the increase in cottages. The diminutive bufflehead (47) sometimes joins the odd goldeneye. The snow goose (21), in either pure or blue-phased form, is becoming a greater possibility every spring and fall. Blue-winged teal (29) would nest here in good numbers were our marshes more numerous. The American wigeon (33), a duck of the prairie potholes, eschews our company because we have nothing similar in the way of habitat; while lesser scaup (38) think much the same. The heavily built surf scoter (43) once rested for a couple of days on Mansell's Lake but it may be found more frequently on Georgian Bay. White-winged scoters (44) may be found on the Bay, too, but was once on Rebecca Lake. Mergansers in the dun-coloured plumage should be examined closely as red-breasted mergansers (50) have been appearing more frequently. My wife's first lesson on trolling for lake trout was curtailed when three tundra swans (19) halted further instruction one Thanksgiving Day. Northern pintail (28), northern shoveler (30) and gad wall (31) are in much the same category as the aforementioned American wigeon. The greater scaup (37), a slightly larger version of the lesser, favours more expansive waters. Black scoters (42), like the other two of the same surname, should be watched for on Georgian Bay but have been seen on some of our larger lakes. The mute 24

swan (20) is an Eurasian bird that was introduced into United States in the last century and entered Canada in this. The species is virtually semidomesticated and widely held in captivity. Birds seen up here could therefore be either explorers or escapees. The canvasback (34) should occur much as does the redhead (35). Both are favourites of gunners. Barrow's goldeneye (46) is chiefly a duck of the western mountains but the few birds seen here probably originated in Labrador, summer home of the eastern population. Eurasian wigeon (32) will visit both North American coasts when not nesting. Our visitor probably came from the Atlantic side. The king eider (39) that visited here most likely came down from Hudson's Bay rather than in from the Atlantic. The extravagantly marked harlequin duck (40) is another visitor from the Atlantic coast and, finally, the stiff-tailed ruddy duck (51) may have come from the western prairies or may have come up from Luther Marsh, near Orangeville, a duck haven that may also have given us other marshinhabiting species.

Ring-necked Duck 25

4. THE HAWKS, FALCONS, AND VULTURES Rather Common: Broad-winged Hawk. Uncommon: Northern Goshawk, Red-tailed Hawk, American Kestrel. Rather Rare: Turkey Vulture, Osprey, Bald Eagle, Northern Harrier, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper's Hawk, Redshouldered Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Merlin, Peregrine Falcon. Very Rare: Gyrfalcon, Golden Eagle. Accidental: American Swallow-tailed Kite. Because the Cottage Country is, for the most part, a wilderness, it has more than its share of diurnal birds of prey. One of the seventeen species having occurred therein is an accidental, and is not expected to make a repeat appearance; while two are winter visitors only. The remaining fourteen may be seen with some regularity in the summer, depending on your surroundings, but never with great frequency. Other than commenting on certain rarities, I have little to offer in the way of unusual observations and therefore intend to give but a resume of the species, listing them from the most to the least abundant, expanding the treatment where possible. The broad-winged hawk (61) is the one you will most likely encounter. It is a bird of extensive deciduous woods—of which we have ample—and is frequently seen perched on some roadside wire from which it keeps close watch for snakes, frogs, and small mammals such as mice that may be 26

sheltering in the grassy right-of-way. Mention of mice recalls that I have never been able to determine why one broad-wing circled over the lake just in front of the cabin, all the while dangling a clearly seen mouse. It spent several minutes in that way, an exhibitionism that failed to impress me except to provoke curiosity. The northern goshawk (59) (pronounced 'goss hawk') is a denizen of real wilderness, not often seen in built-up areas. It is a permanent resident, quitting the region in winter only when its food supply of (chiefly) grouse and hare fails. The goshawk and its relatives, Cooper's and sharpshinned hawks, are very bold birds whose fixity of purpose is rarely deterred by the presence of humans. There are reports of their taking food which itself is feeding at a person's feet. The goshawk is also a fierce defender of its nest. An attempt to fell a tree containing such a nest was successful only when both members of the pair were despatched, so vicious were their attacks on the lumbermen. Once, while viewing a small lake from a vantage point, a goshawk appeared, found me an unexpected and unwanted object, and veered sharply to avoid further confrontation. In doing so it displayed the tufts of white on the thighs, a diagnostic feature not often visible. The red-tailed hawk (62) and the American kestrel (65) are widely spread raptors, both of which prefer open country such as farm- or pasture-land. The former is one of the three 27

summering hawks that soar in high, wide circles. The other is a falcon often found perching on wires, the top of utility poles or near the peak of a high, dead snag. There it will engage in spasmodic tail jerking. A great destroyer of mice and grasshoppers and only occasionally the foe of small birds, one established in one of our farm fields years ago had a grudge against one particular chipping sparrow, chasing it repeatedly. Yet, time and again, a least flycatcher sallied out from its perch in the same tree used by the falcon, returning to its lookout with impunity. The next nine species border on rare. Unless you live in a favoured locality or habitat, you will see them only irregularly. Some years I do not see them at all. The big turkey vulture (52) is a newcomer, having entered the region, presumably from either the south or from the Bruce Peninsula, in 1957. As it did when it entered extreme southern Ontario in the last decade of the previous century, it is slowly increasing its numbers. An inoffensive eater of carrion, one, seen near Rosseau, surprised me with its pugnacity, as it tried to drive off a soaring, amiable broad-winged hawk. The osprey (53) is a confirmed fish eater whose existence is sorely pressed while facing lethal pesticides, increase in human population and decrease in food. It eats only coarse fish but even they are disappearing from the lakes, presumably the result of acid rain. One of the most striking views I ever had was of one that flew across a small lake at 28

tree-top level, coming directly toward me all the while. Not relishing a forehead permanently scarred by talons, I was prepared to duck! Like the osprey, and for the same reasons, the bald eagle (55) has decreased in numbers. Happily, the pesticide problem seems to have been solved, resulting in some recovery by the species. The other two reasons may be insoluble. To give the northern harrier (56) its once and long-standing name of marsh hawk should explain its paucity in this region. Marshes are in too short supply to support many, as the species almost exclusively nests in such wetlands. The two despoilers of small birds, the sharpshinned hawk (57) and Cooper's hawk (58), do not seem numerous here. Most surprisingly, the former has become more common on our familyheld farmland since it was allowed to revert to wilderness. When the farm was productive, it yielded more than grains and livestock, as small bird life, the staple of sharp-shins, thronged the borders of its fields. Such bird life is down, yet sharp-shins are now seen with regularity. Just as bold as its two larger congeners, it will not hesitate to attack in the presence of a human. I believe it was not my wife but trees overhanging the beach that saved a spotted sandpiper for another day. My wife had been following the spotty along shore until it had reached that part of the beach partially shaded by shrubby growth, 29

when I, several yards behind her, noticed a sharpie flying about only ten feet over her head. I think the hawk's designs on the sandpiper were thwarted when it realized the overhang interferred with its avenue of approach. My wife could have been a dead tree for all it cared. A welcome diversion from fruitless fishing was a pair of Cooper's hawks that glared at me and my two companions, defying us to remove an ovenbird from the grasp of one of them. Another confounded me mightily by soaring overhead while I tried to follow its circling from my canoe as it drifted on a small lake. Cooper's hawks are not usually given to soaring, nor are paddlers given to keeping dry on such occasions. The red-shouldered hawk (60) is a close kin of the red-tail and broad-wing, keeping more to forested regions than does the former and less than the latter. The rough-legged hawk (63), our largest buteo (the name given to those hawks that habitually soar in wide circles) is a winter visitor. As its summer home is the treeless tundra, it naturally seeks such open spaces when food shortages drive it from the north. For the most part, therefore, it passes over the Cottage Country to the more extensive farmlands to the south. The merlin (66) is a falcon of great speed and daring. It is a trifle larger than the kestrel. The larger peregrine falcon (67) is the bird we are 30

striving to save from extinction, to which it was driven by the application of the pesticide DDT. From all reports, we seem to be succeeding. Personal observations pointing to its recovery include the following: In October, 1982, Tom Swift and I followed the course of one streaking through leafless woods; and a year before I found a herring gull stripped in such a way as to indicate its assailant had been a peregrine. In September, 1983, members of my family and I saw one close to Bracebridge; while in late August, 1984, my wife and I saw one winging over Rebecca Lake. The gyrfalcon (68), of the Arctic wastes, has been detected here on a few occasions, usually during the approach of winter. A golden eagle (64), another northerner, confounded me one July day. It soared up from the south, took a half-circle over Rebecca Lake and then returned whence it had come, for one of those surprising experiences that come to any ornithologist of long standing. With its long, wide, flatly held wings, I had at first taken it for a small plane that frequently flew in on the same flight path, not realizing my error until 1 remembered that the aircraft was white. Except for a touch of golden at the back of the head, this bird was completely dark. It may have been the originator of a nest found at Star Lake, Muskoka, in 1984, considerably south of its normal range in eastern Canada.

31

An American swallow-tailed kite (54), of the tropics and near tropics, was seen once in the preceding century, at which time the species nested farther north in the United States than it does now. It has been reclaiming former breeding areas and may just reappear here one of these years.

American Kestrel

32

5. THE GROUSE, QUAILS AND PHEASANTS Common: Ruffed Grouse. Rather Rare: Spruce Grouse. Occasional: Gray Partridge, Ring-necked Pheasant, Willow Ptarmigan, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Northern Bobwhite. Accidental: Capercaillie. Members of this order of fowl-like birds have been table-favourites for centuries. Their popularity in that regard led to their pursuit by man long before he invented a table for dining purposes; and as dog- and cat-like mammals also relished their flesh, the continued persecution led to the devious and explosive manner of flight they developed to escape their persecutors. This in turn led to their becoming favourites of gunners, whose ability with a fowling piece was judged by the size of the bag. Depletion of native stock in many quarters of North America led to the introduction of exotic species, so that of the eight species represented here, half were introduced, none of the introductions being a permanent success. The true grouse are the only members capable of challenging our heavy snows, which bring about an early demise to exotics. Grouse and their relatives are non-migratory but sometimes fall and early winter irruptions will deposit birds in distant places. Ernest Thompson Seton's 'Redruff formally introduced me to the ruffed grouse (73). The first chapter of his charming and entertaining account 33

of the famed 'partridge' of Toronto's Don Valley was included in an early school reader. I've continued to champion the grouse, quail, pheasants, and birds in general ever since. 'Partridge' was the name of the bird in my family until I began to study birds, when its proper name of ruffed grouse became ingrained in me. That knowledge then slid off to the two generations preceding. 'Partridge' was never used by the two generations following, my continued use of the correct name being no doubt the guiding influence. Most people see a grouse in one or both of two ways. Most often it will be the way gunners see the bird—a blur of wings rising from almost underfoot accompanied by a devastating and unsettling whirrr. If heartbeats and senses recover quickly enough the observer may see a dark form dodging through birch branches. The second way, the one that comes more often to those who traverse the woods with silent tread, is the glimpse of the bird stealing quietly away through the understory. Its size, the cautious steps, the tail-flicking, brings 'chicken' to the minds of those who were familiar with those fowl when poultry lived unconfined except at night. As domestic poultry, pheasants, grouse, and quail all belong to the same family of birds, the similarity is not surprising. More fortunate than those unnerved by the noisy take-off of a startled bird, or those who give the hidden one time for a stealthy retreat, are those who come upon a family of downy chicks. I have stepped into such a nursery several times. 34

The young tried to hide, of course, just as did 'Redruff and his siblings. I suppose that had I gone tramping about like old Cuddy, I'd have snuffed out the lives of most. Instead, I stood still, following the progress of one bird until it settled down. It was an easy matter, then, to capture the little ball of fluff and to hold it gently in my palm while stroking it with a light finger-tip. It found either the sensation or the warmth of my hand pleasurable, as it closed its eyes and seemed content to remain there. Pangs of hunger would have routed it in due course and as I was illprepared to scratch in the dirt to uncover sundry bugs, I returned it to the ground. Then, carefully retracing my steps, walked quietly away so as to not harm the rest of the family. Fifteen minutes later I realized I had been carrying my camera, losing forever a close-up of a grouse chick squatting on my knee. Such is the effect of intimacy with wild life! Seton made his stories the more appealing by weaving a strong thread of anthropomorphism through the lives of his subjects. I was similarly inclined for many years but, in time, serious study convinced me that what I assumed were human traits were simply coincidences. Until . . . I was a little more than a mile from the cabin, soon to turn from the hard-surfaced township road onto our own dirt affair, when I passed a female grouse standing beside some object in the middle of the road's westbound lane. In my rearvision mirror I could see the bird had not budged. 35

Surely the hen had not resorted to eating carrion, as I thought the object looked like a dead chipmunk or deer mouse. I carried on a half-mile past our road, emptied the mail box and set out to return to the site to check the victim, if indeed it was a victim. I had no expectation of finding the female still there as two cars had passed me, in close succession, on my way to retrieve the mail, and they would certainly have disturbed the bird sufficiently to drive it away. Despite the traffic, the bird had remained. Pulling off the road, I got out and began to walk toward her and the unknown thing, expecting her to take off any moment. Her only response was to walk quietly along the road, keeping between us a distance she deemed safe. I found the road fatality to be a grouse chick, badly crushed except for the head. It is well known that man is the only animal with the ability to count, notwithstanding diverse dogs and horses of vaudeville and TV exposure. Unable to enumerate, a hen grouse will not be aware that one of her brood, usually the straggler, has fallen prey to some predator. She will show concern only when she witnesses the attack, and even then will not resort to grieving when the chick is carried away or consumed on the spot. What happened in this case? I surmised she witnessed the fatal accident and while she may have been remiss in not recording the license number of the errant car, she would have no realization that her chick was beyond recall. After 36

all, the body was still visible, the head upright as if watching her. She may have even recognized, in her way, the undamaged head. Just as she might return to encourage a chick to climb out of a deep rut into which it had fallen, now she was trying to get her unresponsive offspring away from the dangers of the road. Realizing that if she remained there she would certainly make the supreme sacrifice, I picked up the remains and tossed the body into the ditch. The hen then disappeared into the woods on the other side, the 'predator' having carried the chick away. The spruce grouse (71) is a more northern bird than the ruffed, whose range extends well into the United States. Our region marks the southern limit of the spruce that ranges north to Hudson's Bay, a point not quite reached by the other. The spruce prefers the heavy coniferous woods, the kind that are favoured by the ruffed only in winter. It is therefore most common in Algonquin Park and, to a lesser extent, Parry Sound. I always felt my chance of finding a spruce grouse on Sunset Farm was rather remote, with the only possibility offered by the small patch of heavy spruce trees on the west edge of Sunset Farm's pasture. On the morning of September 3 one year, I was abroad very early, wondering all the while why I should be out at all, as a thick soup held visibility to fifty feet. It was the type of fog that gives no promise of lifting for some time. By the 37

end of the first thirty minutes, when I had reached the far side of the pasture and had entered the spruce woods, now gloomier than ever, I had seen not one bird. Then, through the gray veil that enveloped me, I spied a bird standing in the center of an old road that cut through the bush. "A crow," I muttered in disgust. Two steps later I wondered what a crow would be doing in that location, so took a second, longer look. "A ruffed grouse," I amended, and started off again. Another two steps (sounds as though I were a clumsy oaf practising for a ball) and I stopped once again, as this ruffed grouse seemed disinclined to fly, where all his predecessors in my birding experience were airborne in very short order. Using my glasses now, I found the bird's breast was black, its wings barred and, after a few more paces, bringing me to within fifteen feet, that it bore a red comb over the eye. Now it finally moved, flying ten feet up into a spruce so thick I lost it. After eleven years I had finally found a spruce grouse on the Farm right in the middle of the area I had long prophesied one would be found, if ever. The few gray partridges (69) that were released at Huntsville some years ago did not survive, not surprisingly, as the species prefers grassland for nesting. The long-tailed ring-necked pheasant (70) is another Old World species widely introduced throughout North America. I feel certain the few birds seen here had not ventured up from the 38

south, where introduction was more successful, but were escapees, as it is a popular bird in game farms. The willow ptarmigan (72) is a real northerner that reached this region on one or two of its infrequent irruptions. The closest breeding grounds of the sharp-tailed grouse (75) are on Manitoulin Island. Occasional irruptions have brought the birds into our region. An introduction of northern bobwhite (76), an American quail that occurs naturally in extreme southern Ontario, was not a lasting success. The capercaillie (74), an Old World grouse twice the size of our ruffed, was introduced into Algonquin Park in the last century but the indisputable evidence that it bred more than one year never convinced authorities that it deserved recognition as a wild bird of Ontario, so that it is not on the province's official list.

39

6. THE CRANES AND RAILS Rare: Virginia Rail, Sora. Very Rare: Common Moorhen. Occasional: American Coot, Sandhill Crane. Accidental: Whooping Crane. My experiences with this Order of birds have been almost entirely outside the Cottage Country. None of the half dozen species that have been found here can be accounted any better than rare. Therefore, my treatment here will be but a brief resume of the pertinent species along with my best wishes for a successful and arid search. The two most common ones, the Virginia rail (77) and the sora (78) are chickenlike birds of such secretive habits that no matter where found, they are much more frequently heard than seen. In fact, making a great variety of noises seems to occupy as much of their time as breeding and eating. This forte could have inspired the title of one of Old Will's plays, as they can make quite a to-do about very little, even to conducting voluble discussions when sun dials are of little use. Three facts combine to make them hard to see. They dwell in marshes difficult to penetrate; they are adept in vanishing, wraithlike, if disturbed; and we have too few marshes in the Cottage Country to attract many birds anyway. My wife and I have heard them in the Canal marshes, the piglike grunting of the Virginia and the horselike whinny of the sora seeming to rise 40

from our very feet, causing us to wonder how we strayed into the barnyard. But the ventriloquial quality of the sounds and the birds' ability to hide in and under anything in the marsh kept them securely hidden. The common moorhen (79) and the American coot (80) combine the salient features of rails, chickens and ducks. Although common birds elsewhere, they are far from so in this region, again thanks to the absence of marshes. My only sights of moorhens here have been at Weeduck Lake, near Huntsville; while, years earlier, the arrival of my train at that town sent the only coot I have seen in the region spattering across Hunter's Bay. The sandhill crane (81), equal in size to the great blue heron, very rarely includes the Cottage Country on its migration between the Canadian prairies and tundra and the southern United States. The slightly larger and more beautiful whooping crane (82), dubiously seen at Emsdale in the preceding century, has not been definitely recorded from Ontario for more than 100 years. As it is fighting to avoid extinction, a recurrence is far from likely.

41

7. THE SHOREBIRDS Rather Common: Spotted Sandpiper. Uncommon: Killdeer, Solitary Sandpiper, American Woodcock. Rather Rare: Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs. Rare: Semipalmated Plover, Pectoral Sandpiper, Dunlin, Common Snipe. Very Rare: Black-bellied Plover, Sanderling, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, White-rumped Sandpiper, Shortbilled Dowitcher. Occasional: Upland Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Ruddy Turnstone, Red Knot, Western Sandpiper, Wilson's Phalarope, Red-necked Phalarope. Accidental: Lesser Golden Plover, American Avocet, Willet, Baird's Sandpiper, Purple Sandpiper, Stilt Sandpiper, Ruff, Red Phalarope. From the air in summer, Algonquin Park and the Districts of Muskoka, Parry Sound and Haliburton look like a vast, green saturated sponge. On a sunny day the little declevities and hollows between the verdant ridges twinkle like a turquoise Milky Way or if a wind prevails, reflect a shifting corrugated pattern sometimes punctuated by a splash of white as a roller breaks. With all that water one would expect hordes of shorebirds to descend on the margins of the lakes during migration periods. Contrarily, not even the sandy beaches that grace many of the lakes invite shorebirds. Be neither dismayed nor sanguine by the array presented at the beginning of this chapter, for most of the species will be 42

seen only by persistent or lucky birders. Our cabin is on one of Muskoka's few sandy beaches, its 300 yards only one-third that of a much more impressive one on adjacent Bella Lake. While I have visited the latter many times expressly for shorebirds, I have seen only one species there; while our own beach, under almost constant surveillance, has produced only three kinds. While there is a numerical dearth of shorebirds generally, the region has been visited by sixty per cent of the suborder known to have occurred in Ontario. Such records are scattered, both chronogically and geographically, and suggest that any one of the province's fifty species may drop down to the shore of any of our lakes for a snack and respite from the rigours of migration. The recent trend of establishing sewage ponds to serve larger municipalities is quickly altering the situation. Wading and swimming birds are gathering in such places much to the enjoyment of birders and to the consternation of this compiler, whose labourious calculations reflected in the status of each species, may now be suspect. The unmeasured miles of shoreline, whether rocky or wooded, sandy or muddy, do attract one shorebird, the ubiquitous spotted sandpiper (92), with the unrelieved itch in his backside. The heavy spots worn below in summer and the almost perpetual bobbing of the rear end, combined with its former scientific name of Act it is macularia suggest the bird has a malady today's medical knowledge is unable to cure. The bob43

bing goes on all the time but might be more prevalent when the bird is under surveillance. A chick on our beach was already bobbing at the age of less than a full day. The American woodcock (110) has so many traits that more than one volume would be required to relate them all, but one must be told. In the middle of one July my wife and I witnessed an action I know now to have been seen by but a handful of people but which has never before been described in print. We were dropping to a little watercourse that meanders through a grass- and sedge-grown area of the kind so prevalent in parts of the region. You can see them from Highway 11 in southern Parry Sound and in which I always expect to find a dunking moose. On this occasion we found a woodcock crossing the road not far from the bottom of the valley. Naturally, I braked, then sat back to enjoy the spectacle. The bird was bobbing its rear much like a spotted sandpiper, the rhythm, I would judge at one bob per second. On alternate bobs it would take a step forward, thrusting its head up and out slightly, in a pompous strut—excelled only by a short, stout, vain politician. It crossed almost half the road in that fashion and was about to disappear in the long roadside grass when I eased off the brake. The movement of the car or a slight noise it made sent the bird into the undergrowth in its normal gait. The purpose of this antic was lost to me as the breeding season was virtually over, young of 44

the year hatched and quite probably fending for themselves. If this bird of diverse habits has escaped you, I invite you to our property. There, in a narrow but not absolutely straight belt, running northward from Mansell's Lake to a beaver pond a mile distant, you will see a woodcock or two, especially at or even well after dark, when the birds visit the dirt road. This belt crosses a field of bracken, a fern that seems to appeal greatly to woodcock, as I have found the species in or by bracken fields in other parts of the region. Otherwise they keep to moist areas within woods. August 4, 1963, saw our area of Muskoka hit by a rainstorm of not more than normal intensity; but the constant noise of restless leaves and rushing wind was so nerve-wracking that we took a car tour to escape it and regain our composure. On our return, the lake still reflected the minor tempest, tossing restlessly the remainder of the day and almost all night. The next morning ushered in peace—and a western sandpiper (99). Undoubtedly caught in the near gale force of the wind, it was feeding avidly on our beach, so famished it disregarded me. I sat on the edge of our dock, movie camera in hand, only to have the starved bundle of feathers feed so close to my toe that my camera was useless. The difficulty in distinguishing western and semipalmated sandpipers is paramount but fades to nothing when the bird is inches from your foot. At that range even the webbing between the toes, present in 45

both species, is readily apparent. Three hundred yards of sand, yet the sandpiper, so common on Pacific shores and where I have seen flocks of hundreds, singled out our beach for a one-day orgy of feeding! Now for the "Believe it or Not Ripley" side of the observation. Heavy gales and high-winds struck southern Ontario on August 19, 1977. After the evening meal of the twentieth, I took our ailing Scottish terrier to the lakeshore for his after supper drink, but left him to his own devices as I tore back to the cabin for wife and binoculars, emulating a Grand Prix entrant again later for camera. I had found three sandpipers on the beach, one undoubtedly a western, complete with reddish scapulars and drooping bill, the other two being semipalms, showing no reddish anywhere. The reason for their presence was easily deduced. Like our visitor of 1963, they had been caught in the near hurricane of the previous day (it deroofed two houses in Mississauga), the maelstrom blowing the birds from some part of the Great Lakes to our beach. The western tended to remain just a little apart from the others, even feeding in deeper water; but if it felt the other two were working too far away it would run to regain their company. After all, it was in quite unfamiliar territory. The killdeer (86), our largest plover, probably nested in our pasture years ago, but I have nothing to tell of it other than that each time I entered the domain of the livestock it yelled its 46

head off, a trait you will experience, too, if you find one in a similar location. In the autumn you will find killdeer on mudflats. For years it was thought that the solitary sandpiper (90) nested in or close to Muskoka. The supposition was finally debunked when it was realized that the birds finish nesting early, with the adults reaching our area when many species are still with eggs in nests. The greater yellowlegs (88), lesser yellowlegs (89) and semipalmated plover (85) may be met in fall on the muddy flats of watercourses, shallow lake margins or sewage farms. You may find a pectoral sandpiper (103) there, too, but it will be back in the grass rather than on the bare flats. Sewage ponds also attract dunlin (105). Common snipe (109) like rough, moist ground, the kind you can turn your ankle on. As an example of how we must keep alert to see shorebirds here, I called the attention of our guide and my wife to a migrating black-bellied plover (83) as it winged westward over Delawanna Inn, on Georgian Bay, late one July. Grounded birds are more apt to be found on mudflats as are sanderling (97), although the latter is always a good bet on a sandy beach. Semipalmated sandpipers (98), least sandpipers (100) and whiterumped sandpipers (101), all distressingly similar, are birds of mudflats and sewage ponds. The short-billed dowitcher (108) will most likely be found in shallow water that is far from clear. With partially submerged head it seems to be stitching something to the bottom with its extraordinary long bill. Watch for upland 47

sandpipers (93) perched atop wood posts by a grassy field. Whimbrel (94) may be found on flats but I am aware of a small flock that settled on a more or less rocky islet of Skeleton Lake for two successive years. Ruddy turnstones (95) may be found on beaches strewn with pebbles and debris. The red knot (96) is another mudflat bird and so, in the fall, is Wilson's phalarope (111). Pools in grassy areas will attract the latter in spring. The red-necked phalarope (112) may visit mudflats but, unlike Wilson's, may be found swimming in deep water. Lesser golden plover (84) are more a field than a beach bird. The strikingly marked American avocet (87) is most likely to be seen in shallow waters where nil lets (91) may keep it company. Baird's sandpiper (102), purple sandpipers (104), stilt sandpipers (106) and ruff (107) are more mudflats/sewage pond birds, while the red phalarope (113) is more a deep-water bird on migration than the red-necked.

