I Love My Nikon Monarch 8×42 DCFs

For the past 15 years, I had been using a pair of 8×40 porro prism binoculars that were waterproof and had multi-coated lenses. They had been my first step up from the $30 beginner’s pair that had served me well when I was a teenager, before I got serious about travelling around North America to prime birding locations.

That second pair had been ordered over the phone from a well-known internet retailer that carries a variety of brands. I was very pleased with the customer service. The rep had helped me weigh all my priorities, including the fact that I don’t like lugging around heavy bins, and wanted the best possible value for the $200 I had to spend.

Those binoculars have served me very well, but this year I decided to upgrade; I was looking to spend between $500 and $900. During the 2011 Festival of Birds at Point Pelee, we stopped in at the Optics Expo hosted by Pelee Wings. I got to try out the low, medium and high end options on display from Leica, Zeiss, Swarovski, Eagle Optics, Vortex and Kowa. Analysis paralysis! The only conclusion I was able to come to was that I had more homework to do.

Although this review by the ornithologists at Cornell Lab is six years old, it piqued my interest in Nikon’s Monarch series.  They touted the Monarch 8×42  as performing as well or better than many binoculars costing twice or three times as much.

While I could have gone back to Pelee Wings to test drive and possibly purchase the Monarchs, I chose not to give them my business due to the way they have handled our inquiries into their wheelchair accessibility–or lack thereof.

At Henry’s I was able to take binoculars out into the parking lot to test them. This was not an ideal setting for comparing them to my old ones, so my eventual purchase of the Nikon Monarch DCF was done almost more on faith in the Cornell Lab’s review and a pinch of gut instinct than on how they performed that day in the parking lot.

This week I took the Monarchs into the field for one evening outing and one morning outing.  Wow! I never knew what I was missing.  Keep in mind that these binoculars have the same magnification (8) as my old pair. The differences lie primarily in type of prism (I went from porro to roof), 2 additional milimetres of objective lens diameter (light gathering capacity) and quality of lens and coatings.

The folks at Cornell were not kidding when they bragged about the crispness of image and faithful colour.  I feel like that day in grade seven when Mom took me for my first pair of eye glasses. Coming out of the optometrist’s office, I had said, “MOM! The trees have LEAVES!”

This morning in the field I found myself remarking, “The squirrels have hairs! That Flicker has two feathers out of alignment on its right wing! I can now see detail and subtle colour shading on the breasts and bellies of birds at great distances.  Birding has suddenly become a whole new experience.

The next thing I immediately noticed was how quickly I can go from close focus (2.5 m for the Mourning Cloak butterfly in front of my feet) to distant focus (like a raptor overhead) without sacrificing the ability to fine-tune down to a razor sharp image once I have my target in view. I am not sure how they’ve managed to put both capacities into one product, but they have.

So yes, I highly recommend the Nikon Monarch 8×42 DCFs, especially considering value for dollar. I paid $369.99 CAD at Henry’s in Canada.

Grace in Small Things 148

• The fragrance that rises from Yarrow as I pinch it between my fingers.
• Duckling fuzz against my cupped hands.
• The high-pitched jingling of Cedar Waxwings overhead.
• Bits of dried mud making my floors dirty soon after a recent mopping. This means I am living.
• “I think I’ll write a poem about you,” I call out to the right half of the couple coming toward me on the path. “On the trail in a red dress!”  She laughs. They both laugh. “We’re off to a wedding,” she says.

Wood Duckling at Sand Point Beach

This afternoon I went on a bird hike on the Ganatchio and nearby extension trails to try out my new binoculars. Wow! I am in love with these Nikon Monarch 8x42s. I will probably blog a product review soon, I am so pleased with them. I was able to focus on a Mourning Cloak butterfly that was on the trail not a couple of feet away, and on distant birds overhead.

Robins, Yellow Warblers and Red-winged Blackbirds aside, the first bird I saw was a Carolina Wren, which is probably nesting down in the lush thickets near the brook. Soon after that I saw a large green Empidonax Flycatcher with a whitish eye-ring. Acadian? It didn’t vocalize for me, so I don’t know.  I walked along the tree line and was examining another flycatcher with a yellow wash on its belly and no eye-ring when someone called from the paved path, “Seeing anything good?”

A woman about my age identified herself as a birder. We stood there a long while comparing notes on this year’s Point Pelee sightings and how difficult small flycatchers are to identify.  Her name is Jennifer; maybe we’ll meet again.

A very large tern flew past overhead. It had a light grey mantle and darker wing-tips. I think the crown was black. That’s all I saw.

The Gray Catbird that nests in this area every year was being vocal. While I was looking at the wren and flycatcher, a male Northern Cardinal made an appearance in the back of my field of view.

Something was calling from the tops of the willows and maples. It seemed to say, “Tea threet?” with an upward rising intonation, like a question.

Hungry, I walked up to Stop 26 for a slice of pizza only to discover that they are not doing pizza this year, only ice cream. It was getting to be suppertime when I crossed Riverside Drive to check out the bird activity in a yard that backs onto the Detroit River.