48

8. THE GULLS, TERNS, JAEGERS AND MURRES GULLS — Common: Herring Gull. Rather Rare: Ring-billed Gull. Rare: Bonaparte's Gull. Occasional: Iceland Gull, Glaucous Gull, Great Black-backed Gull. Accidental: Franklin's Gull, Little Gull, Common Black-headed Gull, Thayer's Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake. TERNS — Rare: Common Tern. Very Rare: Caspian Tern, Black Tern. JAEGERS — Accidental: Parasitic Jaeger, Long-tailed Jaeger. MURRES — Occasional: Thick-billed Murre. Two suborders are presented in this chapter, the gulls, terns, and jaegers on one hand and the quite distinct alcids, or auks and murres, on the other. Gulls, terns, and jaegers are each subfamilies of the same family and bear a superficial resemblance to each other. All species of both suborders are water birds that may be found on any of our lakes and larger rivers. Georgian Bay, off Muskoka and Parry Sound, is the best place for the rarer species, while garbage dumps are regular feeding grounds for the larger, more common gulls. It is quite satisfying to take visiting birders to our local sanitary disposal area in search of rarities. Gulls and terns have, for the most part, similar colouration. Terns, however, dive into the water to capture fish; gulls land on the surface to swim to floating food, or even land on the food itself. In order to see swimming prey, terns fly with the bill pointing down. 49

Most cottage occupants will be familiar with the herring gull (121). It is the only gull likely to be found on lakes in from Georgian Bay. While I have never seen one on Mansell's Lake, which has an area of about one-eighth square mile, I suppose the occasional bird would drop to it or one as small to feed if attracted by some moribund fish, as the species is largely an eater of carrion. The herring gull made an early appearance on my recorded life list. I had long been familiar with it as it decorated favourite perches in two ways: In the flesh and by using them as a convenient one-holer. The string of protruding rocks off North Portage on Pen Lake invariably had a bird or two in attendance, while the white, anchored posts that served as buoys provided a resting spot for a weary bird, all such perches resembling Japan's Fujiyama in miniature. Sometimes a gull or two would follow the steamers, expecting faithfulness to be rewarded by a corner of a sandwich. I've often wondered if they had a taste for mustard. In 1936 I finally realized that herring gulls must nest somewhere on Pen Lake and directed my suspicion to the grassy islets of Hillside Bay as their local nesting grounds. I was right, as I found a nest and two eggs on the flat top of a rock that stood in six inches of water. The nest was eighteen inches above water level. Two years later, reasoning that the number of gulls seen daily must mean that more than one pair would have a nursery there, I decided that a second, more thorough investigation was war50

ranted. Nearing the end of the long paddle and approaching the rock on which I had found the nest before, I became aware of an object floating not far from that protuberance. As I turned toward it one of the four gulls that had been observing me from above commenced an unholy racket. Its cac-cac-cac-cac-cac was so demanding that I began to give it all my attention, paddling by instinct and steering by built-in radar. Of a sudden, it dived. Now, a twenty-four inch bird dropping precipitately from a height of forty feet can be unsettling, especially when seated in the kind of craft that has no respect for the careless. I was reasonably confident that the bird would not strike me (it missed me by five feet) but the instinctive reaction in such circumstances is to duck, a move of no great consequence when on terra firma but not one to be attempted when in a canoe. The frail craft tipped crazily with the involuntary jerkings of my body as first one, then another of the pair descended on me, each missing me by flinches, as it were. Once, I held my paddle straight up, experimentally, to have the bird graze the tip. By now I was well off course and had lost sight of the object that had first claimed my attention. But I was now close enough to shore that I was able to identify a young gull clambering over a floating log and surmised it was the thing that had first attracted me. I returned to the rock and a resumption of being a bull's-eye for a couple of kamikaze gulls. But now I was not the only target. A third bird was diving on another young 51

gull on the water. Gulls do not hesitate to convert any stray young bird into a snack, even a gull hatched in an adjoining nest, but this time I felt the diver was the parent, striving to force the stubborn young bird to shore and into cover out of my sight. Eight years later no fewer than five adults subjected my wife, young son and me to a few heart-stopping moments when we visited the same bay. Yet, when on Tasso Lake alone in 1966 I passed quite close to a family party of four, with neither of the two adults showing concern. Birders bent on restocking depleted larders are sure to see up to ten ring-billed gulls (120) if their shopping is conducted in any of the larger plazas. This smaller edition of the herring gull has increased tenfold in Ontario during the past quarter century, but only recently has it begun to spread inland from Georgian Bay. It finds shopping centers everywhere a great source of food such as produce discarded by supermarkets and left-overs dropped by patrons of fast-food outlets. While I saw my first inland ring-bill on Pen Lake more than thirty years ago it took no less than twenty years of my birding life for the species to reach my familiar Rebecca Lake. Bonaparte's gull (119) nests well to the north of us and while present in large numbers on the Great Lakes on migration seems to bypass the Cottage Country. One day while paddling my wife and young son about Pen Lake a black52

hooded summer adult floated quite near us, its buoyancy producing exclamations of admiration from the three of us and exultation from me, as it was my first "Boney" in the region. The remainder of the gulls are to be more expected on Georgian Bay, although the first three have occurred either on inland waters or well stocked garbage dumps. Thus, we have the Iceland gull (123), its larger twin, the glaucous gull (124) and the great black-backed gull (125) as possibles on the Bay. Franklin's gull (116) a marsh bird in its western home, can be looked for about the mouths of rivers emptying into Georgian Bay. The little gull (117), an Old World species that started colonizing Canada a few years ago, could occur on any water. The common black-headed gull (118), another Old World bird, is a comparative newcomer to this continent, preferring maritime shores and the Great Lakes when visiting us. Thayer's gull (122), a contentious species raised to full specific status a few years ago, is a herring gull with a black eye and paler wing-tips, markings difficult to see under ordinary circumstances. The black-legged kittiwake (126), essentially another marine gull, might find its way inland again. Common terns (128) will be found about marshy inlets and river mouths of the larger lakes. The large Caspian tern (127), he of the huge, red schnozzle, keeps, as a rule, to larger waters and nests on certain islands on Georgian Bay. The smudgy appearing black tern (129), another marsh bird, is somewhat

53

unfaithful to its nesting sites, forsaking good ones from year to year. In order to see it here you will have to search out its current one. If you should see a dark tern-sized bird harrowing a gull or tern well off shore you may have one of the jaegers, avian pirates given to robbing other birds of their catch. Two kinds have occurred here: The parasitic jaeger (114) and the long-tailed jaeger (115). Many kinds of sea birds, picked up by some oceanic storm, are carried far inland. Such was the case of the thick-billed murre (130) that has been found in this region twice. On water it suggests a cork-lined loon.

54

9. THE PIGEONS, CUCKOOS AND OWLS PIGEONS — Rather Rare: Mourning Dove. Rare: Rock Dove. Formerly Common, now Extinct: Passenger Pigeon. CUCKOOS — Rather Uncommon: Black-billed Cuckoo. Rare: Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Accidental: Groove-billed Ani. OWLS — Uncommon: Barred Owl. Rather Rare: Great Horned Owl. Rare: Snowy Owl, Northern Hawk-Owl, Great Gray Owl, Boreal Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl. Very Rare: Eastern Screech-Owl, Long-eared Owl, Shorteared Owl. Other than the foot, which is equipped with four toes—one more than is carried by perching birds—the species included in this Chapter have little resemblance to each other. They represent three orders which, although quite unrelated, are grouped here as a matter of expediency. A second similar chapter will follow. Pigeons and Cuckoos are well represented in some parts of the world but the number of species found in the Cottage Country is confined to but two or three. Only three species included in this chapter verge on being seen commonly while few of them have given me a Cottage Country story, my familiarity with most having been gained elsewhere. The rock dove (131) is a European species, thought, with good reason, to be the ancestral 55

form of most of our dove-cote birds. It is widely spread around the world because of the nonconformity of certain individuals that decided life in a wild state was preferable to having to find the entrance to the coop. It is such escapees we find in parks and which we berate because of their disrespect for revered statuary. To which we might add hats, apotheosized or otherwise. A few, sometimes many, will be found in the larger towns of the Cottage Country, and I suppose their numbers may have been greater in the past when grain, spilled from freight cars onto the railway roadbed, supplied them with food. Still, I once saw a fast-flying one over a Parry Sound wilderness, saw a banded one (both legs) apparently reconciled to spending an uncomfortable night on a log jutting out into Rebecca Lake, and, quite recently, saw a flock of a dozen or so fly low over the wilderness that once was Sunset Farm. But the most memorable bird appeared on the first day of one July. Our old farm is fourteen miles from Huntsville, twelve as the pigeon flies. It was last worked in 1944, and in 1945 the only building in use was the barn reduced to housing a neighbour's team. I strolled into it on the morning in question seeking swallows' nests, only to be immediately startled by the rush of wings. As my eyes adjusted to the dimly lit interior, I discovered a bird eyeing me apprehensively from the substantial perch of a barn beam. Except for wings totally white, it was a perfect rock dove. It was seen by all members of my party that evening and almost every day for 56

the next fifteen. It was the last Farm bird I saw when we left, bidding us adieu from the ridgepole of the barn. No other pigeon was seen or heard so that if a mate were nesting, she was inordinately quiet about it. Or she was even wilder than our visible tenant, who apparently wanted no truck with humans. Cuckoos are very quiet, almost phlegmatic birds. In action they are the antithesis of the chickadee. When found, they will almost invariably be well within a tree from which cover they will regard you with a gaze that is neither solemn nor stupid, and certainly far from apprehensive. You will not see them often. Some years you will not see them at all. One year I had seen none in May, usually the best month for them, missed them in June; and had been over my Pen Lake trails several times in July with still none in evidence. On the third day after that July became history, I was returning from a minor safari and was just about to enter the woods back of Tanglewood Cottage when I noticed a nest six feet up in a small spruce. It was so conspicuous that I was certain it had not been there a few days before or I would have seen it. So I returned to examine it, wondering how I could have missed one that must be a left-over from the preceding year. Instead I found myself beak to nose with a black-billed cuckoo (135). Its eyes, red-rimmed as if it had been out on an allnight toot, peered around its perpendicularly held bill in much the same fashion as does a bittern. 57

Cuckoos have as much nest-building skill as a man with ten thumbs has for constructing cabinets. And the builder of this particular nest played the averages very well. The nest was. such a shoddy affair that it was my opinion that the bird, if it sat on the eggs too heavily, might force them through the twigs. There are some people who can locate an owl every time they walk into the woods or brush. Others, like me, have to depend on the lucky circumstance of one taking flight in front of them or begin their notes of the observation as a policeman details his report: "Acting on information received . . ." But toward sunset one July day I needed no help. I was returning to Tanglewood Cottage after an early evening afield and found two barred owls (142) on the limb of a dead maple a little off the trail. With the curiosity of this species, one flew toward me, inspected me from a branch of a tree close by, then, deciding I was both harmless and uninteresting, flew to a third perch. I carried on down the path until I had the light back of me, then turned to find the second bird had not moved from the branch on which I had found it. This one, at least, seemed to have Scottish blood, or perhaps I was being given the barred owl equivalent of the Bronx cheer. R~r-r-rrup was his derisive note, a little Glaswegian roll ending in a genteel burp. Of course, a bird with better manners would have covered its bill with a wing. This bird interestingly demonstrated the not 58

too distant consanguinity of owls and parrots, climbing about the tree with deliberately placed talons, sometimes even using the bill in the fashion of the best Amazon. But gone were the baleful eyes of other owls, for the barred wears limpid pools of deep brown in its eye sockets. The mourning dove (132) has been enlarging its range in slow but inexorable fashion. Where once it was not seen in Toronto between October and April it now winters commonly. I believe the growing number of feeding stations, both at Toronto and in the Cottage Country, has been the major factor in its change of status, as the species has been inching its way farther northward. At any rate, it has become more noticeable in the Cottage Country in recent years. Since it bears a marked resemblance to the extinct passenger pigeon (133), keep in mind that the last of that species was seen in this region in the fall of 1888. The white cockatiel (134) listed in the appendix was undoubtedly an escapee. The yellow-billed cuckoo (136) is much more southern than the other, which it closely resembles in almost all ways, so examine your field guide closely before mispronouncing judgment. Your chance of seeing another groove-billed ani (137) here is just a little better your seeing a passenger pigeon. What that bird of Central and South America was doing up this way adds to the many conundrums in bird distribution. The fiercelyvisaged great horned owl (139) will be heard hooting in February and March, as it starts 59

nesting at that time, becoming relatively silent thereafter. It is a bird of deep woods that will impress you with its great size when it flies away from you. Snowy owls (140) are possible birding sights but only if you live here year-round or visit your cottage in the winter season. It will be found only in open fields and therefore may be seen from highways in open country. Spruce and tamarack swamps and openings in woods are the places to look for the winter-visiting northern hawk-owl (141). The great gray owl (143), larger even than a great horned, is a desiderata of many confirmed birders. It is a bird of heavy woods and, like the hawk-owl, a quite diurnal species. The little boreal owl (146) is so unaccustomed to humans that it can be caught by hand. The northern saw-whet owl (147) is best sought in thickets such as alder; while the eastern screechowl (138) is a bird of open woods and old orchards. The long-eared owl (144) is a frequenter of coniferous woods while its relative, the shorteared owl (145) is a marsh and open-field species.

60

10. THE NIGHTJARS, SWIFTS, HUMMINGBIRDS AND KINGFISHERS NIGHTJARS — Uncommon: Common Nighthawk, Whip-poor-will. SWIFTS — Common: Chimney Swift. HUMMINGBIRDS — Rather Common: Ruby-throated Hummingbird. KINGFISHERS — Rather Common: Belted Kingfisher. Most of the introductory remarks of the preceding chapter apply equally as well here. Nightjars, as they are called in Great Britain, include our nighthawk and whip-poor-will. The common nighthawk (148) has the same dead-leaf pattern as the whip-poor-will, and for the same reason: camouflage when nesting or resting on the leafy floor of woods. But a century ago the nighthawk quit the countryside for a nightlife of the cities. Its nasal peent will come down from the early summer sky as he stokes up on high-flying mosquitoes and other insects, all trapped in his cavernous mouth. The cryptic feathering camouflages both whip-poor-will and nighthawk when incubating eggs that are laid right on the forest floor (no semblance of a nest is constructed), while the nighthawk finds its variegated pattern equally helpful when laying its eggs on the gravel covering the flat roof of a town or city building, its choice for nesting when living the life of an urbanite. 61

I had long been accustomed to observing nighthawks only from the pavement of the cities but soon discovered that each August ushered migrating birds into the quiet of Rebecca Lake as they worked their way southward for the winter. You, too, should find one or two, on migration over your own lake. You might also, as we did early one July, find one presumably reverting to ancestral habits. My wife put the bird up at Distress Dam, where it may have been nesting on the gravel by the Big East River. And little is deeper in woods than that water barrier. The whip-poor-will (149) is a bird of the woods, where it rests on the ground by day, its cryptic colouration matching the leafy floor perfectly. You may sometimes find one squatting along, not across a broad limb, but still effectively concealed. Nighthawks will rest in similar fashion. The whip-poor-will spends the twilight periods of both morning and evening flying about a nearby clearing, trapping aerial insects in its tunnel-like maw. I caught a young one near Sunset Cabin many years ago and was remarkably impressed by the size of its mouth when fully opened. I would say it could engulf a small bird quite easily, although swallowing it would be a different matter. We know this bird chiefly by its rapidly and untiringly reiterated whip-poor-will. At close range a chuck may be heard between each command to belabour poor Will.

62

Another bird that sometimes returns to its ancestral nest-sites, in this case hollow trees, is the chimney swift (150). This species, easily mistaken for a swallow because it catches insects in the air in much the same fashion (it usually flies much higher, though) changed its living habits when the first chimney was built in North America, taking to chimneys as women take to cosmetic counters. But, baffled by present-day structures, it has been forced to return to hollow trees only to have to reduce nesting still further when the forestry practiced today insists on a forest of sound, healthy trees only. No hollow ones, please! Another factor in the reduction of its numbers has been the disappearing of Amazon forests, its home in winter. Of late I have seen very few swifts where, at one time, dozens would be over the fields and woods of Sunset Farm. Even the type of buildings now constructed add to the swift's woes. No longer can it find an icehouse with its Stygian interior as dark as a chimney's. I entered ours one day long before we had electricity and refrigerators to have a small bird fly out the little window that supplied ventilation. A bit of a search revealed the half-cup nest of sticks glued to the wall. I left the two shiny white eggs untouched and never once thought of having birds'-nest soup. For those not familiar with true Chinese food, it is the nests of an Asiatic swiftlet that supply this Oriental delicacy, the nests being claimed for the kitchen before they are soiled by the birds.

63

A unique sight would have been the bird on its nest, as I had never seen a passive one. The swift is a tireless flyer, seeming to rest only when incubating and at night. I have observed copulation in the air and once saw three wobbly-winged young being fed by a parent high in the azure field above Rebecca Lake. Roger Tory Peterson aptly described this bird as a cigar on wings. Ordinarily, the ruby-throated hummingbird (151) is a loner, but an abundant food supply, such as a feeder, or the systematic drillings of a sapsucker, will attract them in droves. No less than eight were enjoying the beverage oozing from the parallel rows drilled by a sapsucker in a yellow birch on Sunset Farm. If hummingbirds had teeth they'd all be sweet ones. Hummingbird feeders are now very popular, with the response of the birds being almost instantaneous. I had a female at my first feeder within an hour after hanging it; and have also had one feeding so late in the day that the far shore of our lake, a mile away, was barely discernible. One July morning it was my intention to do some writing out of doors, but strong winds literally blew me to the rear and lea of the cabin. The same winds dislodged an occasional leaf, blowing it off three months prematurely. When still another leaf fluttered near me and then vanished into the open garage faster than wind could blow it, I began a puzzled watch. In fifteen seconds a female hummer emerged. (And I once 64

had a respected birder tell me that birds would not enter buildings!) So far as I know, all the many kinds of hummingbirds lay claim to territory by characteristic pendulum movements of flight. One evening at Brook's Mill a male ruby-throat entertained me with his own version, swinging sideways, with body held vertically, in an arc of a dozen feet or so, and coming to within six feet of the ground with each swing. The rattle of a belted kingfisher (152) is a familiar sound about the many lakes and rivers of the Cottage Country. It is reminiscent of the clicking of an old-time fishing reel with the brake full on. Each bird will have a stretch of shoreline all its own and while it may not dare you to enter that reach, will conduct you out of it by flying its length just in advance of your boat, stopping on favourite perches until you again come too close for its comfort. At the end of the stretch it will swing widely around you to return to where you had first found it. Many years ago I found one perched on a stump at the edge of an isolated field on Sunset Farm. There was a little sand and gravel pit there in which I suspected it may have been nesting. Five days later confirmation of a sort arrived at our beach when I had no trouble capturing a young bird near the cabin. It posed on a stump for two photographic exposures, then headed for Robin's Island about a mile across the lake. Seventeen hundred yards short of its objective it 65

fell into the water, requiring a fast dash out in the canoe by yours truly bent on a rescue mission. The next day the entire family of four young was on the beach. When giving the hunger call they would stretch head and neck, throw the head back slightly, and elevate the tail. Then the latter would be lowered slowly, after the manner of a hermit thrush. One made several sallies over the water into which it would drop feet first, flounder an instant, then return to its perch on a log. I think it fell from fatigue, not because it had sighted a fish, because when the school was in the minnows were much closer to shore. The next morning I found one dead near shore. Even kingfisher mortality starts early in life.

Yellow-bellied Sap sucker 66

11. THE WOODPECKERS Common: Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Rather Common: Hairy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker. Rather Uncommon: Downy Woodpecker. Uncommon: Black-backed Woodpecker, Pileated Woodpecker. Rather Rare: Red-headed Woodpecker, Three-toed Woodpecker. Occasional: Red-bellied Woodpecker. The novice has little difficulty recognizing a woodpecker as such for all woodpeckers look as though they had been thrown at a tree, hit it belly first, and fortunately right-side up, then stuck there. But, as almost all North American species have some red on or about the head, at least in the males, the tyro's failing is in calling all woodpeckers so marked a 'red-headed' woodpecker. Even the authorities mislead us, for one member of the family does not have 'woodpecker' as part of its name. This bird, the yellow-bellied sapsucker (155), is the woodpecker that summer visitors to the Cottage Country will see almost without fail. This species drills holes in trees for the sap they contain, lapping up the oozing liquid with a tongue that is frayed or fringed. It is therefore a 'saplapper,' not 'sapsucker.' But it has the same inclination to peck and to drill holes as have the others, and to bore into trees to make nest cavities. To carry out its 'sapsucking' propensity it drills neatly arranged small and parallel holes for the sap it craves (it is truly a sapaholic 67

and a threat to safe flying, as disability through overindulgence is a frequent occurrence), and taps a characteristic roll to tell other sapsuckers venturing into its territory to get lost. The irregularly spaced beats are quite recognizable, both by you and other sapsuckers, and, so far as I'm aware, always end with a single rap, delivered with such a pause after the preceding one that it seems to be an afterthought. But since the bird has been known to become schlossed on sap, perhaps the final isolated tap is one for the road. The spring tapping is as much a part of May and June as the early flowers and is just as welcome. Provided the sounding board is a dead limb. It is decidedly unpleasant if the bird selects the tin spark arrester atop a chimney. While it is delightful to be awakened in the early morning with bird song very gently but persistently permeating the senses, an entirely different sensation is experienced when the interior of your cabin sounds like a boiler shop. My father called that particular bird a 'tinpecker.' Our cabin has a tall post of wood that holds the insulators to which the hydro wires are attached. Now well-seasoned, it is, in the opinion of at least one sapsucker, vastly superior to any of the thousands of trees in the surrounding woods. The bird's early morning tattoo is an effective alarm clock that has fractured slumber not when the bacon was on but when the sun was completing its final push-up of the morning. Long before I acquired an SRL camera, I essayed to take a picture of a sapsucker. The bird 68

was, I think, quite unafraid. A stepladder against its favourite tree trunk brought me to the right level, but never on the same side of the tree. Holding the camera in readiness until my arms ached, the exasperating subject persisted in clinging to the far side, occasionally peeking around the trunk to see how I was doing. Never was I given any warning that the time had come to peek, so I can't show you a close-up of a sapsucker. But I can proudly exhibit an interesting series of pictures of the rough bark of a hemlock—the nuances of shadow and light in artistic array. Driving up Highway 11 and just as I was crossing Bullen Creek below Huntsville, a most peculiar 'heron' rose from, I thought, the creekbed. The bird flew over the highway with a strong beat, its neck still not retracted to the shoulders, for herons wait until well under way before taking classic flight-pattern. The car roof blocked further view and as a sudden stop or swerve to the roadshoulder would have been suicidal, I was forced to carry on, but all the while cudgelling my brains trying to recall what heron had red on the head. It came, finally. No heron, but the crow-sized pileated woodpecker (161), our largest representative of the family. Large and conspicuous as it is, or can be, as it is remarkably adept at vanishing before your eyes and skilled at remaining unseen while making diverse noises, it confused me again much later, and later, then later still. 69

Deep in the climax maple forest of our farm I heard what I thought was the alarm note of a robin and immediately suspected some deviltry was afoot about its nest. Looking towards the source of the sound I saw what I took to be a crow in flight, a robin attacking it about the head. Crows had become a minority species on the farm since the return of the raven, so that a crow itself was a surprise. But I was more puzzled by the locality, as crows are not partial to deep woods. Wondering what had induced this change of habitat, I next wondered at the change in habits, because, after temporarily losing sight of it, or them, I picked them, or it, up again in time to see this peculiar symbiosis twice land on the side of a tree. Again, realization dawned slowly. Only one species was involved, a pileated doing what it does best. Vacating that stretch of woods visited by a human, although in this case it was not so secretive about it. And what I had taken for a robin attacking a crow about the head was the red crest of the woodpecker. When approaching my sister's cottage one day I spied a 'scarlet tanager' perched in an upright fashion right at the tip of a dead fir tree. Now, a male tanager is, without doubt, my favourite bird, so I raised my glasses to drink in its superb beauty. That movement sent the top of the fir tree into the air, resulting in the stupefying thought that the bird was carrying the tree-top away! By the time everything was in focus, I realized that what I had taken for a tanager, which was out of place anyway, was a flaming red crest of a 70

pileated woodpecker. And that bird had been upright, of course, right at the top of the tall stump, its body merely extending the tree top into what appeared to be a blackened scar. Their visits to the cottage clearings are unusual enough that the sight of one there is a pleasant surprise (I saw the first of my life, a whole family, on a tree close to the front door); but they are more inclined to do their ruckus-raising at least a little distance away, occasioning great astonishment when you find them just outside your habitation. Rounding one of the three cabins on our beach, I started a 'flicker' from the open ground alongside the building where, apparently, it had been at an ant hill, ants being the favourite food of that woodpecker. The flicker is the woodpecker that shows a large white rump in retreat, but the white of this 'flicker' was pure, without the intrusion of brown bars that creeps in from the body. The bird paused, fortunately, on a utility pole and once again I found my ability to identify pileated woodpeckers greatly at fault. My misidentification here arose from the white in the wing of the larger bird. As it gave me a side view in its take-off from the ground, the white seemed to be on the back, where the flicker carries his. The hairy woodpecker (157) is one of the two species bound to give a tyro trouble. It is the shyer of the two woodpeckers that appear to be spotted black and white. From August on, by the way, the above mentioned northern flicker (160) will rise from dirt roads, even when the thorough71

fare is well within woods. It will have been wreaking havoc on an ant hill, and as the owners thereof will be very angry, any sitting should be conducted some distance away. The downy woodpecker (156) is the Peter Pan, the hairy woodpecker that refused to grow up. Both the large and small varieties will be found about your cottage, especially in winter if you maintain a feeding station of suet or meat. Black-backed woodpeckers (159) have a back solidly black, while the adult male has a yellow crown. It is a northern species that barely crosses the top boundary of Muskoka. The red-headed woodpecker (153), the bona fide one, has the whole head red in both sexes. It is a more southern bird found in open woods where it can create a fair din. The red-bellied woodpecker (154) is still more southern, not to be expected here on many occasions. The three-toed woodpecker (158) is a black-back with white bars disrupting the uniformity of colouration. It is more northern than the other three-toed but sometimes comes south in winter.