I started to walk along the river when I noticed an odd bird running through the grassy area between the street and the paved walking path. Duckling? Yes. It was a duckling. It was swallowed by the grass most of the time, but occasionally bobbed up higher than the grass. It was covering a lot of ground for such a small guy.  I went over to two cyclists sitting on a bench and asked if they had noticed any duck families in the area. They said no, the nearest Mallard family was way over at xxx point.  I told them about the lone duckling, then continued to follow it, keeping my distance so as not to scare it.

When the couple got on their bikes to leave, the husband tried to catch the duckling but could not. The duckling was too fast.  ”It’s awfully vulnerable out here alone,” he said.  ”A cat could get it.”

“Or a hawk,” I added. They left, and I stayed with the duckling.

The little guy scampered all the way to Sand Point beach, where he came up against an short retaining wall that separates the grassy area from the beach. I took advantage of the dead-end and scooped it up. I put the fuzzy fellow under my sweater and walked quickly to my car where I used my (old) binocular case as a temporary cage.

There I called Sylvain, who called a friend that does bird rehab.  She told him she isn’t licensed to rehabilitate ducks, so we would have to call Wings Wildlife Rehab in Amherstburg.  After ensuring that we had observed the bird for an hour and were sure the baby was separated from the parents, they said we could bring him out. My sweetie, trooper and animal lover that he is, offered to drive us to Amherstburg.   Note: We also had the option of dropping him at an animal hospital, who would see that he got to Wings tomorrow, but we didn’t want him to spend the night all alone.

Our little friend spent the entire trip trying to jump out of the deep cardboard box that I’d lined with a soft tee shirt. He was a very energetic little bird!

Half an hour from Windsor we found Wings Rehab with the remainders of a fund-raising yard sale still on the front lawn, covered with plastic tarps. Our foundling was readily accepted, determined to be a baby Wood Duck, and was dropped into a terrarium that held about seven other little ducks that looked just like him.  The rehab people gave me a form to fill out, but I was busy watching to see if the other ducklings would accept the newcomer.  They did! Soon he was pecking at the food and grooming himself as if nothing strange had befallen him at all.

While I filled out the form, the volunteers showed us some of the babies they are currently raising: a Great-horned Owlet, a Screech Owlet, a ground hog, a fawn. They said a whole mess of ducklings had just outgrown the terrarium and had been moved to the coops out back.  We made a donation, as we always do when we bring them a hurt bird, and hit the road again.

Now my question is: how on earth does a Wood Duckling end up all alone in the middle of a city park? That is not Wood Duck habitat, as far as I know. Sylvain and I hypothesized on the way home. Did a raptor drop it?

One thing that is interesting about Wood Ducks: they are highly precocial–mobile and able to find food on their own soon after hatching. No wonder that little guy was so self-sufficient.

Lucid Dream: No Answers Yet

I’ve been having some alarming dreams of late…the sort of dream that alerts me to the fact that my subconscious has an important message for me. My inner wise voice wants me to alter my course in some regard, but I don’t know how or where.

The most recent dream that left me feeling ill at ease was one in which my mother’s house had some rot. This is an emerging theme in my dreams lately. I am visiting my mother’s house and there is some sort of problem with the house: neglect, rot, deterioration, failure on my mother’s part to keep the house in a state of good repair. The feeling that “I” have in the dream is one of frustration because one day I may inherit this house, and by the time I get it, it will be beyond hope.

It is hard for me, on waking, to untangle the intended message or teachings of these dreams. All characters in our dreams are, to some extent, representative of parts of ourselves.  So I should look to the mother complex in my psyche. What is going on there?  Often when I ask myself what the unhealthy side of my mother complex is, I come up with: a need to care for others to an unhealthy degree; martyr complex; a need to follow rules and be a ‘good girl’ to an unhealthy degree.  There are probably other things that are still in my blind spot.

On the other hand, there could be some anxiety in me regarding actual, real-life situations involving my mother and her houses. She owns three: one in which she lives; one that she has rented in the past but is currently trying to unload; and one cottage on a lake.  Although I am named in my mother’s will to inherit property or some of the capital liquidated by the sale of her estate at her death, I have always had very ambivalent feelings about inheriting money or material things.  In fact, I already walked away from one very large potential inheritance when I stopped all contact and communication with my step-father in the late 90s.  Sylvain suggests that my upcoming visit to Arkansas is starting to stir up old complexes in my psyche.

There are other types of dreams that are beginning to repeat themselves and form a motif.

What occurred to me is that I should just ask characters in my dreams what they have come to tell me, what they want me to learn. I set a goal of lucid dreaming. To accomplish this, I just told myself for a few nights before sleeping, “I want to have a lucid dream. I want to remember to ask someone in my dream why they are there and what they have to teach me.”