Hairy Woodpecker

72

12. THE TYRANT FLYCATCHERS Rather Common: Eastern Wood-Pewee, Least Flycatcher, Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Kingbird. Rather Uncommon: Olive-sided Flycatcher, Great Crested Flycatcher. Rather Rare: Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Alder Flycatcher. Accidental: Willow Flycatcher, Cassin's Kingbird, Western Kingbird. This distinctively American family is given the name Tyrant Flycatchers' to distinguish it from the entirely different one found in the Old World. As a family, our flycatchers are easy to identify. Many other birds catch flies (an ornithological pseudonym for flying insects) but none imitate the flycatchers' method of snaring the bugs on the wing. It is the family trait to perch on an exposed limb or similar vantage point and keep a sharp lookout for a passing bug. If the insect has proven to be palatable in the past, the flycatcher will sally out and snap up the luckless thing, whose career is terminated with the sharp and clearly audible click of the bird's bill. The bird will then usually but not always return to the perch just vacated, there to await either a second helping or the next course. If it does change perches, the new lookout will be close to the previous one. Also characteristic of the family is the upright, almost raptorlike pose when at rest. Thus, the salient points of flycatchers means we can quickly boil things down to the correct family; but then find the going tough half the 73

time. The larger members, the kingbirds and crested flycatchers, present little difficulty in Ontario; but the small ones can be the despair of the experts, especially if the latter's ears are stopped up with a cold. "Olive-green above, white below," is a succinct description of the birds to which we can sometimes add the presence of wing-bars, sometimes an eye-ring; often both. Other aids to identification are the type of habitat which, unfortunately, holds good only during the nesting season, although it does offer a debatable clue at other times; and the voice. Flycatchers are not musicians but each does have a call or 'song' that labels the bird at once. The damper here is that most of the birds will become confoundingly silent after nesting, so that frequent recourse to a good field guide is obligatory. But do not be dismayed if your efforts fall short of perfection. You will have but joined a very large club. One of our most pleasing flycatchers, a drab bird of retiring habits, is the eastern wood-pewee (163). While no aesthetic and with a temperament utterly different to that of the truculent kingbird, he continually plays on our sympathy with a sweet, mournful, long-drawnout pee-a-wee, followed by a long pause, then another pee-a-wee. It is a call that takes me far back in memory, back to the eerie hush of July evenings, when the westering sun had touched the cabin and the surrounding woods with a Midas-like aura. But back in the growing shadows, the pewee sat on some limb looking over an open glade, lamenting 74

his sorrowful life as he awaited a passing, crepuscular bug. Irritability sometimes surfaced as he concluded his plaint with a harsh, almost angry down-slurred pee-r-r-r. We never knew if his annoyance was due to his having missed his target, having seen a delectable too late for a sally, or if he had recognized that point of his life where he took a wrong turn. With the exception of the phoebe, the least flycatcher (167), with its dry che-bec, is the one most likely to dwell near a human habitation that is not in deep woods. Early one July I found the bird activity about Tanglewood Cottage so great that I was led to investigate why, with the result that I found four occupied nests, two each of redeyed vireo and least flycatcher. I was able to examine the vireos' but the others were inaccessible without wings. I berated myself ever after for not having measured the distance between the nests of like species and for not having noted the boundaries of each pair of the related ones to determine the extent of territory claimed by each. While the hyperactivity of birds induced a similar state in me, leading to the discovery of those nests, inertia, brought on by an extremely sore foot, led me to another. Reclining at ease in a shady nook, I was being entertained by a little chebec (an old name for the least) when my wandering eye discovered his mate ensconced in a dainty nest in the crotch of a small yellow birch. The nest was about fifteen feet from the ground and would have been, I'm sure, overlooked by a 75

more zealous birder. This was one of the few times I have found passivity to be rewarding in birding. The keeping of bird notes was just twenty-three days old when I found my first eastern phoebe (168) of record. It was calling from the clothesline at the front of Tanglewood Cottage when we arrived on May 1. Its vocabulary was limited, an emphatic fee-be, often followed by a vie-bliebt, a bit of German I was unable to translate as my ability in that tongue had fallen through disuse. I found its nest on the corner of the sleeping cabin two days later. The young, whose pablum is mashed insects, hatched the same day that winged pests drove us home, a timing as nice as any I've seen in the world of birds. But I do remember seeing one phoebe guilty of poor timing. It was sallying out over a small, secluded pond near Aspdin, when exuberance or a miscalculation led it to an insect flying so close to the water the bird was obliged to follow up its capture with a kingfisherlike plunge into the pond, to rise, return to its perch, shake itself like a dog, and consume a sodden but thoroughly cleansed meal. Another bird showed a more slothful nature. First, it had disdained a trip south in the more temperate climate of late September and had remained north through some dismal, sometimes near-freezing October weather. Now, in the warmth of a golden October sun, it was on the pitched roof of a house snatching up flies that were revelling in the heat of the sun's rays bouncing off the asphalt shingles. 76

The great crested flycatcher (169) is an anomaly in this family, inasmuch as it has a penchant for nesting in cavities, usually, so it is said, and some say invariably, including a cast-off snakeskin as part of the nest material. I debunked that theory one year when, back of Tanglewood Cottage, I found a pair whose nest was, I was convinced, somewhere near a fence-line. The favourite lookout of one bird was the top of one fence-post but my search for a tree with a suitable cavity was fruitless; nor could I see one on the sides of any of the fence-posts in the vicinity. Giving up, I put my hand on the top of the bird's favourite post and was about to haul myself over the wires when I realized the post was hollow. Peering in curiously, I found the nest tucked inside. Perhaps because the pair had departed from the customary side entrance, they had used nothing remotely resembling a snakeskin in their furnishings. The eastern kingbird (172) is a bird of pasture, fence-lines bordering tilled acreage, abandoned fields and the mullein stalks within. The pair I found one Dominion Day were housekeeping on a wooded shore of Rebecca Lake, and their nursery was atop a long, dead cedar that stretched out over the water. If the four young the nest contained proved to be progenies in aerobatics, there would be no problem in their reaching land; but if they were at all backward, they would have been faced with a twenty-five foot walk over the snag-like balance beam to reach dry land; or 77

confronted with a four foot drop to water. Their ability to swim was questionable; nor could I visualize them wading to shore through water four feet deep. The olive-sided flycatcher (162) is a rather large-headed bird often found in a fire-stricken area or other partial clearing containing the tall stumps of long-dead trees. Two cottony tufts sometimes peak from the hind edge of the closed wings. His quick, three beers suggests advanced alcoholism. If swarms of mosquitoes are not your cup of tea, look for the yellow-bellied flycatcher (164) only in spring and fall, when, on migration, it will visit areas more hospitable to birdwatchers. The yellow-belly is a least flycatcher distinctly yellow below, and calls an upward slanted to-whee quite repeatedly. The name of the alder flycatcher (165) will clue you onto this nearclone of the least. Its call is afee-bee-o. The willow flycatcher (166) calls fitz-bew, about the only thing to distinguish it from the alder. If you can contrive to get the two species side by side you will note that the willow is greener by a shade, that its bill is a little shorter and that its eye-ring is not conspicuous. Its range just penetrates Muskoka, but it seems to be moving northward to create confusion with its look alikes, the least, alder and yellow-bellied. Cassin's kingbird (170) and western kingbird (171) are strays from the southeastern United States and western North America respectively. The possibility of a reprise is remote but confirmed birders are optimistic to the extreme. 78

13. THE SWALLOWS Common: Barn Swallow. Rather Common: Tree Swallow. Uncommon: Bank Swallow. Rather Uncommon: Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Purple Martin. All swallows are colonial in nesting habits, so that when near sites which a particular species finds suitable for nesting, that species will be quite numerous, seeming at variance to the expression given above. The terms of abundance as used at the beginning apply to the region as a whole. Barn swallows, for instance, will be quite absent from heavily forested areas but will be very common about farm fields. Another point to remember is that, except for that species and possibly also the cliff, swallows complete nesting about August 1, after which they resort to good feeding areas such as expansive marshes until the annual exodus takes place towards the end of that month. Through August one sometimes finds hundreds of swallows lined up on roadside wires, such a gathering including all our species except, perhaps, the purple martin. And that species will join the others at a huge staging area at the confluence of the Muskrat and Ottawa Rivers in the center of Pembroke, just outside our area. Up to 115,000 birds have roosted there nightly. Oddly, the barn swallow (179), our most numerous one, has given me no outstanding observation in the Cottage Country. I do have 79

fond recollections of this bird of the dazzling flight hawking fearlessly about my head when near the old Sunset Farm barn. There is something so pastoral about the species that it is difficult to imagine a farm without them. Yet modern farming methods are reducing the barn swallow's nest areas and food, for the open barns provided both. Yet, birds of summer as they are, and disregarding the fact that our barn had been pulled down and the farm just awaiting a decent burial, dozens were crisscrossing the idle fields one recent May 11. With them I detected one or two banks and rough-wings. I was greatly impressed, but not because of their numbers or because of the two other species in their midst. The marvel was that those insect eaters were flying over four inches of wet snow which covered the ground at the time! The coloquial names given to all but two of our swallows stem from the preferred nest sites of the species. The tree swallow (175) is a confirmed nester within hollow trees; or, to be more precise, trees that have a small cavity connected to the outside world by a relatively small opening. However, just as the barn swallow will nest on the outside wall of a boathouse, and the cliff on the outside wall of a cottage (and also within a large barn-like structure), the tree will make ready use of wood fence-posts, utility poles and bird houses. But the Catholicism of its tastes are by no means exhausted, as I found when inspecting the remains of the conflagration that removed the 'mill' from Brook's Mill in 1952. 80

In company with others, I was standing viewing the ruins, but unlike my companions, I was subconsciously noting the coursing swallows. The focal point of our attention was the old boiler, which stood in the middle, more or less, of where the mill building had been. Up from the center of the boiler ran a piece of six-inch pipe culminating in an elbow and a flange. As this piece of equipment was about the only tangible evidence of the former mill, my eyes naturally strayed to it again and again, until I was sure I had seen a tree swallow fly to it and disappear. I treaded a cautious circle and approached the boiler from one end. There was no sign of life until I reached the point below the open flange, whereupon a tree swallow appeared at the opening, took a startled look at me and popped out of there as if ejected by a sudden return of the old steam pressure. The pipe opening was just about the right diameter for a tree swallow but I thought the interior was a little too roomy for that species. While differing from the bank swallow (177) in some refinements of anatomy, the northern rough-winged swallow (176) is superficially very similar, and not only in appearance. Like the bank, it nests in holes tunnelled into sandy cliffs or a facsimile thereof. Usually it selects a low river bank but has no aversion to using the walls of low- sand pits or even high ones, then companionably nesting side by side with bank swallows. The late Russell Rutter found roughwings nesting in sawdust piles at Utterson. 81

The Cottage Country is near the northern limit of the range of the rough-wing (the bank carries on to the tip of James Bay) and therefore has pronounced fluctuations in numbers here. It is both a solitary and a colonial nester, but its concentrations are much smaller than the bank's. Thus, only a handful might take over a small sand pit, returning year after year. Then will come a year with no occupancy, suggesting all members of the colony perished in some disaster between the sand pit and their winter home in Central America and extreme southern United States. Cliff swallows (178) are even less faithful to nest localities, abandoning a site for no apparent reason. This swallow, in my opinion, leads the tribe in fashion, with patches of attractive colouring here and there. It was with great delight we were able to see its beauty more clearly when we were able to view them from above as they dropped into a quagmire in the road east of Point au Baril Station. They were not bathing but were gathering mud for their adobe-style homes. Purple martins (174), our largest and therefore least agile swallow, also reaches the northern limit of its range here. This is the urbanite, the one that dotes on company, plenty of it, and close. Tenement-style housing suits it immeasureably, yet coaxing them to use a man-made high-rise can be very frustrating. And, no matter how well designed and constructed the multiple compart82

ment may be, their choice in the end may be a hole in a wall. In two different years, both Jim Baillie and I observed martins entering holes in the facia of a store in Huntsville. None of the six swallows has a song but all converse companionably and repeatedly with a pleasing medley of twitters and gurgles.

Northern Shrike

83

14. THE JAYS, MAGPIES, CROWS AND RAVENS Common: Blue Jay, American Crow. Rather Uncommon: Common Raven. Uncommon: Gray Jay. Occasional: Black-billed Magpie. Jays of whatever colour (they come in blue, gray, green and brown) can arouse both admiration and disfavour. All species, while not necessarily domineering, are take-charge individuals, with the same capacity for leadership as the person who invariably chairs an important committee. I have yet to see a blue jay drive a smaller bird from a feeding station. Instead, one will simply land on the tray, its mere presence putting the other bird to immediate flight. There is a dynamic personality about the jays, an alert bearing, reminiscent of a four-star general. I have seen that quality not only in our blue and gray jays but also in the jays of the west: Steller's, scrub, gray-breasted and pinyon. And, large as they are, their actions combine strength and grace. We see something similar in a large or obtuse person, admiring his lightness afoot on the dance floor. Blue jays (181) are solitary nesters but feel that the family that plays together stays together. Family parties of up to eight individuals are the rule once the young are out of the nest. Various families unite until several hundred will band to migrate to warmer climes in September and 84

October; they return in April or May but in less compact and smaller flocks. Hardier individuals, which themselves may have come from farther north, will patrol your woods all winter. A feature of their life history that still puzzles me is that, through August, I will find solitary blue jays scattered along our road, with one bird every 100 to 200 feet or so. The American crow (183) is black all over and so, according to most people, is his soul, but he does have some redeeming qualities. One, so far as I am concerned, is that his return in March signals that a crack has developed in the backbone of winter. I should amend that statement somewhat as crows, today, seem more inclined to forgo the long trek to southern regions; but they still become more evident in late winter. In my boyhood the passing of crow flocks in March was hailed with the same jubilation as the sight of a sawbuck coming back from the borrower. Perhaps the ever expanding garbage dumps are contributing to a year-round crow population. Crows are as much a part of farmland as cattle and horses. The cessation of farming on our property may explain, in part, why crows are no longer numerous there. In the account of the raven I postulate another reason. Suffice it to say that no crows were seen on the old farm for some fifteen years until the raucous voice of one came from the woods back of us one July. In August of many years ago I was aware of crows' strange aversion to our pasture after 85

sundown. Two or more crows were seen to fly from the fellowship of our companionable livestock to the north shore of Rebecca Lake, where they presumably spent the night in the maple woods there. The antipathy was still evident the next August. Was their nemesis a great horned owl, resident of the neighbouring spruce woods? That species poses little threat to crows by day but is a potentially fatal one when the velvety shades of night are drawn. About one-third larger than the crow, the common raven (184), found throughout the northern and unsettled part of the northern hemisphere, is just as black, with the same mixture of favourable and prejudicial qualities. As the Cottage Country yielded to civilization, the raven retreated northward, to be replaced by the advancing crow, who took advantage of the clearings and farmlands that blossomed in the middle of the nineteenth century. Except for the wilderness of Algonquin Park, the raven must have been extirpated as a summer bird of the Cottage Country in my infancy. I do not recall anyone in my family speaking of ravens, nor did they conjoin ravens and their experiences in the first years of their settlement here, which was at the tag end of the nineteenth century. Obviously, ravens moved out with the invasion of cottagers, although scattered records point to a few returning each winter. Strangely, while civilization drove the raven away, a refinement of a collection of humans 86

brought it back. The growing amount of garbage generated by the burgeoning human population and the creation of dumps to contain the refuse induced the ravens that ventured to visit the Cottage Country in winter to remain all year. The raven gets along very well the the civilized world now, even venturing within a quarter-mile of the intersections of Highways 11 and 60, and that is not far from Huntsville's Town Hall. But the raven still refuses to accept the crow, with the feeling quite reciprocal. In 1970, my wife and I watched one crow hound a raven from Tally-ho Winter Park, while, six years before, at Moosonee, far north of the Cottage Country, son Dan and I saw the chase going the other way. My first meeting with this great bird of fancied ill-omen was thirty years ago, near Tea Lake of Algonquin Park. When my party stopped to admire the views presented by that area, I spotted the birds over a ridge a quarter of a mile away, instantly realizing they were not the ubiquitous crow. As I walked closer, I concluded a game was in progress. One bird swooped down to a treetop, broke off a large twig in full flight, then ascended to his previous elevation. Then began a feat of transferring the twig from feet to bill and back again, all to the strident croaking accompaniment of his companions. On a couple of occasions the twig was dropped, but recovered in mid-air, at which time I could detect a certain derision, almost a Bronx cheer, in the tone of the rasping squawks.

87

Another of my experiences with ravens has been repeated several times and is quite inexplicable. When driving over a bush road I have put up a raven from the right-of-way and have had the bird fly before the car at no great height for as much as a mile before turning into the forest, the point selected for an 'escape' being no different to any of those passed during the 'chase.' The expression, "black as a crow," which is equally applicable to the raven, has been around ever since the crow family shunned virginal colours. But my wife and I questioned the veracity of the statement when we visited the neighbourhood refuse dump one time. When we first glimpsed this particular bird it was just below the rim of the expansive garbage pit, the only visible part being an upraised wing, the colour of which suggested a rock dove had finally found the bounteous repast there. The bird took to the air on our arrival, displaying a pure white tail, it and the patchy colour elsewhere leading my thoughts to a gull, which would have been still another newcomer to our dump. Then the evident bulk of a raven filled our pupils. An albino, no less, which my wife claimed was pure white but I thought was white with grayish streaks or patches everywhere except for the unblemished tail. The gray jay (180), which, at one time publicized this country by being known as the Canada jay, reaches its southern limit at the bottom edge of the Cottage Country. Winter invasions of sorts occur from time to time, the 88

birds beginning to appear in the more southern sectors in September. More rarely, one or two will be seen in summer. It has sometimes accompanied me over a short stretch of bush road quite removed from any habitation, taking my mind off the persistent attention of mosquitoes. Algonquin Park, however, is the one place the birds may be expected at any season. Like the blue jay, the gray is just as averse to horned owls. When on the Big East River near Tonawanda Creek late one July, my wife and I saw a pair striving to upset the composure of a great horned. The owl did not seem to be particularly distressed and left the vicinity not because of the jays, but, I thought, more because of our intrusion. The black-billed magpie (182) has occurred here a couple of times. A bird of the far west, it is of regular occurrence in Canada only as far east as Lake-of-the-Woods.

89

15. THE CHICKADEES, NUTHATCHES AND CREEPERS CHICKADEES — Common: Black-capped Chickadee. Rare: Boreal Chickadee. Accidental: Blue Tit, Tufted Titmouse. NUTHATCHES — Rather Common: White-breasted Nuthatch. Rather Uncommon: Red-breasted Nuthatch. CREEPERS — Uncommon: Brown Creeper. The seven species included in this chapter represent three families, each one exhibiting some different form of acrobatics, all worthy of top billing in any leading circus. Nuthatches generally creep down trees head first, but invariably confound the 'experts' by reversing direction and heading up. They also creep along limbs and sometimes perch across, not along a horizontal one, like more normal birds. Creepers creep up trees, first emulating a wind blown leaf in their flight to the base of a tree, then beginning a myopic search of the bark (or even telephone poles, fence posts or cows' tails) as far as the first limb. At that interruption they will fly to a second tree for a reprise. Occasionally the creeps move out of character by proceeding well into the upper branches. Chickadees and titmice hang from the tips of twigs, seeming to have a confused idea as to which way is up. If you own a feeding station you will be familiar with the black-capped chickadee (185). And if you don't meet that most irrepressible bird 90

there, you will if you walk the woods. Perhaps because of the ebullient personality, the black-cap is the hub of almost every mixed flock of birds. In winter he is surrounded by creepers, nuthatches, kinglets and hairy and downy woodpeckers; in fall and late summer, warblers and vireos join his retinue. For reasons known only to chickadees, they seem reluctant to eat food where they find it, but must carry it to some other spot. I've watched one fly back and forth between tips of neighbouring fir trees, wondering why he expended so much unnecessary energy. You will see the same thing at your feeding station, where he'll snatch a seed and fly to the nearest tree, there to hack it open. He may, of course, want a perch where he can wrap his toes around both seed and branch in order to hold the food better. But as the tips of the trees are essentially alike, each supplying the same kind of purchase, why does he insist on moving? The boreal chickadee (186) reaches this area rarely, although it finds the wilderness of Algonquin Park attractive enough. My wife is good at hearing its call, which is like the blackcap's sic-a-dee-dee-dee if given with a cold or sore throat. But she is far from adept at finding the birds, resulting in many a stiff neck as we scrutinize a flock of black-caps. In this region I have found the boreal to be a solitary species but sometimes one will associate with black-caps for a while at the risk of infecting them with its cold virus. 91

Through the winter of 1973-74 a blue tit (188), a European bird, was the center of attraction at a feeder in Gravenhurst. How the bird got there is an ornithological mystery of the first order. Authorities insist that as the members of the titmouse family are poor flyers, it did not get there through its own efforts and therefore refused to consider it a wild bird. Conceivably, it may have hitched a ride on a boat but that vessel certainly did not land at Gravenhurst. It may have been a captive, but inquiries by this writer showed that no blue tit had ever been caged in Europe, while reason dictates that one would be difficult to keep alive in captivity, as insects, not seeds, form the greater part of its diet. In the subjective view of this observer, the bird was truly wild and should be included in the list of North American birds. The red-breasted nuthatch (189) is the smaller one, easily distinguished from the other by size, colour and voice. Its call is a weaker and tinnier ank-ank, sounding much like the toy trumpet that fell into disfavour with adults after the first hour of Christmas morning. It usually ranges higher than the other but one, working at a low elevation, greatly impressed me. Perched on a twig, it evidently saw a potential meal below and in front of it, so swung down for closer inspection. While still in motion he decided the bug had no nutritional merit, so continued his swing until he was again upright. The redbreasted sings a derisive series of oh-yaaaaahs but leaves out the ohs. 92

The tufted titmouse (187), once seen in this region, is a southern, crested type of chickadee. Don't bother looking for one! The white-breasted nuthatch (190) may feed on trees or even nest at your back door. Just as fearless as the other, its call is a more or less insistent ank-ank, louder and more vigorous than that of the smaller bird. Its song sounds like a call of the flicker in the distance, a weak wick-wick-wick. Brown creepers (191) are so inconspicuous that they pass almost unnoticed except in April and September and October, when migrating birds swell their numbers locally. Their song is weak and colourless, matching the bird's appearance and actions; but the call is a characteristic long, high-pitched shreeeee.

Black-capped Chickadee

93

16. THE WRENS, KINGLETS AND GNATCATCHERS WRENS — Rather Uncommon: Winter Wren. Uncommon: House Wren. Rare: Sedge Wren, Marsh Wren. Occasional: Carolina Wren. KINGLETS — Rather Common: Goldencrowned Kinglet, Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Occasional: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Wrens are small, woodsy brown birds that fuss about tangled growth on or near the ground. Kinglets are olive-green birds, just as small as wrens, that keep to trees but not necessarily at their tips. The great bird mystery of 1977 was the disappearance of the winter wren (194). Not a species one encounters with almost every sweep of binoculars as one does the robin on every summer outing, nor a bird so rare that the sight of it leads to ecstacies, but one comfortably in between. Winter wrens were notably scarce that year everywhere in North America. In fact, over the greater part of the continent they were quite nonexistant. The catastrophe that decimated winter wrens seemed also to affect other members of the family, as Carolina wrens were down in numbers in the south, Bewick's wrens in the west and house wrens all over. Happily, winter wrens began staging a comeback in 1978 and by 1980 seemed to be once again in normal numbers. 94

The winter wren is our smallest, with an absurdly short tail that it carries cocked to such an extreme that it usually points forward to the head. It is not an habitue of our gardens, preferring the woods, where it fusses about the roots of fallen forest giants. After logging operations it is just as happy with the tree-crowns lumbermen had no use for. Tree roots and topped-off crowns are such an attraction that we once found a winter wren investigating the root system of a behemoth laying on a sand bar by the Big East River, the only time I ever considered including winter wrens among the shorebirds. Where the winter wren has a voice all out of proportion to its size, the song of the house wren (193) seems even louder. But that may be because it is the bubbling notes of the latter we hear when Morpheus is applying a stranglehold around dawn of a summer morning. The house wren takes over at the edge of the woods, where the winter wren leaves off. Shrubbery and tangles, its preferred environment, are not so prevalent as they once were about habitations anywhere except, perhaps, in the more southern portions of its range. In this region I think it finds urban gardens more attractive than the small amount of shrubbery left about the more rural cottages. Wood piles and woodsheds are not mandatory but are greatly welcomed for the nooks and crannies they provide and the resulting proliferation of insects and spiders. Another factor bringing the birds about houses is 95

that they make regular use of nest boxes which, of course, are hung in our gardens, not in the woods. Even a carpenter as unskilled as I can build a nest box that will be approved by house wrens. But one of the most successful wren houses I have seen was constructed, in part, by the makers of Edgeworth Pipe Tobacco. Someone at Tanglewood Cottage took the tin box in which Edgeworth packs its products, soldered the lid tight, cut out a hole of the required size (as large as a twenty-five cent piece), screwed a coat-hook below the hole for a perch, and stood back to avoid the rush. How long ago the result was nailed to the wall I don't know. I do know it had been there some years when I found it in use in May of 1933, and although it must have been long packed with twigs, the energetic birds insisted on some new furnishings each year. It was still in use in July of 1939, when I watched one of the pair carry out excrement. I doubt if the birds were required to incubate the eggs as the sun beat down on the metal container from about ten in the morning, when the tree-tops ceased to shade the box, until early in the afternoon, when the corner of the building intervened. Hades must have been a skating rink in comparison. The marsh wren (196) is exceptionally well named. But as marshes are in short supply in the Cottage Country, so, too, are marsh wrens. In 1974 we toured Muskoka, Parry Sound, and Haliburton to determine bird distribution 96

through a study of habitats. Only rarely did we find a marsh of any extent; and never did we see or hear a marsh wren. A grassy swale on our own farm and the boggy islands in Mansell's Lake were the only productive localities; and I think the birds seen there were transients. Paraphrasing an ex-prizefighter, we shoulda stood in bed. The ruby-crowned kinglet (198) is, in general, a more northern bird than the golden-crown. It also likes smaller, mixed growth. It was with great delight that we found a pair nesting in a spruce in our pasture one July. John Yasper and I were attracted, first, by the loud, clear, wrenlike song; then by the noisy chip call of the male, which sounded as if the bird were pulling nails from wood. In the afternoon my wife and I found both members of the pair, having them right above our heads at times and pulling nails all over the place. A lower, fastrepeated chick, was a variant. The next day, after an hour on solitary watch, I found the bulky, pendant nest in the most inaccessible part of a thick spruce the birds could find. Not once had I seen a bird fly to the nest. All approaches had been made under cover, the thick growth screening the birds very effectively. Yet, after such an attempt to preserve secrecy, one bird gave the location away by flying directly from the nest while carrying excrement! While the marsh wren wants cattail and such plants growing in water, the sedge wren (195) 97

selects ground just a bit damp underfoot. The Carolina wren (192) is our largest species and is marked by a pronounced light line over the eye. It has occurred here a couple of times. Although the two kinglets nest in the Cottage Country, they are seen chiefly in April and September and October, when they are migrating. The goldencrowned kinglet (197) prefers coniferous forests, although almost any arboreal growth will attract it on migration. The blue-gray gnatcatcher (199) is another bird of southern affinities that has occurred here. It looks like a diminutive mockingbird, even acting like one at times, as it can thrash its tail in approved mocker fashion.

98

17. THE THRUSHES Common: American Robin. Rather Common: Veery, Swainson's Thrush, Hermit Thrush. Rather Uncommon: Eastern Bluebird. Uncommon: Wood Thrush. Very Rare: Graycheeked Thrush. Occasional: Mountain Bluebird, Varied Thrush. Accidental: Northern Wheatear, Townsend's Solitaire. The lush, moist maple woods of the Cottage Country are much beloved by several birds with the 'surname' of thrush. The four kinds of thrushes found here in summer sing vespers that are intensely breathtaking when they roll out of the darkening woods at the close of a summer day. Scientifically, they are not true thrushes, that genus being found chiefly in the Old World with a sprinkling in Central America. Our thrushes, however, do belong to the same family that also includes the bluebirds, wheatears and solitaires. Often mingling with the melodies of the woodland thrushes is that of the American robin (209) for this well-known bird, so given to patronizing our door-yards and cottage clearings is also a thrush, and a true one at that. Most writers stress the relationship of robins and bluebirds with the thrushes by pointing to the spotted breasts of the young, a characteristic bluebirds and robins lose at maturity. I prefer to use another criterion that holds good at any age. Next time you are able to observe the actions of a thrush on the ground, 99

notice how similar they are to the mannerisms of a robin. A fairly erect bearing when still, a flirt of the tail at the start of a run, the body held parallel to the ground during the fairly rapid race, than a head-cocking as the bird manoeuvres to focus an eye on a possible meal in the grass or dead leaves. The robin of the Cottage Country seems to be a quite different bird to the one of the cities. It is much shyer, much wilder, the first to sound an alarm when you enter its retreat, a term that defines its territory wretchedly. For while robins may be found deep in the woods (but, perforce, near a clearing, old road or more or less open watercourse) they prefer the habitations of man. When they use the corners of his buildings as nest platforms, it seems ludicrous to describe the birds as having retreated to a 'retreat.' But where the city robin builds within reach of constant activity, the Cottage Country bird builds its first nest of the season before the summer dwelling is occupied. Then, when the rightful occupants arrive, the robins will take such fright that desertion of nest, eggs and young often follows. This shyness persists all summer and travels with the birds on migration. Flocks of the northern contingent can always be identified as their lack of trust is just as evident in the south as it was in the Cottage Country. This flocking, by the way, will commence in September, one to two dozen birds gathering in some area rich in food. Then the group will move out in a body, picking up similar flocks on the way south.

100

The foundation of a robin's nest is mud, a commodity that takes a beating if not placed under a sheltering eave or bough. Most nests last for one brood but excessive rains will wash all kids and kaboodle to the ground. When building on a house or shed, they usually select a ledge that is close to an overhang, thus improving the protection. But sometimes they select a site that forces an obliging cottage-owner to forgo opening drapes or even a window for the duration. In dry seasons the house owner may not want to open the window anyway, as I have seen robins use fresh horse droppings in lieu of mud during a prolonged drought. In common with most rural dwellings, Tanglewood Cottage has no eavestroughing except over passageways. Where the roof forms a V, water races down a metal trough to fall into a wooden sluice and thence to a fall-off a suitable distance from the house. One pair of robins built in the wooden trough but above the point where water cascaded from the roof during rains. Young and sitting adult were nicely showered, though, as the spray often drifted backward. The veery (204), one of the thrushes, is uniformly reddish brown from head to and including the tail; but since it delights in facing you, you are usually unable to see its upperparts. But, fortunately, it has a breast that is the most lightly marked of all, a helpful field-mark only if you are quite familiar with all five thrushes. The veery sings its name over and over, a series of 101

descending, slurred whistles which, on paper, seem to have been drawn with the assistance of the instrument used by draughtsmen to produce an irregular curve. All our thrushes are inordinately shy, but unlike the robin, they retain the unfriendliness at all times. I found a veery's nest near the cabin late one June. The nest was in a maple sapling, buried in a crotch at eye-level; but so shy was the bird that it would promptly leave if I eyed it directly. The only way I could conduct any study of it was to eye it askance. I can honestly say that I reserved a corner of my eye, not my heart, for that bird. Returning to the cabin at twilight or even later, our car lights have picked up thrushes feeding on the road. With no colour to guide us we were obliged to use the amount of breast-streaking as a criterion and were convinced the birds were veerys. The time of year, always the latter half of August, was consistent with the fall migration period of this species, which is the first thrush to leave us. Swainson's thrush (206) is the one once known as olive-backed thrush, a confusing monicker as the gray-cheek also has a back of that shade. This thrush has a buffy eye-ring, while buffiness permeates the bird fore and aft. Long ago I noted more Swainson's were seen in the immediate vicinity of Tanglewood Cottage than were about the three cottages on Rebecca Lake, but failed to see the reason for some time. The maple woods, 102

so beloved by the thrushes, run right past Tanglewood to the beach. At Rebecca, the cottages sit in hemlock woods, with the maple forest behind and barely touching the cottage clearings. Swainson's, then, seemed inordinately common at Tanglewood. The song of Swainson's reverses that of the veery, curving its phrases upwards. The tail of the hermit thrush (207), the same rusty shade as the back of the veery, is markedly different to its olive-coloured back. This thrush might condescend to give you a three-quarters view that is not particularly helpful as you cannot always determine the colour of the tail. But it does have one trait so unique that its observance obviates the necessity of seeing colour markings. When perched and under observation, the bird will raise its tail sharply, then lower it slowly and gently. The indescribable melody of the hermit is a song that is longer than those of the others. It, though, will contain the family trademark, liquid consonants replete with overtones. Fighting hard to remain a living entity and helped in its cause by the erection of nest boxes (bluebird trails) by sympathetic men, the eastern bluebird (201) appeals to our esthetic senses more than ever. It is not only a very beautiful bird; it has become a rarity. I have stated it is a rather uncommon species here, the nomenclature reflecting its sightings over a long period, including the distant past. Using only present-day observations, it may be classed as rare to very 103

rare. Starlings and house sparrows are the offenders as they, like the bluebird, use cavities for nesting. But the gentle bluebird is no match for the belligerence of the others, who, because they start nesting earlier, pre-empt favoured nesting sites. Even if the bluebirds have an earlier claim to the cavity, either of the others will drive the bluebirds not only away, but will drive them closer to extinction. My observations of bluebirds which, in former times, were frequent when passing through more or less open or cultivated country, ceased abruptly in 1947. Three years before that they had found a hollow fence-post on the farm, the last nest I have seen in the region. A most interesting observation was the year we found a family party of four near Trout Creek, one of the young appearing very like a young or female mountain bluebird. Its breast was quite yellowish. The parents, though, were obviously eastern bluebirds but here you have an example where the colouring of the young points to a very close relationship. The wood thrush (208), our largest of that name, reverses the hermit's colour scheme, the reddish-brown being on the head, not the tail; and, of course, he will consistently refuse to let you see the back of his headpiece. But his underparts give him away, as they are covered with large, round, dark spots, not streaks. The clear, bell-like tones of the wood thrush are given in groups of three notes, each similarly phrased and 104

each in a different key. It is as if he is experimenting with a phrase, trying one, rejecting it, then essaying another, only to discard that one for a third; and the pitch drops a little with each triad. Never, though, does he seem content with his composition, as, after some consideration, he tries the whole once more. The gray-cheeked thrush (205) is a puzzle. It nests in the far north, in the wooded area below the tundra. In North America as a whole it fits nicely between common and rare. As it summers north of and winters south of the Cottage Country, it must pass through here spring and fall, but is recorded very rarely, especially in the vernal season. One obvious conclusion is that in the spring it passes over this region in its haste to get to its nesting grounds, but a similar theory is not tenable for autumn. My recent observations show that at that season it keeps to dark, cool evergreen retreats, a habitat in which it is difficult to see the colour of the cheeks, which must be seen to separate it from Swainson's. It is quite possible that observers have been seeing it but, through their inability to see it clearly, have been calling the birds Swainson's. We have recently concluded, somewhat tentatively, that its back is darker than the other bird's, a factor that may clue you into its correct identity. It does its singing much farther north but may give us a little of its veery-like song, always, however, signing off with a short group of notes that slur upwards. The veery's song never does. 105

Mountain bluebirds (202), of the west, are appearing in Ontario with increasing frequency; and so, too, is the varied thrush (210), also from the west. We may not expect another visit of the northern wheatear (200), a European species, but may see more of Townsend's solitaire (203), which is following mountain bluebirds and varied thrushes into Ontario.

106

Merlin

107

Herring Gull

108

Great Horned Owl

109

Snowy Owl 110

Downv Woodoecker 111

Hairy Woodpecker

112

American Robin (immature) 113

Rose-breasted Grosbeak 114

Common Redpoll 115

18. THE MIMIDS, LARKS, PIPITS, WAXWINGS, SHRIKES AND STARLINGS MIMIDS — Rather Uncommon: Gray Catbird. Rather Rare: Brown Thrasher. Rare: Northern Mockingbird. LARKS — Rare: Horned Lark. PIPITS — Rather Uncommon: Water Pipit. WAXWINGS — Common: Cedar Waxwing. Very Rare: Bohemian Waxwing. SHRIKES — Uncommon: Northern Shrike. Rare: Loggerhead Shrike. STARLINGS — Common: European Starling. The mimid, or mocker family is one of gifted mimics and musicians. It is purely a North American one and as it is somewhat southern in distribution, is therefore much less common here than the more northern thrushes, with whom it has some kinship. They are also distant cousins of the wrens, with some of the family, our brown thrasher for example, exhibiting some wrenlike traits. The five families following mimids enjoy, for the most part, an almost cosmopolitan distribution, but their representation in the New World is meagre, a situation fully reflected in the Cottage Country. While the first gray catbird (211)1 ever saw was in the Toronto region long ago, my first of record was seen at Orchard Grove, south of the middle point of Lake of Bays. I have not seen it 116

here with any regularity since. Yet, one of the operators of our old farm once told me he found catbirds all over the place! Privately, I disagreed with him at the time, but since have given him the benefit of the doubt. He could scarcely have misidentified the birds as the catbird is almost unique. Then, while it may not migrate in July, it does disappear in that month, to reappear more rarely in August. My farmer friend would therefore have had many more opportunities for catbird observation than I. While I have found catbirds in a variety of localities in the Cottage Country, there are two places where I am sure to find them in early summer: the growth along the canal between Fairy and Pen Lakes, and the alders lining the near-tip of Rebecca Lake at Brook's Mill. You'll find them in similar spots. Its song is a musical medley sometimes containing phrases filched from other birds, while its call is a feline maiow, slurred downwards. The brown thrasher (213) so savours his musical ability that he repeats each phrase before carrying on to the next. Like the catbird, he seems to disappear after July. But he is less a recluse than the other in August. Like the catbird, he too is fond of the canal borders but one of his favourite spots used to be near our old pasture when the area, closely cropped by livestock, was dotted with scattered spruces. I have not yet been privileged to see a northern mockingbird (212) in the Cottage Country, but let 117

me assure you I would recognize one if I did, because I have seen hundreds in the deep south, where it replaces the robin as a garden bird. Like the cardinal, the mocker has been inching its way northward, having reached Huntsville in the nineteen-fifties. And also like that bird, its advance is almost always in the winter. Neither is a migratory species, so once it (preferably a pair) is here, it settles down to make the best of our rough winters. The ground-feeding horned lark (173) has a small tuft of black feathers sprouting on each side of the head. The reason for this Mephistophelean effect is, so far as I am aware, quite unknown. Other than flying birds, the highest I have ever seen one has been perched on a wood fence-post, the species favouring rather bare ground that is matched perfectly by its upperparts. In times past, horned larks moved northward as the spring sun removed snow cover from the fields. In the early spring one was pleasantly surprised to find a newly exposed, ploughed field harboured many larks, so effectively camouflaged are they by their earth-coloured backs. Only their shrill hissing call would give them away. Nowadays, the ploughing of road shoulders gives larks bare ground all winter, and while larks may not be with us all through that season, they do appear earlier than was their wont, conveying the thought that spring is as near as the far side of the next corner. Small groups of larks will therefore rise from the shoulders of major highways in very late 118

winter and from sodden fields later on. They return to the fields in fall, the only time of year I have seen them near our place. Their venue then was the sand and gravel road to our cabin, a trap, possibly, for the small seeds on which they subsist. In the English speaking parts of the Old World, our lark, which has lots of relatives there, is called 'shore lark.' In the Cottage Country it finds few shores to its liking, nor is it particularly fond of water margins in the New World. The larklike but unrelated water pipit (214), which also has many relatives in the Old World, is also a bird of the shores, both on migration and in winter. Like the larks, it travels in flocks, sometimes quite large, and sometimes in company with their superficially alike friends. However, they are not fellow travellers so much as dinner companions, as both species revel in the food found in old or new furrows of ploughed fields. And one is just as difficult to see in such places as the other. The horned lark is conspicuous in the spring, but much less so in the fall. The water pipit is the reverse, but as they pass through here regularly in autumn, they must also pay us a visit on their northbound trip. Perhaps the reason we see them rarely then is because, like the gray-cheeked thrushes, they are in too great a hurry to reach their nesting grounds and consequently fly over our region. Our beach at Rebecca Lake is only 300 yards long, yet rarely do I not find at least one pipit 119

on it between mid-September and mid-October. The number is never large, four being the maximum. Their usual nervousness in the presence of humans is manifest, but one October we made friends with a lone visitor. It would seek shelter from October's sometimes raw winds by huddling under a bush or beside an old log on our sandy point. If we approached cautiously we could sit on a companion log while the bird snoozed on the other, once even condescending to pose for a picture. The flight call of the pipit is a high-pitched one usually consisting of four syllables, each sounding like tsweet. It is similar to the horned lark's but is thinner and more sibilant. The sleek and unobtrusive cedar wax wing (216) is one of our most common birds. It is also our most unpredictable. Most always found in flocks, sometimes even nesting in a semi-communal way, they materialize out of the blue or gray, whichever the weather offers at the moment, spend a few contemplative moments in some tree top, then, just as you happen to look the other way, will vanish. Sometimes having found a good crop of some favourite fruit, they may hang around for a few hours, perhaps for a few days. It doesn't matter as they seem to have no timetable anyway. One year you may see your first in January; next year, not until June. But they will be around by August, their nesting time, as their breeding is very late, much later than that of other birds. Vieillot, who first described and named this species for science, gave it the Latin tag cedrorum 120

which, in turn, led to its English name. The supposition was that the species was very dependant on cedar trees for food and for nesting. Authorities have had cedar waxwings nesting nowhere but in cedar ever since. The truth of the matter is that they are partial neither to cedars nor cedar berries although they do like the latter. Of ten nests found near our cabin, four were in maples, two in hemlocks and one each in pine, yellow birch, elm, and their oft-stated favourite, white cedar. The waxwing is a tuneless bird whose almost only note is a high-pitched, whispered seeeeee. The slightly larger, grayer and more northern Bohemian waxwing (215) is even more erratic. Winter irruptions occur from time to time, so it is advisable to give close attention to the undertail coverts of any waxwing. If those feathers are rusty, you can call yourself a lucky one. The northern shrike (217) and loggerhead shrike (218) are passerine birds of prey that lack the lethal talons of hawks and owls. They are relatively uncommon in the whole of Ontario but, in summer, the loggerhead must be numerous someplace in the province as I think I saw more in a few February days in Texas than I have elsewhere in my lifetime. It seemed that all the loggerhead shrikes of North America spend their winters there. Essentially much alike, dressed in the same combination and shades as the mockingbird, they 121

prey on small birds, small mammals and large insects. Unable to hold a victim securely because of the weak passerine rather than a strong raptorial foot, they impale their prey on thorns or the barbs of wire, and then dismember them at leisure. The thorn tree or barbwire fence also serves as a warehouse, lacking only the sawdust floor of an old-time butcher shop. Shrikes are open country birds, being found on or very near the topmost branch of a tree or similar lookout near an open field. Roadside wires along the wider highways, where the width of the right-of-way provides ample cover for mice and small birds, are where I've found the majority of loggerhead shrikes I have seen in the Cottage Country. Both species take flight by dropping low to the ground, then swooping up to the next perch, an action so characteristic that it will identify the bird as a shrike from afar. The time of the year will almost certainly identify the species. Both shrikes have long-continued songs, a mixture of phrases and squeaky notes. I once heard a northern singing, a beautiful, piquant warble, a most unusual sound to be heard at the end of winter. In one of the misbeguided moves so prevalent in mankind, the European starling (219) was introduced into this continent (New York City) in 1890. Lacking the predators that kept it under control in its native lands, it prospered and spread, very slowly at first, then like rabbits in 122

time. It reached Port Sydney in 1926 and now enjoys all parts of the Cottage Country, from the many towns and villages to farm houses, barnyards and cultivated fields, even finding ours, greatly isolated as they are by heavy bush. Its chief faults are its pre-empting nest cavities, thus driving away more pleasing species such as bluebirds and tree swallows; and its gathering in flocks that have no respect for bridge abutments, cenotaphs, new hats or drying laundry. It is chiefly a migrant bird here, the deep snows of winter driving it south every fall. But it returns in spring in flocks, disperses to nest, then unites again, sometimes in incredible numbers, in late July or August. Given permission, knowledgeable persons could rid the district of this pest in a very few years.

Northern Shrike 123

19.THE VIREOS Rather Common: Red-eyed Vireo. Rather Rare: Solitary Vireo, Warbling Vireo, Philadelphia Vireo. Occasional: Yellow-throated Vireo. Vireos are warbler-like birds with a more deliberate manner than those energetic bundles of feathers. The more leisurely feeding habits usually will direct one onto the correct family, even when little else can be seen. If a close-up is obtained, the slightly hooked bill of vireos will clinch matters. Ordinarily, vireos range high in the treetops, producing such birding discomforts as strained necks and sore back muscles. But, for reasons known only to the birds themselves, an occasional one will be found at eye-level, giving an observer an unaccustomed, sometimes even top-side view. Familiarity with their characteristic songs will lead to the knowledge that an unseen but otherwise identifiable vireo is in the crown of some deciduous giant. Except for the solitary vireo, members of the family are among the last to arrive in the spring, suggesting that, like the warblers, they originated in the tropics. Then they upend that theory by remaining here into early October and by nesting so late (possibly a second brood) that parents may be seen feeding young in late September, when most warblers and other soft-bills will have long departed.

124

Nests of the red-eyed vireo (224) are one of the easiest to find. Very early one July much activity about Tanglewood Cottage fostered the suspicion that a number of nests were about. In less than a half hour the suspicion was confirmed. I had found five, one a house wren's, the others, two each of least flycatcher and red-eyed vireo. The pendant basket of one of the latter was fifteen feet above ground, hanging from v-shaped branches of a hemlock and quite unattainable without the help of a 'cherry-picker.' The other was ten feet up in a yellow birch that stood just off the corner of the ice-house, easily reached from a strategically placed step-ladder. Then followed a trying time standing on one rung, my only movement involuntary but quite necessary breathing. But I was rewarded with the appearance of the adults, each one feeding the young in turn an arm'slength from my face. One parent came even closer as it waited for a little one to void excrement after having been given a beakful of mashed insect. Another year I found a nest in a maple by our cabin. This one, only five feet from the ground, was a proverbial cinch to examine. The four young were nicely screened from the world and just as nicely shaded by the leaves of a larger branch overhanging it. Still another nest was somewhat higher and could have been examined inside and out had I dared pull the top of the maple sapling down. The possibility that the eggs might roll out led me to leave it alone, much to the relief of the two parents who regarded me most pessimistically. 125

Many birds are recognized because of the ease with which English phrases can be adapted to the syllables of their songs, the common yellowthroat being a good example. But the red-eyed vireo can be identified by its untiring loquacity. All day, nay, all summer he sings, questioning all within hearing but never waiting for an answer. He is often called 'preacherbird,' his two-, three-, and four-note syllabled phrases sounding like the delivery of an evangelist in full diatribe. "You see it? You know it? Did you do it?" he demands, a rising inflection putting all his speech before question marks. The solitary vireo (220) has, in my opinion, no more tendencies to the life of a hermit than any other member of this exclusively American family. Its one-time but long discarded name of blue-headed vireo is far more descriptive. Just as the hermit thrush shames its relatives with its disdain for colder weather, so does the solitary shame his, for he is a non-comformist, arriving early and departing later than the others. It seems to differ in other respects, too. A pair I found nesting near Sunset Cabin was the antithesis of all nesting red-eyed vireos I have seen. In order to find the nest I had to resort to, first, sitting in a garden chair some distance away. When that gambit proved fruitless, I hid behind a building, taking occasional peeks at the birds, which seemed to spend most of their time scolding me for being a Peeping Tom. The nest, which I eventually found, was in a slender yellow birch, 126

six feet from the trunk and eight feet above ground. Inviting a broken neck, I examined it from a rickety scaffold, finding it contained three young so close to being ready to brave the outside world that one promptly flew out. It was caught, photographed in the hands of a cousin, and then returned to the nest. The next day I found the nest deserted, the three young dead. Others have found this species to be as indifferent to humans about the nest as red-eyes, a fact with which I cannot concur. Conceivably, my investigation led to the adults desertion, but I think a steady, allnight rain was the chief factor. This, incidentally, was only the second nest to have been found in the whole of Ontario. The song of the solitary consists of groups of two to four emphatic notes somehow slurred at the same time. Like the red-eye, he is on the podium from May through September. You may overlook the warbling vireo (222) thinking the bird you hear is a purple finch in full song. There is a resemblance in the two songs but only in the rambling nature of the notes. But there is one big difference that would separate their music even if they sang identical melodies. The vireo sings soprano, the other, contralto. The warbling vireo is typically vireonine, arriving late in spring and nesting into September. I found one pair feeding a young bird when the middle of September was only four days away. I have little praise for the Philadelphia vireo (223), that spends almost all its life far from that 127

city. It is so confoundingly hard to identify, looking, as it does, like a hybrid red-eyed/warbling. Like all the others, it occasionally descends to near ground level where, thanks to its leisurely actions, one can study it without haste. One such eye-level crossing is that portion of our access road which runs past a little grassy swale. The road there is lined with alders and shrubby willows and, a little farther on, stands a grove of poplar, all prerequisites to its nesting surroundings in its usual home farther north. I never pass that spot without expecting to see still another Philadelphia, so many times have I found one there. Its song is a higher pitched version of the red-eye's, but less emphatic and more a series of well-considered statements than questions. The yellow-throated vireo (221), with its yellow spectacles (the solitary's eye-glasses are white) is, in my opinion, the most beautiful of our five. Accordingly, it is our rarest! Of late years it seems to have been pioneering here, as I have now seen it twice at Rebecca Lake while Dr. Ross James of Ontario's Museum, has been finding it at Dwight, not so far away as vireos fly. The yellow-throat sings the red-eye's song in a somewhat lazy contralto (not soprano) voice, but as its distribution is more southern, you will not get much opportunity to compare the two in the Cottage Country.

128

20. THE WOOD WARBLERS Note: For the meaning of the number following each name, see the notes at the end of this chapter. Common: Yellow-rumped Warbler [1], American Redstart [3], Common Yellowthroat [4]. Rather Common: Nashville Warbler [3], Chestnut-sided Warbler [1], Magnolia Warbler [1], Black-throated Blue Warbler [1], Blackthroated Green Warbler [1], Blackburnian Warbler [1], Black-and-white Warbler [3], Ovenbird [4]. Rather Uncommon: Northern Waterthrush [4], Canada Warbler [3]. Uncommon: Northern Parula [3], Cape May Warbler [2], Palm Warbler [2], Blackpoll Warbler [2], Mourning Warbler [4], Wilson's Warbler [3]. Rather Rare: Tennessee Warbler [3], Orangecrowned Warbler [3], Yellow Warbler [1], Baybreasted Warbler [2]. Rare: Golden-winged Warbler [3], Pine Warbler [1]. Very Rare: Prairie Warbler [2]. Occasional: Cerulean Warbler [2], Prothonotary Warbler [3], Connecticut Warbler [4], Hooded Warbler [3], Yellow-breasted Chat [4]. Accidental: Blue-winged Warbler [3], Kirtland's Warbler [2], Kentucky Warbler [4]. One of the most fascinating families of North American birds is that of the wood warblers. It is exclusively American, comprised chiefly of very colourful, hyperactive birds, most of them smaller than a house sparrow. Their appeal both to orni129

thologists and "listers" is the number of species, warblers being a large component of any list except one conducted in the north in winter. Many are strikingly coloured and a joy to view through binoculars, all well named "fugitives from the tropics." They challenge identification in the spring as they flock north more or less in a body, their active forms playing hide-and-seek in the developing foliage. In fall the mood of the birder changes to despair. Most of the colourful ones have shed their spring beauty for an almost nondescript garb that seems to be worn by every bird in the flock, no matter how mixed it may be. Some of the species help identification in spring by singing or calling characteristic notes; but their voices, for the most part, are weak and thin, of use only to those with keen hearing or mercifully close to the singer. Thirty-five species have been recorded from the Cottage Country, an ample tribute to the forested region most of these birds prefer. To facilitate treatment, I have given them in four chapters, as follows: [I] The Nesting Dendroicas. These are part of a large genus (Dendroica), one characteristic being white bars in the wing and white patches on the tail corners. [II] The Transient Dendroicas. A few nest in the northern part of the Cottage Country but all are chiefly if not entirely transient in this region. [III] Other Tree-top Warblers, some of which have wing-bars and tail-marks.

130

[IV] Ground Warblers, none of which have wing-bars. In the list at the beginning, the number following each name is that of the chapter in which it is discussed.

I THE NESTING DENDROICAS If yours is an antiquated bird book, you will find our most common member of the wood warbler family described under the name of "Myrtle Warbler." A few years ago, the American Ornithologists' Union decided to change the name to the present one of yellow-rumped warbler (236) when it became evident that the eastern Myrtle and the western Audubon warblers, both very similar in appearance, were living indiscreetly where their ranges met in the west. So, as hybridism betokens a conspecific status, the two species were lumped as one, each becoming subspecies of the yellow-rumped warbler. Nevertheless, Audubon's warbler just may have reached the Cottage Country. Late one August we had almost no daytime. Heavy clouds of furious black brushed the tree tops all day, the resultant penetration by the branches spilling their contents on us from before breakfast until near the dinner hour. At seven in the evening my muscles, cramped because of the day's inactivity, demanded vigorous movement, so I strolled along the beach, the only walk free of puddles and clear of still-dripping trees. 131

While still in front of our cottage I found a warbler that I took for a young yellow-rump. It was trying to pick up a meal from insects flying about the low growth. On my return I took another look at it, becoming more and more excited because of the large amount of white in the tail. Thinking it might be worthwhile to capture it on film, I took movies of it, all unsuccessful due to the poor light, which had been no greater than that of a moonlit night all day. In the developed print very little of bird form could be seen but two shining beacons flitting about the screen like amorous fireflies showed where the bird was. The tail-patches were as bright as, well, not headlights but, more appropriately, the back-up lights of a car. Subsequently I found an Alan Brook's painting of a family of Audubon's warblers. The young bird showed much white on the tail, which is as it should be, as the western form has four or five white spots on the outside tail-feathers, the eastern only two or three. The Audubon's has reached Ontario but as the juvenile plumage is worn just a short time, I cannot imagine a bird in that early stage of development reaching even western Ontario, let alone the Cottage Country. In August of another year, two young birds, definitely Myrtles, appeared. Presumably, they hatched in a nest in one of our many hemlocks and in their adolescence took a great liking to the area about the cabin. One was always recognizable because of an abbreviated tail and was, appropriately, called "Bob." The other, named 132

"Myrt," kept to the long grass at both front and back of the cabin. This was certainly not yellowrump habit, but neither was the beach, "Bob's" hangout. Myrt allowed me to approach quite closely, while Bob delighted in leading me along the shore. If I ascended to the upper level to use the trail there, Bob would vanish, presumably taking to the trees by the path, although I never saw him in the hemlock branches there. As soon as I returned to the sand, Bob would reappear. He would even take his ease on a stone at the edge of the patio, eyeing me contemplatively as if considering editing the story I was writing. The feeding habits of Myrt and Bob showed versatility in the species; and more such indiscrimination was seen one September when I found members of a flock alighting on lily pads to glean insects from their surface. Bob made the species a shorebird; this particular flock was approaching water bird status. The myrtle, to use the old and favoured name, will be found to be the hub of flocks of mixed species that gather in late summer. On one occasion such a flock that worked past me near Peeler's Lake contained twenty-one species. The yellow-rump has a characteristic call-note, a loud, harsh tchip; but the song is less distinctive. When a male chestnut-sided warbler (232) is in what is termed 'high' plumage, the brilliancy of the yellow crown-patch and the rich chestnut of the sides make it one of our most attractive warblers. It ranges low for a Dendroica, nesting in 133

bushes fairly close to the ground, and is therefore easily found and seen. It is frequently duped by the cowbird and as the young of that species is much larger than its foster parent, just who is feeding whom seems questionable. Near South Portage I watched a male chestnut-side feed a young cowbird, the warbler so far down the throat of the other that I felt an uncontrollable swallow on the part of the infant would mean the end of the warbler. Yet, while the warbler accepts such (to it) monstrosities, one bird would not tolerate a yellowrump in the same dead tree that contained one of its legitimate young. Its song is an easily remembered / wish to see Miss Beecher. My first meeting with a magnolia warbler (233) was many years ago, when I was a birder of only three months' standing. The bird, a male, was in one of the spruce trees that dotted the rear of our old pasture and made a profound impression on me. The blue of the top of the head and the yellow underparts heavily scored with contrasting black led me to write in my journal that it was one of the prettiest birds I had ever seen. Its song suggests that of a yellow warbler, a weeta weeta witch-chew. The black-throated blue warbler (235) comes close to being a ground species. I found my first the same day I saw my first Magnolia, but in a far different location. It was flirting around the 134

mountain maple understory in a small ravine crossed by an old log bridge, long since collapsed. That spot is typical black-throated blue habitat, low growth in a somewhat damp ground. The warbler's song, a languorous zur zur zur zreeee, suggests time, to it, can stand still indefinitely. Neither is it in any hurry to move south in fall, often delaying its departure until October. One morning, while near the edge of deep woods near North Portage, I twice saw a female black-throated green warbler (237) gather food and dispose of it out of my sight. It took but a short search to find a youngster squatting on a branch within a foot of the ground. With my vintage camera, I snapped it there, then, sitting on a fallen log, transferred the kid to my knee, where I snapped it again. An SRL camera, the invention of which was a long way off, would have been of much value as my photographic equipment at that time did not permit aperture adjustment. As a result of the gloom in the woods, I got two nice shots of a blur. When this little fellow grew up and providing he really was a male (kid brothers and sisters look alike), he would sing something like zee-zee-zee-zoo-zee. First meetings make the greatest impressions, and so it was with the blackburnian warbler (238) just as it was with the preceding five species. When I spent most of May of 1933 at Tanglewood Cottage, the two Reed pocket bird guides were unaccountably missing; but I had no need for 135

them or any other to identify the fiery-fronted blackburnian I saw early in the month. This bird sings several well-spaced zios ending with a thin, wiry one that is pitched so high that those with a moderate hearing loss may not be able to hear it. If you know what a warbler looks like in general, and if you can separate colours truly, you will easily distinguish the yellow warbler (231). The only other bird predominately yellow is the goldfinch, but his is a hard, glittering shade. The warbler is a warm, lemon tone, more in keeping with the summer sun. The yellow is found where willows and alders get the soles of their feet wet. The edges of the Fairy Lake—Pen Lake canal and the shoreline near Brook's Mill are favourite and typical spots. Its song is loud for a warbler and may be phrased sweet, sweet, sweet, I'm so sweet, the sweets all on one pitch, the other lower. As the yellow warbler is well named for its colouring, so is the pine warbler (240) for its habitat predilection. Except on migration rarely will it be found away from a pine tree. One year, when I realized I had seen none all spring, and anxious to put it on my year's list, I made a special trip to the grove of towering white pines that is back of Bella Lake's fine sandy beach. And found my missing species almost at once. It has another peculiarity. Instead of the energetic, almost frenetic flitting of most warblers, it creeps about the branches and trunks of trees and uses the same mode of progress when it forages on the ground. 136

Even then it will likely be near a pine tree. It is more or less nondescript in appearance and in song. The latter is merely a reiterated note on a high pitch, something like a chipping sparrow's but sharp and clear.

II THE TRANSIENT DENDROICAS I can find no outstanding observation of the Cape May Warbler (234) in my notes other than that I have consistently stressed its attractive, tiger-like colouring. One expects it to sound off like the dreaded maneater of Bengal. It is one of my favourite warblers but is regrettably more elusive than most of those in the preceding chapter. Its song is typical of the family, thin and high pitched, a sibilant tzeet, zeet, zeet, zeet, zeet, zeet, zeet, zeet, zeet. Not only is it far from the roar of a tiger, it is not even remotely feline. Although the names given to some of our warblers are very pertinent and descriptive, many are ludicrous, with the Tennessee, Nashville, and Connecticut prime examples. The palm warbler (243) can be included as, even in Florida, which it regularly traverses on migration, it shows no great affection for those trees. And, of course, the scarcity of palms to the north of us, in that part of Canada where this bird summers, is well known, even to those unversed in botany. It 137

arrives rather late in spring and is habitually so passing through in autumn. Its song is not often heard as it is not a particularly loud one. Anyway, as the birds will not be on territory when they are here in spring, they will be relatively silent. The series of six or seven notes, all on one high pitch, gives little clue to the bird's identity but be alert for the tail movement. Writers are fond of stating it wags its tail, implying a sideways movement like that of a dog; but the bird's appendage moves up and down, not side to side, and is in almost perpetual motion. At times, though, the movement is so gentle that it may not be fully apparent. My notes of more than fifty years contain only two that I question, (although others may doubt a few more). On the 85th day of my birding life I saw what I recorded as a blackpoll warbler (245), a species easily distinguished when in spring plumage. Unfortunately, I was on Sunset Farm walking over a trail close to the shore of Rebecca Lake at the time; and as the blackpoll is a bird of the far north and northwest, even unto Alaska, quitting this part of Ontario by the end of May, my observation may be regarded with considerable scepticism. Ten years later, when I rewrote my notes into their present form, I was tempted to throw out that record; but I retained it because the memory of that bird persisted and nowhere in my quite clear recollections could I see the somewhat similar black-and-white warbler, a bird with which I 138

had become quite familiar. Moreover, the bird was not creeping, a habit prevalent in the blackand-white. To muddy the waters further, I recorded another on almost the same day of 1934, this one also in a hemlock but 300 yards from where I had seen the other. By that time I knew the blackand-white quite well. The defence rests to await the summation of the court. This species is difficult to name in the autumn, being distressingly similar to the fall bay-breast. If you just remember that the colour of the feet of the blackpoll is buffy (not black, like the crown) and that the legs of the bay-breast are black (not buffy like the patch on the neck of the spring male) you will have only one other problem: To get close enough to see those features. The blackpoll's song is an emphatic string of zees, loudest in the middle portion. The bay-breasted warbler (244) synchronizes its migratory movements with most of its relatives', but one bird, its black feet clearly seen, was still near our cabin after the middle of September. This species is a rare nester in Algonquin Park, so that late spring and early fall observations are not unusual in other parts of the Cottage Country. Its tee-ta, tee-ta, tee-ta, tee, tee, tee, is high pitched but fairly distinctive. The attractively marked prairie warbler (242) is a bird of the Florida prairies, not those of the midwest. It is further distinguished in that its 139

summer range in Ontario is restricted to the country close to Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. Residents in that area are the only Cottage Country people apt to see it. Its song is of from one to four low, sibilant notes that are followed by as many as ten ascending ones sounding as though the bird were climbing stairs to the sky. If he speeded them up a bit we'd have him on an escalator. The pretty, sky-blue cerulean warbler (246), with its narrow breast-band of the same colour, is a rare spring visitor to the province itself and not to be expected this far north. To aid further in identification, on the off chance that it repeats its unusual occurrence here, its song is an insect-like zee, zee, zee, zee, zee followed by a higher trill. The southern yellow-throated warbler (239) is being seen with increasing frequency in Ontario. This may be more because a greater number of observers have learnt how to distinguish it from a blackburnian. Its yellow front is a larger patch than that of a female blackburnian, containing no suggestion of orange. Neither is there an orange or yellow stripe on the crown, while the back is unstreaked. Your best albeit a faint chance to see a Kirtland's warbler (241) here is to haunt a jackpine plantation. This species breeds and winters in very restricted areas, the young jackpine forests of Michigan in summer and the 140

Bahamas in winter. It has been found in similar growth on the extreme east edge of the Cottage Country.

Ill OTHER TREE WARBLERS The male American redstart (248) is startlingly red in places. And the flamelike flashes from wing and tail contrast sharply with the jet black that is elsewhere. The female is much the same in pattern but favours salmon to red and olive to black. Both show off wing and tail patches at every opportune moment and they occur frequently as the birds are not gleaners but very active flycatchers, always darting out for a passing bug. At one time the redstart was numerous in the vicinity of our Rebecca Lake cabins but as slashing and second-growth developed into more respectable trees the local population dropped off. Much the same happened at Springsyde. The area along the railroad right-of-way between North and South Portage was also good for redstarts at one time. It was there that I almost stepped on a young one that was sheltering between ties. I was soundly berated by the parents, whose vilification of sharp chacks followed me as I walked unsteadily over the ties and out of range. In retrospect, perhaps the errant young bird was the one in disfavour. Another redstart disclosed its nest by casting its shadow on my typewriter! As the amount of shading suggested a most unlikely eagle I left the 141

verandah to investigate and, almost walking into it, found a nest in a crotch of a small maple off the corner of the piazza. It was too high up to reach, even with the help of a rickety stepladder, but I stayed below long enough to see the owner of the shadow, no eagle but an unconcerned female redstart, reappear to feed her young. Sometimes birds and nests are thrust upon you. The beauty of the redstart is confined to its feathers as, musically, it is a washout. Its song ends in a more or less characteristic wheezy note that is slurred downward. This is preceded by a series of high, thin notes. The Nashville warbler (229) is a typical member of the genus that has sharp, pointed bills. It may be found high in trees but is usually at a comfortable eye-level. One day in late May I must have been very close to the nest of one as it startled me by flying up from the rear, almost clipping my ear as it flew by, to land on the ground ahead. Then, after having demonstrated that its powers of flight were undiminished, it had the audacity to try to delude me into thinking it had a broken wing and therefore lead me away. It is not a particularly active warbler that sings in two parts, the first, a see-bit, see-bit, then a reiterated note like the song of a chipping sparrow. Its one-time name of 'black-and-white creeper' describes the black-and-white warbler (247) almost completely. It has no other colouring but those two neutral shades, while it creeps about 142

the limbs of the larger trees, going up like a brown creeper, down like a nuthatch and sideways like a black-and-white warbler. Exactly one year apart, I almost stepped on two nests in widely separated parts of Sunset Farm. The first was partly sheltered by an old log, the second was in the hoof-print of a moose. The owner of the second nest, and of the six eggs it contained, did well histrionically, but when it realized I was not to be taken in by its broken-wing sham (I was setting up my camera anyway), took to the serious study of a limb of maple. The first nest contained only four eggs. Its song, of high, thin notes, has a seesaw rhythm, a wee-see alternating between high and low notes, the second one the lower. I had an easy time finding the two nests of the black-and-white but a Canada warbler (258) was much more disobliging. When I found the bird in a small bush by the so-called hayfield back of Tanglewood Cottage, it was holding some food for young hidden somewhere nearby. I quickly found a comfortable seat and prepared to wait and watch. But while I squatted in one place the bird rested on just about every twig and branch sported by the shrub. Then, just as I was thinking I was in for a really agonizing wait, it ate the food itself. The Canada, known by its characteristic necklace of vertical streaks, gives a machine-gun burst like chip, chupety swee-ditchety.

143

The northern parula (230) is garbed in a riot of colours: Bluish, greenish, yellow, white and a breast-band of two shades of reddish brown. I had seen it only infrequently in northeast Muskoka so was on the pink side of being tickled when I found one near Distress Dam. The next year, when the calendar was displaying August 13, I realized I had seen none anywhere, so returned to Distress Dam—and found another. One morning in late July, one of those mixed flocks materialized, the twelve species it contained ranging from woodpeckers through chickadees to sparrows and warblers, including a male parula. That one modelled his Joseph's coat from a low limb of a hemlock, giving me the best and closest view I ever had. Its rising, buzzy trill ends in an abrupt drop. The parula, whose name translates as 'little tit' has no 'warbler' in the whole as it would then be a confusing 'little tit warbler.' In action it does resemble a chickadee, which is a member of the tit or titmouse family. I have no recollection of the first Wilson's warbler (257) I saw in this region, but do recall the site quite clearly. Present-day residents, however, may be confused when I describe a clearing, occupied by two or three log buildings including a stable that constituted a lumber camp on the north side of Kells' Bay of Rebecca Lake, just a couple of hundred yards west of Brook's Mill. The latter was not even on the drawing board then, while boring beetles have since reduced the 144

lumber camp to something like sawdust. Wilson's warbler summers to the north of us but passes through regularly on migration. The blackcapped male suggests it is either a disgraced dignitary of the Vatican or is on the way to the synagogue. Its song is a somewhat insectlike rapid chatter, falling off at the end in two or three notes. Tennessee warblers (227) are difficult to identify because, male or female, they look so much like vireos. But the Tennessee and others of this genus (Nashville, orange-crown, golden-wing, and blue-wing) have pointed, rather thin bills that are long for a warbler. Its song is a teetsee, teetsee, teetsee, teetsee, ending in a reiterated note. It may rise and then fall in volume or its loudness may increase only toward the end. The orange-crowned warbler (228), that cannot be told by its orange crown patch because the mark is usually concealed like the red patches of Nashville warblers and ruby-crowned kinglets, nests to the north and west of us. You will therefore be lucky to catch a singing male here. The species is so nondescript that you will be a good observer if you identify one in spring and a near expert if you name one correctly in fall. Look for blurred streaks on the breast. The bird helps you by keeping to the tops of the smaller trees, or just a little above the top of your head. The southern golden-winged warbler (226) seems intent right now on colonizing the southern 145

part of the Cottage Country. Like the parula, it is titlike in its actions, while its zee-zee-zee-zee song, sounding like the note of an insect, begins with a p-s-s-s-t as if approaching you with some contraband. Someone was lucky enough to find the beautiful prothonotary warbler (249) here, so you may be the next to see this golden swamp gem in the Cottage Country. Equally exciting, both as to find and in its colour arrangement, is the hooded warbler (256). It sings che-ree, che-ree, che-di-dee, loudly and emphatically. This bird has always impressed me by its greenness. The blue-winged warbler (225) is so closely related to the golden-wing that cross-breeding is a frequent occurrence, resulting in two types of hybrids. However, as both species are rare here, I doubt if it would be worth your while to bone up on the variations. The blue-wing is a deep breather, its song being an asthmatic beee-bzz as it first inhales, then breathes out its music.

IV THE GROUND WARBLERS The witchety, witchety, witch of the common yellowthroat (255) had beguiled me long before I began bird study, but never did I see the bewitching singer until my 84th day of birding. A blackmasked male was in a leafy shrub on Buck Island 146

of Rebecca Lake. That same summer I found an agitated twosome back of where Brook's Mill now stands. They were obviously nesting, so I lay prone on the ground, nose to beak with the pair, but while the intimacy was refreshing, I failed to uncover their secret. But I did learn a few choice phrases of yellowthroat language. While my car and I have been involved in a few bird fatalities, I was quite unaware of one until, during a stop in Huntsville, my wife found the remains of a yellowthroat that had been struck by and carried in the front of the car. The scene of the accident, which I obviously and illegally left, could have been any place in southern Ontario and must have been up to three months before because the bird was far from appetizing. The ovenbird (250), thrushlike in appearance and habitat, is another of the several birds known by its song. You may have heard it calling from the moist woods behind your cottage. It is the frantic cry of a strong-voiced young student who has lost his mentor. Teacher, teacher, TEA CHER, TEACHER, he shouts, each "teacher" increasing in volume as his appeal goes unanswered. Sometimes the syllables seem reversed, and while the second is the one usually accented, the emphasis is sometimes placed on the initial one. Or so it seems to me. The bird gets its name from the shape of its nest, a domed affair with an opening on one side. It is placed on the ground, usually in woods 147

where an understory of mountain maple trips the unwary. One, however, elected to build in bunchberry in front of our cabin, thereby inviting a close study into the domestic affairs of ovenbirds. The ovenbird and its relative, the waterthrush, are walkers, not hoppers. An ovenbird walking along a mossy log is a treat to see. One almost expects a backward somersault and a perfect landing on the balance beam in emulation of Nadia Comaneci. To see a northern waterthrush (251) all that is required of you is to find a quiet lakeshore where the woods are separated from the water by a little stoney bank, then paddle slowly and silently close to shore. Because of the bird's streaked underparts you may take it for the song sparrows that sometimes feed there, but the waterthrush has a habit found in few birds. Its dainty walk is punctuated by almost perpetual teetering, very much like the bobbing of the spotted sandpiper. As both frequent much the same habitat, someone once theorized that the bobbing is in imitation of the wavelets breaking along shore, the whole intending to induce concealment. The theory breaks down when we find both birds teetering far from water, or, as you may find a waterthrush, perched in a tree. Its song rings out above the sound of waves, falling in pitch and volume at the close. It seems to me that I have yet to see a mourning warbler (254) exhibiting a placid demeanor. One female back of Tanglewood 148

Cottage was so concerned I went searching for a nest the next day, failing to find even the bird. Another, near South Portage, had apparently become so incensed by my presence that it finished up sparring with a male yellowthroat. A third, a hooded male this time, was found by our main gate by son Peter. It was my wife who noticed it was carrying a green 'inchworm' and it was I who followed it to a nearby copse only to lose both bird and worm, not that I wanted the latter particularly, but its nest or young would have been an interesting and unique find. The song of the mourning warbler is a lowpitched cheery, cheery, chorry, chorry. Peter, who was enjoying a late September sun that bathed the lawn at the back of the cabin, called me from the back porch where I was just finishing shaving. His signs said there was a small bird in the rose bed. I hurried out, trying to staunch the flow of blood started by a slip of my razor. I took one look at the bird through my binoculars that Pete had in readiness, extracted my bird guide from the nearby car, opened it to the ground warblers, pointed to a female mourning, and hurried back inside before I bled to death. Then, while fumbling trying to prepare a pad, I found Pete making a circle about his eye. That could only mean an eye-ring and eye-ring could only mean a Connecticut warbler (253). So, ignoring the fact that I might collapse from loss of blood at any moment, I hurried out again. This time I was trying to follow a very active bird 149

that persisted in feeding in the cover of rose bushes and tufts of grass, trying to keep my insecure bandage in place, and trying to keep blood from my binoculars. But I finally got the bird in the open to see that it did, indeed, have an eye-ring. Then followed a session of trying to find the bird in the view finder of my camera while endeavouring to keep that instrument free of gore. The bird was very tame and seemed half-starved, feeding voraciously. Diane, Pete's wife, found the reason for the ravenous behaviour when, at three feet, she saw its lower mandible was twisted to cross over the upper. With all its activity, it was doubtless faring not so very well. It is more a bird of midwestern Canada and a real find in the Cottage Country. I would say it was worth a spell in hospital if I had succumbed from loss of blood. Fortunately, a transfusion proved unnecessary. The yellow-breasted chat (259) is a large, wellnamed and easily identified warbler. Its song is far off the warbler sound track, being a jumble of clucks and whistles. It is a southern bird whose occurrence here may never be repeated. The Kentucky warbler (252), another southerner, is included here on the basis of a bird I saw near Allensville one August day. In part, the species frequents much the same cover as the yellowthroat, which was what I at first took it to be. It dropped back to the rank growth rather quickly, yet I was left with the impression that while the 150

bird had a black mask of sorts, it was an incomplete one, and further, that it seemed to show spectacles. Only after considerable debate did I allow my notes to stand. While May sees southern softbills carried into Ontario on the waves of migrating warblers, this was an August sighting and, further, if correct, was the most northern for Ontario. Its song (my bird was silent) is a loud, whistled tur-dle repeated several times.

151

21. THE TANAGERS AND CARDINAL GROSBEAKS TANAGERS — Rather Common: Scarlet Tanager. Occasional: Western Tanager. CARDINAL GROSBEAKS — Rather Common: Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Uncommon: Indigo Bunting. Rare: Northern Cardinal. Occasional: Dickcissel. Accidental: Blue Grosbeak. For a good many years the tanagers were recognized as a separate family of birds, although their close relationship to the finch-grosbeakbunting family was never questioned. Recent views are that both tanagers and troupials, along with the cardinal grosbeaks, are but subfamilies in the large bunting family, one that, in the Americas, contains many species of intense colouring. The decision to lump such groups enables me to include the tanagers and cardinals in one chapter, as they now rank equally. No bird in the Cottage Country, indeed, in the whole of North America, rivals the male scarlet tanager (260) when in its nuptial plumage. Its head and body of deep scarlet is gorgeously set off by jet black wings and tail, a most beautiful colour combination of striking contrast. The female is similarly patterned but in the more subdued shades of greenish-yellow above and yellow below, with wings of dark gray. About August 1, the resplendent male begins a leisurely change to his autumnal attire. First, the 152

scarlet will seem to have lost its freshness; in some birds the tone is quite orange for a brief period. But most seem to retain feathers of scarlet that are gradually replaced by the intrusion of yellowgreen until only a thin strip of red runs down the front. When that disappears, the bird will be yellowish-green with black wings and tail. I have seen a male without red as early as August 1, and one with a red streak still below as late as September 13. And on August 18 found one showing no change whatsoever. As the tanager family is a tropical one, we would expect our representative to arrive in late May. He shows some adaptability to our climate by appearing a little later than that, averaging to show up about the middle of that month. Then his tropical origin is apparent when he leaves, with other tender species, about September 1. On October 2 of one year, we found up to two inches of wet snow on the fields and bush from Gravenhurst north. At our half-way point on Muskoka Road 8 we saw a bird fly across the road to disappear in a snow-covered maple. The branches shook from time to time as by a heavy bird moving about, but our bird had not seemed so large as to cause such a commotion. We stopped and waited. In time it offered several tantalizing views. On one occasion it seemed to be black-backed (possibly the result of shadow) and on another evoked a "Philadelphia vireo" from me. Then it came right out to center stage. A male scarlet tanager in fall dress, the first tanager of any kind, I would venture, to experience the 153

thrill of tramping through snow. If you should hear a robin singing with an apparent sore throat, you will have heard a scarlet tanager. Its call is a characteristic chip-churr. The western tanager (261) is to the west as the scarlet is to the east; but the western bird visits the east more often than the other does the west. The rosy-faced male is quite distinctive, his mate mirroring the female scarlet except that she has wingbars. It was such a bird I saw by our road late one August and that became the topic of one of my regular columns in the Huntsville "Forester." Subsequently, I heard from Anne E. Pugsley that a family of westerns had been raised at Menominee Lake that year. She saw two young with adults exactly a week before I saw my bird, which conceivably could have been one of the young now divorced from its parents. The adult male of her group still had some red on the crown, forehead and chin. The western has the same slow, deliberate movements of the scarlet. For want of a better name, I have used "cardinal grosbeak" for the second subfamily treated herein. It includes other American cardinals just as red as ours, but also includes birds with intensely blue feathering as well as birds without the oversize bills of cardinals and grosbeaks. The five species that have been found in the Cottage Country range from ground level to the tree tops. Most are accomplished singers. 154

The rose-breasted grosbeak (263) is a real grossbill, the male having an oversize beak of pseudo-ivory; the female's is just as large but not so white. It is a bird of our hardwood forests, happiest when, from the height of a lofty maple, it can look down upon a potato patch. When our farm was a viable concern, the potato field was between the maple bush and the lake, and there I would regularly find rose-breasts every July. The reason is that potato beetles are to the rose-breast as lobsters are to the human gourmet. It is rather catholic in its tastes, however, as I have twice found rose-breasts in low growth at the edge of the Canal marshes. The rose-breast does not travel in flocks like the evening and pine grosbeaks. In my experience, its chief travelling companion, in spring at least, is the scarlet tanager. Find your first of the year in May and you'll shortly see the other. Family groups travel together for a while, as may be expected. But when the incubation duties of the female drive the males into a period of solitude, ennui may force the lonely one to seek company. That's the only reason I can imagine for my twice finding males using the same supermarket, to leave that tree with a full shopping basket and take the groceries home to mom, whose absorption with the kids-to-be relieved her of the vicissitudes of shopping. The male is a black-and-white bird, strikingly so in flight. In certain angles very little of the beautiful rose triangle on the breast can be seen; but one July a rose breast gave me an unparal155

leled sight of its trademark. It was emulating cedar waxwings, flying over a beaver pond and meadow to catch swarming insects. Its heavy body and comparatively short, rounded wings produced a flight manner in marked contrast to the more graceful one of the waxwing; (and, of course, neither comes close to the dazzling skill of the barn swallow). Most of such flights were in my direction so that, when the bird was fluttering overhead, it seemed to have been involved in a horrible accident, with blood streaming down its throat and over its breast to its belly. With a wound like that I expected insects to go in the bill and pass right out the hole in the throat. It was under this species that I made note of finding a mixed flock of twelve kinds of birds at the cabin. Such gatherings are not unusual and are something like a neighbourhood farewell party before breaking up and heading for southern parts for the winter. This one, though, was on July 30, well in advance of such festivities. Later I wondered if the birds were stocking up on groceries because of an impending storm, something of which they may have been aware but which was unknown to us until it broke an hour later. The thin pink call-note gives no indication that its song is a rich, robin-like warble, but shorter. The male indigo bunting (265) is our real bluebird, a bird of deep indigo, deeper still on wings and tail. The whole bird may, in many lights, appear jet black. Its favourite perch seems to be the uppermost twig of a tall tree or a utility wire 156

well away from its supporting poles. My wife and I have become adept at finding and naming indigo buntings seen on such perches, even if our car is travelling at 100 k/h. You will be surprised at how many you will see along Highway 11 between Huntsville and Gravenhurst. The first I ever saw in the Cottage Country was away back in 1937. The plain, brownish sparrowlike bird that was frequenting slashings and raspberry thickets excited me because of the hint of blue in the wings. I immediately thought of a female indigo bunting and wished that a male would appear to confirm my suspicion. As I raised my eyes a male indigo lit on a fence-post. The granting of my wish suggested my life for the preceding few days had been one of purity. Suffice it to say it was a unique event. A habitat of slashings and raspberry thickets is favoured by the birds for feeding and nesting. The lofty perch of males is for singing, an almost incessant occupation through summer. The music is nothing exhilarating—merely double whistles. The northern cardinal (262) is a pioneering southerner that began colonizing northeastern United States a couple of centuries ago. Originally a bird of the deep south, it has inched its way northward until it entered the Huntsville region in the early nineteen-fifties. For a southerner, it is extremely hardy, as its pioneering expeditions seem to take place only in winter. I saw my first in the Cottage Country on July 4, 1973, near Walker's Lake, seeing a second at the 157

junction of Highways 11 and 60 the following October. Its position still seems tenuous. Its cheery song consists of melodious whistles, each phrase often repeated several times and is given by both sexes at any time of the year. In its melody you can easily hear "birdy, birdy, birdy," or "pretty, pretty, pretty," or "dearie, dearie, dearie." The dickcissel (266) is very like a diminutive meadowlark. It is found on the prairies of the midwest, with some infiltration into Ontario's Lake Erie region. The one or two that have occurred in the Cottage Country were, in all probability, travelling between Manitoba and their winter range in the south. The loud song is a staccato dick-dick-dick-dick-cissel. Male blue grosbeaks (264) are large-billed indigo buntings adorned with chocolate wing-bars. They are almost half again as large as the indigo. You will be very lucky if you duplicate the record of another observer here and even luckier if you hear the song, a sweet but weak warble something like that of the purple finch.

158

22. THE BUNTINGS Note: For the meaning of the number following each name see the notes at the end of this chapter. Common: Chipping Sparrow [2], Song Sparrow [3], White-throated Sparrow [2], Darkeyed Junco [1]. Rather Common: American Tree Sparrow [2], Vesper Sparrow [1], White-crowned Sparrow [2]. Rather Uncommon: Fox Sparrow [2], Swamp Sparrow [2]. Uncommon: Savannah Sparrow [3]. Rather Rare: Rufous-sided Towhee [1], Field Sparrow [2], Lincoln's Sparrow [3], Snow Bunting [1], Rare: Lapland Longspur [1]. Occasional: Clay-coloured Sparrow [3]. Grasshopper Sparrow [3], Harris' Sparrow [2]. Accidental: Lark Sparrow [1], Lark Bunting [1], Henslow's Sparrow [3], Le Conte's Sparrow [3]. Most members of this subfamily are called sparrows on this continent, buntings in Great Britain. Widely spread throughout the world, it contains more species than any other family or subfamily of birds. Most American species are 'streaky' brown, difficult to identify, but a few are coloured in solid patches, while some have smaller dabs of colouring somewhere about the head. Many frequent brushy or waste places; others are found in fields of either short or long grass. Musically, they range from entrancing to ludicrous. 159

Because of the wealth of species in the Cottage Country I have treated them as I have the warblers, dividing them into three divisions to avoid a lengthy chapter. But, because of the difficulty in finding common factors in many genera, have arranged them in unnatural divisions, with some form of colouring or marking being the criterion. [I] The towhees, junco, vesper and winter buntings. The head and part of the body a solid colour; or with white in the outer tail-feathers. [II] Fox and crown sparrows. With red, rusty, or black in the head; or with white stripes on the crown. [III] Song and grass sparrows. 'Streaky' brown birds, chiefly grass-haunting species but some are brush birds.

I THE TOWHEES, JUNCOS, VESPER SPARROWS AND WINTER BUNTINGS From my records, it is not clear what status to give the dark-eyed junco (286). It is definitely a transient, visiting the Cottage Country in good numbers in spring and autumn. It will winter, provided snow is not too deep or if it can find sufficient sustenance at feeding stations. And it has summered. But for a long period I was not finding juncos in that season. Early one recent August, though, I found the bird again, this time along an old logging road; and a year or so later 160

found them on our own access road which now, was flanked by a recently logged area. It would seem that juncos like the woods when they have been reduced to stumps. One of my early meetings with the j unco was at the site of the old church-cum-schoolhouse that then stood by the present Brook's Mill sanitary disposal area, which is the term used by the haute monde of the region to describe what we bourgeois call garbage dumps. A family party of six or so juncos, feeding in the weedy roadside, rose as I approached. One, however, remained fluttering just above the ground. I walked to it, expecting it to join its fellows when it realized the 'enemy' was getting closer, but, instead, it continued to flutter, so that I was able to catch it in one hand. The cause of its difficulty was soon apparent. The tough, wiry stem of a piece of long grass had somehow become wound around its neck. The bird expired in the hand of a sorry conservationist. Juncos have their colour problems, like many other birds. One, on the roadbed of the defunct Portage Railway, had an all-white tail. Another, a product of the year's hatch, had legs of blood red, certainly not the pinkish-buff described in Bent's "Life Histories." Its characteristic call, a tsip like a sharp kiss, will identify them better than the twittering, musical trill that passes for a song. The vesper sparrow (272) is not a proponent of air conditioning. Set it down on a hot, dusty farm road and it will be at its happiest. Its second choice in living accommodations is an equally hot 161

grain field where the topsoil floats upward with each footfall. Your usual sight of one is of an open-mouthed bird panting in the oppressive heat. (Birds, of course, do not pant but seem to when they perch or stand with open mouth— their way of cooling off.) Since the cessation of operations on our farm, the consequent change in environment from cultivated to overgrown fields has meant that I have to go farther afield now for this species, although one did frequent its old haunts the September before penning this. One consolation has been that while a change in habitat has meant the loss of one species at least, others have moved in as replacements. The summer fields of Tally-Ho Winter Park approximate the one-time and long abandoned pioneer farm fields off the end of Kells' Bay, Rebecca Lake. It was there, in a veritable ghost town, with the remnants of the buildings of the original settler surrounding me, that I found a vesper holding a small caterpillar. This seemed like a good opportunity to follow such a bird to its nest. But this vesper tired of being watched or of holding the juicy morsel, so finally downed it. My patience was unrequited. The Kells' Bay fields are gone but in the region are many others attractive to vespers. One is the area bisected by the road running from Highway 60 to South Portage and just below the former; another is the flat area in the vicinity of Etwell. The vesper sings all through the day, not, as its name suggests, just in the evening. But its song is 162

more noticeable in the hush of approaching twilight, the time when vespers of monastery or convent ring down the day. The bird's song is rich and melodious, beginning with two long slurred notes followed by two higher ones, then a series of three or four notes all on one pitch, each group in the series lower than the preceding. Away back in 1933, when I began to keep records of my bird observations, I prepared a list of the birds I had seen, or thought I had seen previously. The list included the rufous-sided towhee (267) but the mental image that I conjured up was puzzling. In the dim recesses of my memory was the sight of a male towhee vigorously scratching on the ground, a common habit often performed with both feet at once. The setting was the little bank that drops down to the rivulet that runs alongside Tanglewood Cottage and which provides its water (and in earlier times, the needs of much of the beach). I could never determine how Tanglewood came into the picture as the towhee is far from common here. In fact, I have seen it only twice this far north. My first sighting here was also unusual. It was of a male at the top of a tree near the ill-fated Tynoka Hotel. As tree tops are not usually sought by this thicket lover, I had a time reconciling the rusty shade of red, wondering what had happened to deepen the crimson on the chest of a rose-breasted grosbeak. Both birds are largely black and white, remember, so that the error was excusable. Happily, the bird dropped to 163

a lower limb, affording a better and fully recognizable view. To some, the towhee calls its name, to-wheek; to others, it calls che-wink; and to all it sings drink your tea-ea-ea-ea. We can expect snow buntings (288) in the Cottage Country when the first flakes of snow cover the fields and highways and prompt the first demand for the road sander. Hyperactive, the flocks whirl with all the vagaries of a windblown snow flurry. They are aptly called snowflakes. Very nervous, even jittery, they seem never to stay settled for long. The slightest sound, from the roar of a passing transport trailer to the snap of a stick underfoot will send them into the air. They may circle the field, to settle again in the same spot; or may elect to fly to another field a quarter of a mile away. Sometimes we find them on the dirt shoulder of a quiet highway when, by approaching with the utmost caution, we can get close enough to enjoy their beauty. Too often the most circumspect advance sees the birds put to flight by a passing vehicle that is soon laden with our imprecations. So long as weed-tops, with their clusters of seeds, protrude above the snow, the birds will stay with us. Deeper snows will send them southward. They will return as the warming sun of late winter creates small patches of bare ground. I found a little flock of five on one of our fields just as soon as April's sun had worn the snow down to ground level in a few places. 164

The snow bunting is also a bird of sandy beaches. When nearing our sandy point one Hallowe'en, my wife, who had been walking apart from me, cautioned me to silence and pointed to the beach. I naturally expected to see a shorebird so when my eyes, straining through leafless shrubbery, picked up the pale colouration of the three birds there, I thought of sanderling. Instead, a trio of snow buntings were feeding at the water's edge. We do not hear its song here but do hear its two calls. One is a low-pitched, trembling roll; the other, given in flight, is a sweet and musical twonote whistle sounding like ee-oh. The Lapland longspur (287) properly belongs to the next group of buntings, as the back of the head and neck of a spring male is a deep rufous. But I have inserted the species here as most longspurs we see in this region are in the sparrow-like winter or female plumage. The species is most often seen as part of a flock of snow buntings, when it takes both binoculars and good eyes to pick one out of a mass of swirling 'snowflakes.' In flight it gives a harsh, rattling dick-e-rick, dick-erick, see-oh, see-oh. Its song is heard only in the Arctic tundra where it nests. The last two birds in this group have occurred here but once each. Both share 'lark' as a given name but the surname of one is sparrow, the other bunting. Illustrations show the lark sparrow (273) with beautiful white and reddish head 165

stripes, but all those I have seen in the wild in the west, their normal stamping grounds, were quite dull. Perhaps they needed a hair shampoo. It has a broken song something like that of an indigo bunting, but it is louder, clearer, and of better quality. The lark bunting (274) is also a westerner, easily told by the large white patch in the wings of both sexes. The males have a quite varied song of single- and double-note phrases, trills and buzzes, usually given in flight. You are not likely to hear either 'larks' singing in the Cottage Country.

II CHIPPING, FOX AND CROWN SPARROWS One of the most numerous birds we have, and one of the the most confiding, is the chipping sparrow (269), the little fellow with the toupee of reddish brown, a black line running through the eye and a white one above it. You will see him creeping mouselike about the open areas around your home, be it in town or country. You'll be certain it is nesting near but most often you'll have no confirmation until you see one or two adolescents following a parent, begging for a snack. One once adopted me. Easily recognized because of a single white feather in the coverts of one wing, it would appear as soon as I settled in a chair, whether on the beach patio or anywhere in the front or back of the cabin. When trying to get 166

a picture of it on the patio it persisted in approaching me so closely that it became just a blur in my telescopic lens. Only when I moved away to sit under the hemlocks, having it follow me in time, of course, was I able to use the big lens. Several times I had it precede me up the path from the lake to the cabin, and once had it lead me the length of the sand beach. It lost me there when I was forced up to the trail that leads to the sandy point. But on the point it found me again. Imagination, perhaps, but I think it wagged its tail when I walked out into the open. Two years earlier I was two feet from a nest in a small fir planted in front of the living room window, while one or the other of the parents fed the young. Again, I was too close to take pictures, although this time was using the regular lens that will focus down to three feet! The abundance of the species here can be seen in August. During the life-time of our farm, the eighth month of the year would see one field literally crawling with chipping sparrows of all ages. One year I estimated fifty were feeding in a patch of stubble about fifty feet square. I think you'll find an exodus from gardens to nearby stubble fields after the young are out. They will also invade new and favourable habitat very quickly. In the middle of one July the grass at the back of the cabin was finally cut, the resulting turf becoming the feeding grounds of a half-dozen young birds, perhaps siblings. None of any age had been seen about prior to that, so how did one find and spread the news of the exposed area? 167

While I once found a female cowbird at the front of the cabin, feeling quite certain she was well aware of nesting chipping sparrows at the back, I have never seen the latter foster-parenting a cowbird at Rebecca Lake. But I have seen a young cowbird towering over a chipping sparrow while being fed on the beach at Springsyde. Early one September morning, when the thermometer still reflected the chill of the night, I wondered how a piece of bark could have been dislodged from near the tip of a one-hundred foot fir tree. An inspection through binoculars solved the puzzle. A chipping sparrow, white breast facing me, was perched there, soaking in the warm rays of the rising sun. My friend with the single white feather had a close relative in Gravenhurst one year, but the Gravenhurst bird was an almost complete albino. Featherwise it was as white as an egret, but the eyes and bill were dark, according to my wife, who was able to see them where I could not. Such soft parts are pink in full albinos. The song of the chipping sparrow is nothing more than a dry chip repeated from daybreak to sunset. Sometimes the pitch varies slightly so that the bird gives us a trill, as defined musically. If your ears are fast enough to count the notes of monotone or trill, you will find most chippys sing in multiples of eight, with an almost imperceptible pause between each group. And our own music, if not in waltz time, is written in a fourfour beat.

168

When I was very young, the woods back of Sunset Cabin took on an aura of mystery around sunset. The rays of the low, orange orb would light up the cavernous interior of the forest, penetrating to depths I was unable to see through the day. Then those terrifying areas were dimly lit by overhead lighting. As the sun sank below the wooded hills across the lake, woodland voices stilled, until only two could be heard. From the now mysterious forest came the plaintive pee-awee of the eastern wood-pewee and the clearly chanted sweet, sweet, Canada, Canada, Canada of the white-throated sparrow (283). Our friends across the border opine that it has always advised one particular New Englander to sow, wheat, Fever ley, Peverley, Peverley. The bird soon made its mark on Muskoka settlers when they insisted it continually paged one of their number as J.P. Fetterley, Fetterley, Fetterley, who apparently hasn't responded yet as the bird is still seeking him. To me, though, the white-throat will always extol one of the many virtues of my country. That's what I always heard it sing at sundown. The bird likes more or less brushy country and as the vicinity of most cottages reflect a partially cleared ground, it will take up residence there. As many birds seem to sing with a ventriloquial effect, the white-throats I heard in my boyhood were probably not back of the cabin but perhaps close, or just off the front verandah. A pair nested in bunchberry beside our sleeping cabin, about fifty feet from the beach and a good two hundred from the maple woods behind. The 169

proximity of that pair gave us a year in which Canada was never sweeter. The song is easily imitated if you are a good whistler, although your pitch may be a bit on the low side. One time I tried my imitation on a group, perhaps the nucleus of a fall flock, and had them as frantic as a robin whose nest is threatened. A frequent associate of the junco from fall through spring is the very attractive American tree sparrow (268), the one with the slightly tarnished diamond in the center of his waistcoat. Like the junco, the tree is a brush haunter, easily found and identified, although one Thanksgiving week-end one gave me a lengthy search. The whole week before that holiday the weather had been delightful, warm, sunny, beautiful, with just a suggestion of October's frequent humidity. I left Toronto with visions of my first swim on Thanksgiving Day. But Muskoka had been hit by, first, rain; then a high wind that swooped in behind the storm clouds. I awakened Saturday to find the lake the roughest I had ever seen, while the beach was as comfortable as the inside of a walk-in freezer. Birding about the cottage might have been pleasant to Inuit but not to me, so to escape the strong, icy wind, I walked far to the rear of Springsyde. My only find for my exertion was a lone tree sparrow that seemed just as anxious for cover as I. Like juncos, tree sparrows travel in flocks, often converging on a weedy patch on some 170

snow-covered field to feed on the seeds found at the tops of the growth. It is amusing to watch them feed on weed-tops. One will climb a stalk, bend it down to the snow cover and feed at leisure, with the seed cluster now virtually on the ground. Meanwhile, his activity will have shaken a few seeds to the snow, to be pounced on by some friends reluctant to climb to the giddy heights of a weed. If the winter's snows are deep, covering such bounty, tree sparrows will be forced farther south, but the proliferation of feeding stations has meant that an increasing number are spending the winter in the Cottage Country. Tree sparrows will begin to sing in April or late March, when still with us. The song is a high, clear, sweet whistle of both long and short notes in a variety of pitches. It is remarkably and appropriately like sleigh bells and somewhat canarylike in character. A keelo keeps members of a flock together but the common call is a tseet. As both white-throated and white-crowned sparrows (284) have the top of the head white parted by black stripes on each side, the novice may be excused for confusing the two. Yet the differences are really quite apparent. In general, the white-crown is a grayish bird, the white-throat a reddish brown. The central white patch of a white-crown is larger than the corresponding one of a white-throat and seems to be a cleaner, sharper white, contrasting more with the black lines. The head of a white-throat is rounded, that 171

of a white-crown seems highest at the rear. And, of course, the white-crown does not have a whitethroat patch; but, be careful. I once saw a whitecrown with a vaguely lighter area under its chin. A pinkish bill in both sexes and at all ages is a further mark of distinction. The two species are obviously closely related, so that close association of the two is not surprising when the white-crown passes through here spring and fall. Its song consists of rather long whistles in two series of three notes each, the first group clear and sweet, the second husky. The first fox sparrow (279) I ever saw in my life I found during the morning ritual, the walk to the farm for milk. Indeed, I saw the bird twice, once just as I started over the 'milk trail' that cut through the woods in a bee-line for the farm house, and again on my return, which was by a bush road, through an isolated field and finally, over the trail from the spring. The bird continued to frequent the area where the two trails, milk and spring, converged at the road, to give me a second look at a time I could not dawdle. Its large size and rusty appearance make it an almost unmistakeable bird, although it does strongly suggest a large, reddish song sparrow. I have seen it in various parts of the old farm since, chiefly in October (the first was in April) but none of the subsequent sightings was remarkable, Nor, it might be added, as forgetful. The bird gives us little chance to make it an intimate friend as the species passes through very 172

quickly, spring and fall. Although its song season commences when still with us in spring, the bird speeds through so quickly that we have little chance to hear its rich, melodious whistled song, one of the best among the sparrows. Its composition is quite varied, both in pitch, length and phrasing. The call note seems to come from a weak-voiced white-throat. The swamp sparrow (282) is a tree sparrow lacking the little breast spot, while its wings, a mahogany shade, are a redder version of a song sparrow's. It is well named but will also be found at the edge of marshes and bogs as much as it will be in swamps. Once I found one at a little woodland pool within deep maple woods. Like its close relative, the song sparrow, it 'pumps' its tail as it flies. Its song, a monotone, is a sweeter version of the chipping sparrow's. The fox sparrow is really rusty. A human with such a complexion would surely be called 'red.' The American tree sparrow has a rufescent tinge which, if found in a human, would induce the same nickname. The field sparrow (271) is nicely between the fox sparrow and tree in colour. Moreover, it wears a pinkish bill to match. This sparrow, a lover of old fields where bushes are beginning to take over, found its way to the Cottage Country (Port Sydney) only once until recent years. It is now a sometime component of spring lists. It was not until a day in early 173

October of 1975 that I found my first here. In August, 1983, I followed up that Brook's Mill sighting with another at Weeduck Lake, near the Locks. Its song is a sweet, simple one on almost the same pitch thoughout and sounds very much like a cricket. But there is a difference. Where a cricket chirps in a beat as steady as a dance band's, the field sparrow begins slowly, then speeds up, as if in a hurry to finish. The large, western Harris' sparrow (285) has been showing up in the east with increasing frequency, so that anyone may equal the fortune of one or two observers in the Cottage Country and see one here. A summer adult, with its black throat and crown, is unmistakeable, although it does bear some resemblance to a male house sparrow. But it is much larger, bigger even than its close relative, the white-crown, with which it may associate on migration. Immatures have some of the black markings, although they may look more like streaks or blotches. Its call is a wink.

Ill SONG, LINCOLN'S AND GRASS SPARROWS If any bird deserves to be described as 'ubiquitous,' it is the song sparrow (280). Gardens and fields; lakeshores and garbage dumps; 174

beaches and golf courses; marsh borders and hedgerows; sometimes even the depths of the forest, are all included in its haunts. It is the sparrow whose streaks below converge to become a blotch on the center of the breast; the sparrow whose tail pumps madly as it flies (but remember that the related swamp and Lincoln's sparrows also speed their aerial progress by pumping themselves along). With such catholic tastes in habitat, one would expect and will find it nesting in a variety of places. I once found a nest in a clump of grass in one of our fields, then five days later found another ten feet up in a thick spruce, to indicate how widely divergent it is in the selection of habitat and nest elevation. Just as its habitat and nesting sites are variable, so is the bird itself. The usual form here has a suggestion of rufous in its plumage, sometimes so much that one suspects a fox sparrow. At such times one must scutinize the bird for the breast blotch or the malar (mustache) stripe that angles down from the base of the bill. One October an unusually large one visited the feeder at the rear of Tanglewood Cottage. In addition to the greater bulk, the bird was so dark I wondered at first if it were the western form of the fox sparrow, but both blotch and malar stripe marked it a song sparrow, perhaps one from Alaska or British Columbia where the species is large and dark and has the western fox sparrow for company. Twenty-six years later I found a very pale individual at Distress Dam. One would have thought the 175

two birds to be different species but the scientists have given consideration to such varieties and have ruled otherwise. Such colour variations are not unusual in a species that boasts an extensive range and is highly successful in propagation. While I had always seen song sparrows on our beach, I began to take particular note of them there in the early nineteen-sixties. In August they seem to become veritable beach bums, with as many as six feeding the length of our sandy shore searching for organisms and seeds in the debris washed up by the waves. The same number was crowded on a beach across the bay but that sandy strip was only one-twentieth as long as ours. Its song is just as variable as other features of its life, being a more or less jumble of musical and buzzy notes. Its trademark is the introduction, three notes sounding like sitz, sitz, sitz, after which no two song sparrows sing alike, nor is an individual prone to repeat himself. As its name suggests, the savannah sparrow (275) is a lover of short-grass country. Typical spots for it here are the grassy fields on the north side of the canal joining Fairy and Pen Lakes and the fields by the road connecting South Portage with Highway 60. Our old farm fields were attractive to them so long as we worked them—and so, too, was the area now occupied by Brook's Mill, where a few may still be found. The vicinity of Etwell, though, may be one of the best in my home area. 176

The savannah is strongly reminiscent of a song sparrow, some even having a suggestion of a breast blotch. It differs, though in having a yellowish stripe over the eye, a crown with several stripes rather than one strong medial line, and a tail that is slightly forked. The song sparrow has one pale central crown stripe and a tail a bit rounded at the end, a mark that is helpful when flushed birds fly away from you. The savannah introduces his song in much the same way as the song sparrow starts his, three sharp, staccato notes all on one pitch. But then the quality becomes dreamy and lisping, two buzzy, insect-like trills, the first on one pitch, the second a little lower, with the whole sounding like tsit-tsit-tsit, teee-tsaaay. Lincoln's sparrow (281) is easy to identify, provided one gets a good view of the breast. Instead of the blotch of the closely related song sparrow there is a buffy band which is marked with fine, vertical dark streaks. A narrow white eye-ring also helps. But the Lincoln's is so similar to the song that one must be on guard when near the margins of a mucky lake or the edge of a marsh or bog. They appear so much alike that once, when I saw a Lincoln's carry food to a young bird, I at first thought the adult had acquired a song sparrow by adoption. Its song suggests the efforts of both a wren and a purple finch, beginning like the former and ending like the latter. The whole is a pleasing and distinctive melody. 177

The remainder of this group are grass-haunting sparrows very difficult to identify. Uncertainty of identification may be the reason so few have been reported from the Cottage Country. The clay-coloured sparrow (270) is such a close relative of the chipping sparrow that young birds almost mirror each other, while an adult claycoloured can easily pass for a young chippy on most occasions. The chipping sparrow at any age has a gray rump, the clay-coloured has a flaxcoloured one. In addition, it has a black-bounded triangle of brown over the ear. Its song consists of three or four insect-like buzzes in a slow tempo. The grasshopper sparrow (276) is a buffy bird with yellow at the bend of the wing and without streaks on its underparts. Its song is a sibilant, insect-like buzz represented best by a series of z's and pitched so high that those afflicted with a slight hearing loss will be unable to hear it. It is prefaced by one or two short notes. Henslow's sparrow (277) resembles a grasshopper sparrow except that the head is more rounded and is olive with black stripes. It is finely streaked below and has rusty wings. What goes for a song is an insect-like sea-ssick. I have called this sparrow accidental for the simple reason that I have a paucity of dated observations. But one historical record should raise it to at least occasional if not very rare. A 178

colony (suitable fields will result in loose colonization) was once found near Lake Joseph. Le Conte's sparrow (278) differs from Henslow's in being buffier below and also over the eye, while its nape is reddish-brown. Its song, just as absurd as Henslow's, is a two-note hiss.

House Sparrow (female) 179

23. THE TROUPIALS Common: Common Grackle. Rather Common: Red-winged Blackbird, Rusty Blackbird. Rather Uncommon: Brown-headed Cowbird. Uncommon: Eastern Meadowlark. Rather Rare: Bobolink, Northern Oriole. Rare: Western Meadowlark. Occasional: Brewer's Blackbird. Accidental: Yellow-headed Blackbird, Orchard Oriole. The several birds known generally as blackbirds are members of a very diverse subfamily that, for want of a better collective name (many are not black) I call troupials, after some members found south of United States. The family is distinctively American. In colour, troupials range from black, either iridescent or rusty, to orange or chocolate trimmed with black. Two of our species are streaked almost like sparrows, while one is parti-coloured above while being jet black below. They are found in many kinds of habitat from the streets, parks, and gardens of urban centers to farm, grain fields, and marshes; and from the ground to the tree tops. Musically, some are superb, some have short but appealing song; and some seem to have a syrinx badly in need of a lubricant. The common grackle (296) is one of the latter. It is the long-tailed, straw-eyed blackbird that swaggers over your lawn in spring and descends in destructive clouds on your cherry trees in late 180

summer. For food it will at least sample anything, sometimes raising the ire of certain types of naturalists who deplore its taste for the callow young of other species. When Rebecca Lake was a wilderness, one never saw grackles in its environs. But as a more urban setting developed, the grackle quickly moved in. Yet, fully sixty-four years of my life went by before I saw one near our cabin. Two years later a flock of no less than fifty was on the ground and in the trees back of the beach. I think the development of Brook's Mill suggested to them that they try suburban life, as it is there that I see most of Rebecca's birds. They find the towns the most attractive, a cluster of habitations near a water course next, and farms third, especially if the cultivated acreage is on or near water. A couple of experiences include a hybrid and a one-eyed bird. The mongral was feeding on the beach one day as I sat on the patio working over a story. At twelve feet I could see it was a grackle in size of body but that it had a bill more like that of a red-wing; while the tail was somewhere in between the appendages of the two. As its eyes were only slightly yellow I was tempted to call it a young grackle except for two things. I saw it on August 8 when I am sure young grackles would be fully grown; the other fact was that a diffused reddish patch was on one shoulder. Except for the flock of fifty, we have had only occasional grackles about the cabin, and those only in the past decade or so. One August one of 181

the visitors was so tame I thought a picture was easily possible. So, baiting a patch of grass with bread, I had not long to wait before the bird was within camera range. Then had to wait but a short time again before I got my picture. Wary at first, it would snatch a piece and run, but very quickly found that running was not necessary. I think this individual had been pestering a broadwinged hawk, its nest or young, because the raptor, no bird hunter usually, swooped down on it when the grackle was in the center of our clearing. For the hawk, the move was far out of character; but nest-robbing is a common trait of this domineering species. The next September I wondered if the same bird had returned, as a quite friendly grackle again haunted the back lawn. This bird, though, had brought a friend along. I could take few liberties with the second bird, perhaps a mate of the first. If the more friendly one was my intimate of the previous year, it had stepped over the bounds of proprietry somewhere over the winter, as it was blind in one eye. At any rate, I took its picture without having recourse to either bread nor my telescopic lens, which means I was quite close to the bird. The grackle's squeaky and metallic song (the purpose is to attract a mate, so the noise has to be described in that way) is usually delivered with puffed up feathers and spread wings and tail. It seems to impress the female no more than it does us.

182

The red-winged blackbird (290), a bird presenting little difficulty in identification, so well is it named, is not as common in the Cottage Country as it is farther south. Its need and liking for marshes is proverbial but as we have too few of such wetlands we miss, happily perhaps, the thousands that congregate elsewhere, spring and fall. A favourite spot locally is the Fairy Lake Pen Lake canal. In 1944 and 1945, when cultivation on our farm had come to an end, redwings were quite numerous there. Such birds may have used the marshy areas of Mansell's Lake or the one at the bottom of Kells' Bay, Rebecca Lake. A few inhabit those spots yet, but not in the numbers they did in those two years. It is the red-wing that flashes his red epaulets as with seeming agony he gurgles kee conk-er-e-e-e-e in spring. The reedy, drawn-out final syllable is, according to A. A. Saunders, invariably on the fourth E above middle C. Lacking a pitch-pipe I cannot affirm that but my strong tonal sense tends to make me agree. After nesting he will take to the fields along with his fellows, other redwings plus grackles and cowbirds. The disappearing of his favourite marshes has not disturbed him greatly, as the same fields have beckoned in the nesting season. During the past fifty years, more and more red-wings have been nesting in fields of long grass, the males standing guard on the tops of fence-posts. If you know a secluded lake of not too great dimensions, or a beaver meadow hemmed with 183

near virginal forests, you should know the rusty blackbird (294). Straw-eyed like the grackle, but shorter of tail; tail-length as in the red-wing but with no red in the shoulders, the rusty avoids humans come nesting time. Perhaps embarrassment drives him to unpopulated places, as his feathers, while showing some gloss, lack the lustre exhibited by the red-wing and the iridescence of the grackle. His suit is more like the Sunday-best of those who change their working clothes for fancier garments only for weddings and funerals. In autumn he becomes rather thrush-like but is still a blackbird, both in appearance and habits. In fall he will gather on farm fields in good-sized flocks but rarely will he associate with other blackbirds. The change to a thrushlike plumage evidently takes place in August, as it was on the eighth of that month that I found a 'mangy' one on our pasture fence. It was almost tailless and had lost so many feathers around the neck that I wrote in my journals that it resembled a starling. Since then I have seen the Carib grackle of the West Indies, a bird whose thin neck seems to be encircled by a very tight collar. Give that bird a rusty suit and he would pass for my fence-sitter. In July of 1971 I saw three dark-eyed blackbirds that I took for young rustys, who do not acquire the light eye until becoming adult. As I pen this I wonder if they could have been young or even adult female Brewer's blackbirds, considered unlikely there at that time; but see under that species in the following pages. 184

The rusty's song is a mixture of tinkling bells and the creaking of wheels in the snow. Its high notes are squeaky, the low ones gurgles. Until about fifty years ago, writers of birds posted "wanted" notices for all owls, most hawks, and the brown-headed cowbird (297). Most of us are now seeing the falsity of such conclusions and realize that any hawk or owl is just living its preordained existence, killing not for lust, but for food—their victims usually being the weak or maimed—carrying on the practice of weeding out individuals who might pass poor genes on to their offspring. The reason for wanting to eliminate all cowbirds was quite different. Cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of other, smaller birds, foisting the care of their young on foster parents to the frequently fatal detriment of their foster siblings. But, again, this is pre-programmed and obliges the smaller birds to be more secretive about their nesting habits and locations in order to keep them, not only from cowbirds, but all kinds of predators. I have not seen much evidence of such parasitism here, which is not to imply that our cowbirds are holier than those elsewhere. The only species I have seen victimized in this region have been chipping sparrows, at Springsyde; a yellowrumped warbler near our Rebecca Lake cabin; and a Swainson's thrush at Harris' Lake, near Parry Sound town. The cowbird exercises the greatest stealth in visiting the nests of other birds. Even its life in general seems to be one of great secrecy in spring. When the Federation of 185

Ontario Naturalists held their summer school at Limberlost Lodge, on Solitaire Lake, the first evidence they had of the presence of cowbirds in the immediate vicinity was the discovery of a cowbird's egg in the nest of a chipping sparrow. The cowbird received its name from its association with cattle, among which it walks to catch the insects stirred up by bovine feet. In the neighbouring county of Simcoe I have seen an exasperated cow try to butt a persistent bird out of the way. I think it is their aptitude for steering clear of mammalian hooves that led an immature to feed with impunity on the sidewalk of Huntsville, not far from the railway station. Evidently the bird had found a food bonanza in some broken concrete and was nimbly sidestepping pedestrians in between visits to the marketeria. It remained within two feet of mine as I passed. The day I found a yellow-rumped warbler attending a young cowbird near our cabin I had previously found a young bird as unafraid as its town cousin. It allowed me to approach to within three feet until I armed myself with my camera. Then, as birds usually do when all is in readiness for picture-taking, it moved well out of range. Like the grackle, the cowbird has become a door-yard bird at the cabin in recent years. Up to five have fed under the hemlocks in front of our place. Musically, it is a bust, giving out nothing better than gurgles and high-pitched squeaks. Sometimes one rendition has a few "glubs" in it as if the would-be-artist is going down for the last time. 186

Grassy fields are a prerequisite of the eastern meadowlark (291), who very carefully will keep its back to you, thus hiding its yellow breast beautifully decorated with a large, black crescent. The fields it could use here are ploughed and newly sown when it wants them for nesting, probably explaining why I never saw one on our farm when it was active. I think crop rotation was followed then, too, so that a fallow field, with its unkempt grass, was a rarity. But such a field must have existed one year as I was told that a pair had nested near the farm house, while a transient once dropped in to our sandy point one April. Obviously, a paucity of grassy fields makes the Cottage Country an inhospitable region for meadowlarks, that announce the simultaneous arrival of themselves and spring with a whistled spring o' the y-e-a-r-r-r. It is indescribably sweet and indubitably welcome. Not all individuals phrase the announcement that clearly but the intent is always obvious. Recent taxonomic revisions have placed the bobolink (289) in a separate division of the troupials. It does seem to combine features of both blackbirds and buntings, something the cowbird does perhaps even better. Bobolinks require even more grass than do meadowlarks and are consequently even rarer in the Cottage Country. And loss of habitat, such as the grassy field off the southeast corner of the junction of Highways 11 and 60 at Huntsville, where I once found them regularly, has reduced them still further. 187

I think I had seen bobolinks in the days before I began recording bird observations, but my first of record was in a most unlikely location. A male rose from the marshy shore of Mansell's Lake one July day. It may have come from Kells' Landing, which then contained some bobolink country and where I saw them again years later. As land birds are obliged to nest close to an adequate food supply in order to satisfy the persistent demands of young birds, I could never understand their nesting at the bottom of Kells' Bay and flying the quarter of a mile or more to Mansell's Lake for food. Almost as soon as nesting cares are over the male bobolink changes to the tiresome sparrowlike attire of his mate and young, following which families of bobolinks unite in flocks of sometimes large proportions. It is then that one wishes for autumn and the disappearance of the birds for, from wires, fences, trees, shrubs, and posts they keep up a rapid chink, so monotonous that, one afternoon at Weeduck Lake we would have cheerfully endured a jail term for the privilege of shutting them up with a blast from a shot-gun. Life within such a crew of stone-masons would leave every nerve unstrung. In the spring, bobolinks sing fireworks, a succession of notes so rapidly delivered as to defy transcription except through a recorder. And even that may not be able to keep pace with the singer. Its lower notes are melodious but the whole has the reedy quality so prevalent in the group. 188

Residents of wilderness areas are deprived of the pleasure of basking in the beauty of the resplendent northern oriole (299) that prefers to live near the shade trees growing within urban and suburban centers. I have seen the species only three times in the vicinity of our cabin (and not often elsewhere in this region), one being an amazing sight. Returning from a visit to Peeler's Lake, a small body of water that nestles well within extensive maple woods, I stopped on the bush trail mesmerized by a large mixed flock of migrants that worked by me. Twenty-one species I counted, including no less than three orioles very far from their usual surroundings. The oriole's song is a series of clear, easily imitated boyish whistles, a fully melodious composition in a voice as rich as the colouring of the singer. It is wise to examine every meadowlark with great care. If you are satisfied that the yellow of the throat extends well up the cheeks to almost touch the eye, you will have seen a western meadowlark (292). If that criterion escapes you then beg to hear its song, a fluted medley sounding thrushlike or oriolelike. The range of the western ends along the top of Lake Huron but strays come farther south. Several western species have worked their way eastward in recent years, one being Brewer's blackbird (295) that has nested as far south as Toronto. It was on a day late one September that 189

I found a pair on our road not far from the cabin. They were with three rusty blackbirds, two males and a female, and were easily distinguished under such circumstances as the male Brewer's lacks the rusty tinge of the other while the female has a brown, not yellow eye. In addition, the head of the male Brewer's has a distinct purple cast. Perhaps the three birds seen in July two years later, and ascribed to rustys, were Brewer's, too. Brewer's song is a prolonged squeeeee and its call is a coarse check. Still another westerner finding the east more compatible is the yellow-headed blackbird (293), one of North America's most decorative species. The orchard oriole (298) is more southern in distribution than the one we are accustomed to see, and replaces the orange of our bird with an unusual shade of chocolate brown. Its song is fainter than the northern's but more beautiful, resembling the robin's in phrasing.

190

24. THE FINCHES NOMADIC FINCHES — Rather Common: Purple Finch, American Goldfinch. Rather Uncommon: Pine Grosbeak, Common Redpoll, Pine Siskin. Uncommon: Evening Grosbeak. Rather Rare: Red Crossbill, White-winged Crossbill. Rare: Hoary Redpoll. Accidental: House Finch. WEAVER FINCHES — Uncommon: House Sparrow. The finches which I have described as "Nomadic" are largely birds of winter, although one is a permanent resident throughout most of North America including the Cottage Country. All species are usually found in flocks and, in fall through spring, are wanderers to a considerable extent, being found here today, elsewhere tomorrow. Sometimes they confuse you by remaining almost in one small area for weeks. Then just as you insist on calling them 'winter finches,' will decide to spend the summer with you. The one predictable facet of their lives is that, in the winter they rarely pass by a wellstocked bird feeding station. On my third visit to Sunset Farm after having begun to study birds seriously, I was passing the old Thompson holding that has as one boundary the longest stretch of straight and level road in all of Muskoka. That road has progressed from Syndicate Road through Sinclair and Limberlost Road and Highway 514 to the present Muskoka 191

Road 8. It was known as the Sinclair Road when I had the breathless sighting of a raspberry coloured bird that flew up from the roadside. I pulled to a stop and drank in the beauty of the bird as it perched in a tree. Recollection of my first purple finch (301) resurfaces every time I drive over that strip. Purple finches then became a large part of my life until 1979, when I began to realize that I was no longer finding them as I had in the past. They still seem scarce for reasons I cannot determine. Our now overgrown farm should be more attractive to them than ever, as they are neither birds of the fields nor of deep woods. I'm not sure if the relative scarcity is just local or general, as I continue to see a few scattered birds in a variety of other places. Perhaps, though, where I now see just one or two, I may have been able to see dozens had I visited those places in the past. While our present farm should make an ideal habitat, they are not necessarily confined to overgrown fields (or rather, the bushes that dot them), as one summer two males frequented a wet 'sink' back of Tanglewood Cottage. The little fern-grown hollow there that held rain-water like a clogged bathtub, is more suited to veerys and wood thrushes. The song of the purple finch is truly a warble, rich, high-pitched notes meandering with no apparent objective. Many years before I ever thought of keeping notes of bird observations, I awoke one bright 192

July morning to hear a canarylike song coming from outside my window. Padding to the opening, I found the singer on the clothesline, musical joy cascading from its pulsing throat. His yellow coat glittered in the early morning sun, an ingot of gold balancing on a wire. Ever after, when the cheerful American goldfinch (308) passes overhead, punctuating each upward swoop in his undulating flight with a happy per-chic-oree, I again hear one of my favourite birds greeting the morn of a perfect day. The goldfinch insists on thistledown for nestlining, meaning house-keeping does not begin until late summer. Not surprisingly, then, a parent was feeding a young bird at our sandy point on September 2 of one year, with fall migrants of other species streaming past at a good rate. The goldfinches were unconcerned, for those two would have wintered in the vicinity or, later on, moved a little to the south to have other goldfinches move in from the north and take their places. Its canary-like song fully justifies its nickname of 'wild canary.' The quality of its music is glasslike and, when given in concert, as is wont in a flock, is like the tinkling of many glassy bells. The pine grosbeak (300), almost as large as a robin, comes in a delicate rose with darker tail and wings, the latter marked with white wingbars. It also comes in a rather dull gray, also marked with wing-bars. Additionally, it comes in every shade between the two, with frequently a 193

varying amount of red or yellow on the head. The reason for this almost riot of colour is that males take a long time to grow up; even females are loathe to get out of baby clothes. You will find pine grosbeaks along almost any bush road from October through March of most winters. Once in the trees they adopt a sluggish, almost stupid demeanor. It is one wanderer that is not given to even sporadic summering here, preferring to nest farther north. If you hear a yellowlegs in winter, look for a pine grosbeak. You will have heard its call note. Common redpolls (305) are very much like goldfinches in size, form and actions, but are white streaked darker; or, if you prefer, dark streaked white. They wear a jaunty cap of red on the forepart of the head, in the style of the frilled lace ones worn by French maids of stage shows; and exhibit, according to age, sex and health, a varying amount of rose below. Their summer home, which is well to the north of us, lacks trees as we know them, but the birds quickly adapt to the arboreal growth below the tree line. They are fond of birch and alder catkins, their little forms sometimes indistinguishable blobs in the upper confines of one of the former; and will drive the owner of a feeding station into early bankruptcy, so eagerly will they consume the seeds put out for their use. The pine siskin (307) resembles a female goldfinch but has streaks fore and aft, back and 194

front. It also shows flashes of yellow in wings and tail when it flies. It, and redpolls, often join flocks of goldfinches on their travels. The usual home of pine siskins is farther north but some summers, such as that of 1951, many of the birds that visited the Cottage Country the preceding winter decided on a long summer vacation. In 1965 and 1966, confused birds (if we may accept that theory) fed in small numbers under our hemlocks. Its song is a lower, rougher version of the goldfinch's, given in a husky or wheezy voice; while one identifying call is also husky, a rising, rasping swee-seeee. The evening grosbeak (309) first appeared in eastern Ontario (the country south of Lake Simcoe) in the winter of 1854-55, thereafter making irregular appearances in the Cottage Country and elsewhere. But in June of 1925 this western bird rewrote history books by summering about Camp Billie Bear at the east end of Bella Lake; and since then, has expanded its summer range to regularly include all parts of Ontario north of Lake Simcoe. So great was their attraction that naturalists in good numbers were drawn to the Camp, culminating in the Federation of Ontario Naturalists holding its summer school there for several consecutive seasons. The grosbeak colony, if it may be so described, prospered, as the late Dr. E.L. Brereton, of Barrie, told me he counted 104 birds there on a mid-October day of 1937. 195

I saw my first of the species at Kells' Landing in 1938, but not until the fall of 1944 did they find their way around Bella and Rebecca Lakes to Sunset Farm. As is customary with the nomadic finches, evening grosbeaks vary greatly in numbers from year to year and season to season. But one is almost certain to see them if bush roads are travelled after road crews have salted them down, as salt is a commodity of which they are very fond. When they rise from the road to neighbouring trees after a salt-gathering expedition, the large white-wing-patches they wear are most noticeable. While the bird is classed with the nomadic finches, I sometimes wonder if authorities have pulled a goof. One mid-July day, my wife and I watched a male displaying to a female using exactly the same postures as a house sparrow which, as you will find out later, is a bird of an entirely different family. This display took place, most remarkably, on the dirt floor just inside a garage at Brook's Mill. The cock was ignored by the hen and also by a second female who seemed to be an ill-defined third side to the triangle. I'll have to admit to law-breaking with respect to this bird. Leaving Burk's Falls one day I was aware that a flock of five grosbeaks rose from the road shoulder to fly across my path. One left the mark slowly, to become only the third I know to have been struck by my car, the others being a pheasant and a yellowthroat.

196

I am indebted to Doris H. Speirs, internationally known biographer of this species, for a description of its song, which is not often heard. Her paraphrasing is a "whizz-fitztee"in a very high pitch. The same ornithologist states that they converse musically, both sexes giving a chip-chip-cher-wee. The crossbills are the most erratic of this subfamily. Normally, they keep to the coniferous forests north of North Bay, coming south in winter only if the seed crop of coniferous trees is poor. But, so erratic are they that they have nested as far south as Georgia! Like the siskins of 1951, a few red crossbills (303) remained to nest following a winter's invasion, as I found a few in the woods back of Springsyde Beach. The winter of 1983-84, as experienced in southern Ontario, passed with a paucity of all northern finches. But some phenomenon must have occurred in the final six or eight months of 1984 as my wife and I saw a pine grosbeak near Alliston, some forty miles south of the Cottage Country, white-winged crossbills in the region as well as in Simcoe County, and a flock of six or eight red crossbills near Canal, all observations demonstrating the unpredictable movements of this group of birds. The song of the red crossbill is a goldfinch-like one of trills and whistles, while a series ofjips will identify them in flight and an almost constant twittering while feeding.

197

The white-winged crossbill (304) is coloured like the pine grosbeak but is slightly rosier. It is just as erratic as the red, once summering in northeast Muskoka in good numbers. More recently, my wife and I saw a pair near Huntsville on August 20 and in the months before, a male still further south but in Simcoe County, just beyond our borders. During years of irruptions, flocks will be found along any bush road. Its low, sweet warble is sweeter and more melodious than the song of the other. Commonly, it calls a series of peets, like those of some sandpipers. The hoary redpoll (306) is so much like the common that no doubt many are misidentified and called the usual variety. One difference is that it does not seem to visit us in flocks of its own kind but as one or two individuals in a flock of common redpolls. The rump of the hoary is unstreaked white, while the whole bird seems paler, as if coated with a light frost. Its calls and song are very similar to its close relative's. In the original draft of this book, I wrote of the house finch (302) that, although I was unaware of any Cottage Country records, its occurrence here was a matter of time. All this was because of the dramatic spread of this attractive bird during the last few years. It is a western species ranging from southern British Columbia down the cordillera and west coast into Mexico; and from southern California east to Texas. Like others of its genus 198

(the very similar purple finch, for example) and a few other members of the subfamily, it was a popular cage bird until federal laws prohibited such practices. But as laws were meant to be flouted, harbouring this and other species continued. A shipment of such contraband, originating in California, reached New York City in 1940 but was intercepted by authorities before further distribution. Then the officials unwisely released the birds which quickly adapted to east coast conditions but took their time in expanding. Not until 1970 did they reach Ontario. Six years later they entered the province by way of Niagara Falls, finding that fruit belt a more favourable location. They were at Toronto in 1978 and in 1984 had reached Peterborough, with their entry into the Cottage Country imminent. At the time of writing I am aware of only one record herein, a female seen by my wife and me at Weeduck Lake in September of 1984. House finches differ from purple finches in being a little smaller and with a stubbier bill. The males have streaked sides and flanks (plain in the purple) while females are more finely streaked below, appearing darker on that account as the streaks are closer together. She also lacks the broad eyebrow of the female purple. My wife summed it up by saying, "The head was dark," indicating the absence of the eyebrow stripe. The house sparrow (310), unfortunately introduced into this continent at New York City in 1850 and 1852, had reached Bracebridge by 199

1888 and by 1900 was found in all major communities of the district. It was on Sunset Farm in 1933 and 1934, my first two years of recording birds, but gradually disappeared. On July 1, 1938, I saw none north of Bracebridge, but did see one on a house roof of Brook's Mill in August of 1966. Its numbers dropped as the motor car replaced the horse—house sparrows preferring grain to gasoline as food. Mechanized farms produced a further decline in numbers although the increase in riding stables may see a renaissance. This sparrow belongs to the weaver finch family that is concentrated in Africa and Malaysia. Chief objections to it are its dirty nesting habits, its quarrelsomeness and its preempting cavities for nesting, thus driving out more desirable birds like bluebirds, tree swallows, crested flycatchers and others. Its calls are varied chirps and a harsh chis-sick. What passes for a song is merely an elaboration of its common calls.

House Sparrow (male) 200

LIST OF BIRDS WITH MIGRATION DATES

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

Spring Fall Arrival Depart. Arrival Depart. Red-throated Loon Sept. 15 Nov. 17 Arctic Loon Nov. 7 Nov. 7 Common Loon Apr. 15 — — Nov. 13 Pied-billed Grebe Apr. 7 — — Sept. 4 Horned Grebe Apr. 21 May 16 Aug. 5 Oct. 3 Red-neck Grebe Feb. 23 May 12 Aug. 13 Oct. 1 Wilson's Storm-Petrel Apr. 15 Apr. 16 Double-crested Cormorant Apr. 23 — — Dec. 29 American Bittern Apr. 23 — — Sept. 19 Least Bittern May 21 — — July 8 Great Blue Heron Apr. 5 — — Nov. 10 Great Egret Apr. 10 May 2 Aug. 11 Aug. 28 Snowy Egret Apr. 25 May 28 Cattle Egret May 25 May 25 Green-backed Heron May 16 — — Aug. 17 Black-crowned Night-Heron May 2 — — Sept. 2 Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (ID) Wood Stork Aug. 15 Aug. 15 Tundra Swan Apr. 6 May 10 Oct. 14 Nov. 4 Mute Swan Jan. 15 Feb. 18 Snow Goose Mar. 20 May 18 Oct. 1 Nov. 16 Brant May 14 June 9 Oct. 20 Nov. 7 Canada Goose Apr. 7 May 10 Sept. 17 Oct. 30 Wood Duck Apr. 17 — — Oct. 11 Green-winged Teal Apr. 27 — — Oct. 7 American Black Duck Apr. 7 — — Nov. 7 Mallard Apr. 21 May 21 Aug. 23 Nov. 3 Northern Pintail Feb. 23 May 17 Oct. 10 Nov. 15 Blue-winged Teal Apr. 27 — — Oct. 4 Northern Shoveler Apr. 24 — — Sept. 1 Gad wall May 11 June 21 Aug. 20 Aug. 22 Eurasian Wigeon Nov. 15 Nov. 15 American Wigeon Apr. 18 May 21 Aug. 19 Oct. 16 Canvasback Apr. 16 Apr. 16 Oct. 6 Oct. 29 Redhead Jan. 10 Apr. 17 Sept. 13 Oct. 31 Ring-necked Duck Apr. 19 — — Oct. 20 Greater Scaup Mar. 11 May 12 Aug. 31 Nov. 21 Lesser Scaup Apr. 12 May 7 Oct. 3 Dec. 7 King Eider Oct. 8 Nov. 12 Harlequin Duck Nov. 5 Nov. 5 Oldsquaw Mar. 6 May 20 Oct. 25 Dec. 11 Black Scoter Oct. 10 Oct. 30

201

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

Surf Scoter White-winged Scoter Common Goldeneye Barrow's Goldeneye Bufflehead Hooded Merganser Common Merganser Red-breasted Merganser Ruddy Duck Turkey Vulture Osprey A. Swallow-tailed Kite Bald Eagle Northern Harrier Sharp-shinned Hawk Cooper's Hawk Northern Goshawk Red-shouldered Hawk Broad-winged Hawk Red-tailed Hawk Rough-legged Hawk Golden Eagle American Kestrel Merlin Peregrine Falcon Gyrfalcon Gray Partridge (I) Ring-necked Pheasant (E) Spruce Grouse Willow Ptarmigan Ruffed Grouse Capercaillie (I) Sharp-tailed Grouse Northern Bobwhite (I) Virginia Rail Sora Common Moorhen American Coot Sandhill Crane Whooping Crane Black-bellied Plover Lesser Golden Plover Semipalmated Plover Killdeer American Avocet Greater Yellowlegs

Spring Arrival Depart. May 10 May 11 May 15 June 15 Mar. 12 May 12 — Jan. 5 Apr. 15 May 16 — Apr. 4 Apr. 10 — Apr. 19 —

Apr. 20 Apr. 24

— —

Feb. 3 Apr. 8 Apr. 27 Apr. 26 Feb. 5 Apr. 13 Apr. 21 Mar. 29 Apr. 12 Feb. 13 Apr. 7 Apr. 1 Apr. 15 Mar. 11

May — — — May — — — May May — — — May

Jan. 28 Feb. 2 — — June 15 Jan. 15 June 14 May 2 May 18 May 11 May 10 May 23 Apr. 23 May 23

Apr. 28 Apr. 29 Jan. 15

19

27

4 21

4

June 15 Mar. 22 — — — — — — Apr. 27 June 8

Fall Arrival Depart. Sept. 26 Sept. 11 Sept. 10 Nov. 25 Oct. 29 — — — Oct. 15 — — July 15 Aug. 12 — — — Aug. 9 — -— — Sept. 25 Aug. 29 — — — Oct. 18 (ID) Aug. 26 Aug. 18 Dec. 15 —

Oct. 13 Oct. 26 Dec. 6 — Dec. 17 Nov. 18 Nov. 17 Nov. 14 Oct. 15 Sept. 19 Sept. 11 July 15 Nov. 22 Sept. 22 Oct. 2 Nov. 11 Nov. 12 Sept. 18 Sept. 9 Nov. 8 Nov. 17 Dec. 10 Oct. 3 Oct. 1 Sept. 25 Dec. 22 Aug. 26 Nov. 12 —

July 20 Oct. 15 — Sept. 23 — Aug. 23 — Sept. 17 — Sept. 8 — Sept. 19 — Aug. 5

Aug. 27 Sept. 30 Oct. 13 Oct. 13 July 19 Aug. 28 Oct. 5

May 23 June 1 Mar. 28 May 24 May 24 May 1 May 16 Aug. 3 Oct. 12

202

Spring Fall Arrival Depart. Arrival Depart. 89. Lesser Yellowlegs 90. Solitary Sandpiper 91. Willet 92. Spotted Sandpiper 93. Upland Sandpiper '94. Whimbrel 95. Ruddy Turnstone 96. Red Knot 97. Sanderling 98. Semipalmated Sandpiper 99. Western Sandpiper 100. Least Sandpiper 101. White-rumped Sandpiper 102. Baird's Sandpiper 103. Pectoral Sandpiper 104. Purple Sandpiper 105. Dunlin 106. Stilt Sandpiper 107. Ruff 108. Short-billed Dowitcher 109. Common Snipe 110. American Woodcock 1 1 1 . Wilson's Phalarope 112. Red-necked Phalarope 113. Red Phalarope 114. Parasitic Jaeger 115. Long-tailedJaeger 116. Franklin's Gull 117. Little Gull 118. C. Black-headed Gull 119. Bonaparte's Gull 120. Ring-billed Gull 12.1. Herring Gull 122. Thayer's Gull 123. Iceland Gull 124. Glaucous Gull 125. G. Black-backed Gull 126. Black-legged Kittiwake 127. Caspian Tern 128. Common Tern 129. Black Tern 130. Thick-billed Murre 131. Rock Dove 132. Mourning Dove 133. Passenger Pigeon (extinct) 134. White Cockatiel (E)

May 8 May 23 Aug. 7 May 14 Aug. 25 May 9 May 11 May 17 May 30 May 24 May 24 Sept . 9 May 28 May 28 Aug. 15 June 10 June 10 Aug. 21 May 27 June 6 Aug. 11 June 6 June 6 Aug. 5 May 17 June 26 July 31 June 8 June 8 Aug. 7 Aug. 16 May 13 May 13 July 15 Nov. 6 May 20 May 31 Sept,. 17 Sept . 15 (ID) May 7 May 17 Aug. 4 — Apr. 15 — Apr. 5 — — — May 24 — Aug. 18 Oct. 24 Nov. 5 June 15 June 18 Nov. 5 July 8 Nov. 5 May 11 June 25 Aug. 2 — Mar. 21 — — Mar. 26 — Nov. 10 May 18 Nov. 27 — — Jan. 9 Oct. 30 Oct. 11 Nov. 5 May 8 — — May 17 — — May 13 — — Dec. 17

Mar. 29 Apr. 10

203

Aug. 29 Sept. 13 Aug. 25 Sept. 2 Aug. 1 Oct. 24 Aug. 15 Sept. 2 Oct. 5 Aug. 20 Sept. 25 Oct. 8 Aug. 16 Oct. 8 Nov. 6 Oct. 13 Sept. 15 Aug. 4 Oct. 15 Oct. 13 Aug. 3 Sept. 17 Oct. 24 Nov. 5 Nov. 5 Aug. 4 Nov. 5 Sept. 28 Oct. 5 Nov. 17 Nov. 10 — — Nov. 2 Nov. 5 Sept. 11 Sept. 14 Sept. 16 Dec. 20

Sept. 13 Oct. 16 Sept.. 15 Sept. 15

Spring Fall Arrival Depart. Arrival Depart. 135. Black-billed Cuckoo May 25 June 9 136. Yellow-billed Cuckoo 137. Groove-billed Ani 138. Eastern Screech-Owl Feb. 4 May 14 Mar. 7 — 139. Great Horned Owl — Apr. 19 140. Snowy Owl — 141. Northern Hawk-Owl Mar. 12 Feb. 4 May 15 142. Barred Owl 143. G. Gray Owl Feb. 9 May 19 144. Long-eared Owl May 8 May 8 June 28 — 145. Short-eared Owl 146. Boreal Owl Feb. 1 Mar. 8 147. N. Saw-whet Owl Feb. 23 Apr. 28 148. Common Nighthawk May 17 — 149. Whip-poor-will May 6 — — 150. Chimney Swift May 9 151. Ruby-throated Hummingbi•ird May 15 — 152. Belted Kingfisher Apr. 28 — Mav 3 153. Red-headed Woodpecker 154. Red-bellied Woodpecker Apr. 17 — 155. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 156. Downy Woodpecker 157. Hairy Woodpecker — Mar. 1 1 158. Three-toed Woodpecker 159. Black-backed Woodpecker Apr. 14 — 160. Northern Flicker 161. Pileated Woodpecker 162. Olive-sided Flycatcher May 20 — 163. Eastern Wood-Pewee May 20 — May 24 — 164. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 165. Alder Flycatcher May 16 — 166. Willow Flycatcher June 15 June 21 167. Least Flycatcher May 1 1 — Apr. 15 — 168. Eastern Phoebe May 14 — 169. G. Crested Flycatcher June 4 June 5 170. Cassin's Kingbird 171. Western Kingbird May 12 — 172. Eastern Kingbird Mar. 21 May 22 173. Horned Lark May 9 — 174. Purple Martin Apr. 17 — 175. Tree Swallow — 176. N. Rough-winged Swallow May 8 May 9 — 177. Bank Swallow 178. Cliff Swallow May 13 — Apr. 23 — 179. Barn Swallow — May 11 180. Gray Jay

204

Oct. 27 Aug. 9 — Oct. 24 Oct. 17 Aug. , 5 Oct. 29 Dec. 1 — Nov. . 14 Aug.. 3 — — — — — (ID) —

Oct. 30

Aug. 29 Sept. 10 Oct. 27 Aug. 20 Dec. 17 — — Nov. 24 Dec. 20 Dec. 1 Sept,.26 Dec. 20 Nov. 11 Aug. 28 Sept. 6 Aug. 22 Sept . 3 Oct. 28 Ort 79 Sept. 17

—

—

Sept. 29

— — — —

Aug. 22 Sept. 5 Aug. 27 Aug. 29

— —

Aug. 26 Sept. 1 1 Aug. 26

Aug. 5 — Aug. 27 — — — — Aug. 23

Aug. 27 Aug. 26 Oct. 23 Aug. 22 Aug. 23 Aug. 24 Aug. 14 Aug. 22 Aug. 31 —

Spring Fall Arrival Depart. Arrival Depart. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 206. 207. 208. 209. 210. 211. 212. 213. 214. 215. 216. 217. 218. 219. 220. 221. 222. 223. 224. 225.

Blue Jay Black-billed Magpie American Crow Common Raven Black-capped Chickadee Boreal Chickadee Tufted Titmouse Blue Tit Red-breasted Nuthatch White-breasted Nuthatch Brown Creeper Carolina Wren House Wren Winter Wren Sedge Wren Marsh Wren Golden-crowned Kinglet Ruby-crowned Kinglet Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Northern Wheatear Eastern Bluebird Mountain Bluebird Townsend's Solitaire Veery Gray-cheeked Thrush Swainson's Thrush Hermit Thrush Wood Thrush American Robin Varied Thrush Gray Catbird Northern Mockingbird Brown Thrasher Water Pipit Bohemian Waxwing Cedar Waxwing Northern Shrike Loggerhead Shrike European Starling Solitary Vireo Yellow-throated Vireo Warbling Vireo Philadelphia Vireo Red-eyed Vireo Blue-winged Warbler

June 20 June 20 Oct. 1 1 Nov. 15 Feb. 28 Oct. 24

Feb. 8

May 17 Sept.9 Oct. 23 Oct. 23 Apr. 15 Oct. 15 Oct. 15

Feb 1 May 29 Aug. 25 Nov. 20 May 16 — — Sept. 6 Apr. 12 — Sept. 28 — — May 24 — Aug. 2 — Apr. 28 — Aug. 19 Apr. 2 — — Oct. 30 Apr. 19 May 29 Aug. 4 Oct. 1 1 May 24 — — Sept. 12 Sept. 14 Sept. 14 Sept. 28 Apr. 14 — — May 13 May 13 July 7 Aug. 8 Sept. 19 Nov. 6 — Sept. 1 May 11 — May 20 May 25 Aug. 13 Sept. 19 — Sept. 20 May 19 —-, Oct. 1 1 Apr. 22 — — — Aug. 30 May 12 — — Nov. 1 Mar. 23 — — Mar. 18 Dec. 1 1 — — Sept. 18 May 17 — — Dec. 18 Apr. 15 — — Nov. 23 Apr. 30 — May 8 May 26 Sept. 10 Oct. 9 — Mar. 19 Nov. 14 — — Sept. 23 May 10 — Apr. 4 Oct. 22 — — — Aug. 25 Apr. 12 — — Nov. 2 Mar. 1 1 — — Sept. 14 May 10 — Sept. 12 May 30 — — — Aug. 24 May 14 — Sept. 7 — May 22 — Sept. 7 — May 18 — May 10 May 10

205

Spring Fall Arrival Depart. Arrival Depart. 226. Golden-winged Warbler May 16 — 227. Tennessee Warbler May 20 — May 13 May 17 228. Orange-crowned Warbler 229. Nashville Warbler May 10 — May 13 — 230. Northern Parula 231. Yellow Warbler May 14 — 232. Chestnut-sided Warbler May 13 — May 13 — 233. Magnolia Warbler 234. Cape May Warbler May 14 — 235. Black-throated Blue Warbler May 13 — Apr. 29 — 236. Yellow-rumped Warbler 237. Black-throated Green Warbler May 10 — May 12 — 238. Blackburnian Warbler 239. Yellow-throated Warbler 240. Pine Warbler May 6 — June 7 June 7 241. Kirtland's Warbler May 23 — 242. Prairie Warbler May 7 May 18 243. Palm Warbler May 21 — 244. Bay-breasted Warbler May 24 June 3 245. Blackpoll Warbler May 9 June 25 246. Cerulean Warbler May 8 — 247. Black-and-white Warbler May 14 — 248. American Redstart 249. Prothonotary Warbler June 14 — May 13 — 250. Ovenbird 251. Northern Waterthrush May 9 — 252. Kentucky Warbler 253. Connecticut Warbler May 11 May 15 May 21 — 254. Mourning Warbler May 13 — 255. Common Yellowthroat 256. Hooded Warbler May 15 May 15 257. Wilson's Warbler May 19 May 30 May 19 — 258. Canada Warbler May 21 May 21 259. Yellow-breasted Chat May 18 — 260. Scarlet Tanager 261. Western Tanager Jan. 23 May 11 262. Northern Cardinal 263. Rose-breasted Grosbeak May 13 — 264. Blue Grosbeak May 15 May 15 265. Indigo Bunting May 23 — 266. Dickcissel Apr. 16 — 267. Rufous-sided Towhee Mar. 16 May 4 268. American Tree Sparrow 269. Chipping Sparrow Apr. 28 — 270. Clay-coloured Sparrow May 16 —

206

— — Aug. 27 — — — — — — — — — — Nov. 1 —

Aug. 24 Sept. 18 Oct. 6 Sept. 17 Sept. 4 Aug. 25 Sept. 8 Sept. 4 Sept. 15 Sept. 7 Oct. 14 Sept. 7 Sept. 10 Nov. 14 Sept. 2

— Sept. 4 — July 24

Sept. 19 Oct. 2 Sept. 14 Sept. 10

— Sept. 8 — Sept. 10 — July 25 — Sept. 7 — Aug. 17 Aug. 23 Aug. 23 July 16 Aug. 23 — Sept. 6 — Sept. 23 Aug. 26 Aug. 26 Aug. 18 Sept. 15 — Aug. 24 Aug. 16 Sept. 26 — Sept. 19 Aug. 19 Aug. 27 Aug. 9 Nov. 18 — Aug. 30

— Nov. 8 — Oct. 12 — —

Aug. 26 Nov. 20 Oct. 30 Nov. 12 Sept. 25 Sept. 4

Spring Fall Arrival Depart. Arrival Depart. 271. 272. 273. 274. 275. 276. 277. 278. 279. 280. 281. 282. 283. 284. 285. 286. 287. 288. 289. 290. 291. 292. 293. 294. 295. 296. 297. 298. 299. 300. 301. 302. 303. 304. 305. 306. 307. 308. 309. 310.

Field Sparrow Vesper Sparrow Lark Sparrow Lark Bunting Savannah Sparrow Grasshopper Sparrow Henslow's Sparrow Le Conte's Sparrow Fox Sparrow Song Sparrow Lincoln's Sparrow Swamp Sparrow White-throated Sparrow White-crowned Sparrow Harris' Sparrow Dark-eyed Junco Lapland Longspur Snow Bunting Bobolink Red-winged Blackbird Eastern Meadowlark Western Meadowlark Yellow-headed Blackbird Rusty Blackbird Brewer's Blackbird Common Crackle Brown-headed Cowbird Orchard Oriole Northern Oriole Pine Grosbeak Purple Finch House Finch Red Crossbill White-winged Crossbill Common Redpoll Hoary Redpoll Pine Siskin American Goldfinch Evening Grosbeak House Sparrow

Abbreviations: G - Great(er) L - Lesser N - Northern C - Common

Apr. 22 Apr. 22

— —

Apr. 6 May 18 Apr. 22 — June 1 —

Apr. Mar. May Apr. Apr. May Mar. Mar. Apr. Feb. May Mar. Apr. Apr.

13 10 11 23 14 5 10 13 7 23 15 22 4 27

Apr. 8 May 1 Mar. 31 Mar. 30 May 30 May 8 — Feb. 23

— — — Feb. 11 — — Feb. 1 1 —

I - Introduced E - Escape likely ID - Insufficient Data

207

— — Oct. 8

— — July 14 Sept. 29 Apr. 25 Sept. 27 — — — — — — — — May 21 Sept. 24 May 27 — — May 23 Sept. 23 Apr. 21 Oct. 19 — — — — — — May 23 Oct. 24 (ID) — — — — — — — — June 19 — — Mar. 25 Oct. 20 — — Sept. 14 — — May 1 1 Sept. 2 Apr. 2 Oct. 29 Mar. 20 Oct. 21 May 21 July 27 — — — — — —

Oct. 7 Sept. 24 Oct. 21 Sept. 27 July 13 July 18 Oct. 9 Oct. 11 Oct. 17 Sept. 16 Oct. 2 Oct. 15 Oct. 20

Nov. 2 Oct. 23 Dec. 7 Aug. 26 Nov. 4 Nov. 4 Oct. 24 Sept. 14 Sept. 25 Oct. 26 Dec. 6

Aug. 22 — Nov. 26 Sept. 14 — — — Nov. 8 — — Nov. 5 —

Notes

208