This morning it happened–for only the second or third time in my life.  In the dream, I was outdoors and there were men walking past me. I became aware of a feeling of longing when I looked at these dark-skinned men walking past. The longing was a yearning to know more about them, to talk to them. Then it dawned on dream-me.  I can ask them! This is my dream and I can just speak up!

So I called out to the darkest-skinned passerby and said, “I want to talk to you.”  He stopped and looked at me.

“Why are you in my dream?” I asked.

He didn’t have any meaningful answer for me.  Then I decided to get down to the bottom line. I said, “I want to see my teacher. Can you take me to my teacher?”

Then my dream eye shifted to another scene, one that was above or beyond the earth-like scene. This was a vision of a globe or sphere of some kind. In the middle of that globe was a shifting pattern of dark and light. It was sort of like those hokey old movies where a fortune teller would gaze into a crystal ball and suddenly a scene would materialize. What materialized momentarily in my crystal ball was the silhouette of an old man seated on a cushion. Clearly this was my teacher. But he didn’t speak to me and I didn’t manage to ask a question. The connection was very tenuous and momentary.

I kept saying, “I want to see my teacher.”

Then there was a female in my bedroom putting her fingers on my temples and massaging my face to settle me down. Her presence said, “Don’t get your panties in a wad over seeing your teacher. Relax.”

Part of me…a part of me that had receded to the quiet background, told me that I live alone and there could not possibly be a female with me in my bedroom. This was like a dream within a dream. I was dreaming that I was in a house with other people, and in that house I was asleep and dreaming, but a person who was awake could approach my sleeping body and touch my face.

The I came out of both levels of dream. Nobody was in my room or touching my face, of course.

What surprised and disappointed me upon reflecting on this dream was that the man whom I chose to address in my dream did not have any good information for me. I had always assumed that all the characters in my dream would be able to give me wonderful nuggets of insight from my subconscious if I only could remember to ask. Isn’t that who they are? Are they not communication channels?  This one certainly wasn’t a very clear channel, that’s for sure. I would probably do better with a bag of rune stones.  Nevertheless, I will continue to try to train my dream-scapes to be more responsive to me and my quest for guidance.

Birder Girl’s Night Out

At around 3:15 this afternoon, I made the hour-long drive to Point Pelee by myself.

I adore birding with Sylvain and want for us to do it together 95% of the time. But I don’t want to become one of those women who are so enmeshed in their marriages that they forget how to run away. Spur-of-the-moment escapades are important to our souls, don’t you think?

Bird Alert emails from the park today mentioned Hooded, Mourning and Connecticut Warblers near the tip tram stop.  I decided to head over that way to see if any of those might still be hanging around.

Today was a scorcher, and I found myself at first wishing I’d donned shorts instead of jeans. Once I entered the forest, though, it was cooler. The woods have a different smell now, one of sweet flower fragrances and hot earth.

Walking slowly, I took time to examine Sensitive Fern and white violets. There were lots of picnickers and dog-walkers, but only a few serious birders.

At the end of the Woodland Trail where it intersects with the path to the mid-way tram stop, I spotted a promising bird high in a cedar. I was quite surprised when it turned out to be a WILSON’S WARBLER working near the trunk. The bird stayed in the cedar for a good five minutes, finally alighting on a not yet fully foliaged limb of a nearby deciduous tree, affording me a great view. It felt a little lonely not to have anyone around to whom to show this handsome little yellow bird with the black crown.

I decided not to wait for the tram, but instead to walk the rest of the way to the point, something I haven’t done in a couple of years.  It proved to be a very good decision.  I soon noticed that there was a lot–and I mean A LOT–of bird activity in the cedar trees. Almost every cedar had a variety of species in it.

In one cedar I had Redstart, Black-throated Green and Chestnut-sided.  In another were a female Red-winged Blackbird, Blackpoll Warbler and Red-eyed Vireo.  Another had a female Bay-breasted and a Black-throated Green. Each cedar tree I checked revealed the same feeding frenzy.  There must be a particularly juicy insect hatching right now in the cedars!

I was near the speed limit sign not far from the midway tram stop when I saw something new high in yet another cedar.  Good thing nobody was around, because what escaped my lips as I peered through the binoculars would not have been polite in mixed company.   There where it really should not have been, plain as day, was a MOURNING WARBLER.

Once again, there was nobody around!  It was hard to tear myself away, but I eventually did.

When a couple finally passed me going the other way, they told me about a bird they’d just seen at the tip with a “fuschia chest.” The fellow pulled out his digital camera and showed me a photo of a splotchy Summer Tanager. I thanked them and quickened my pace a bit.

Once I reached the tram stop, there were a few other birders around. A young woman and her dad had also noticed that the cedars were crazy busy. Together we identified 5 species (Magnolia Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo, Redstart, Nashville Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler) in one cedar near the tram loop while a rabbit nibbled dandelions at our feet.  It was close to seven p.m. by then and dusk would soon be falling.

One new focus of mine is to practice identifying small flycatchers. I’m pretty sure I had the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher at one point, but since there was no expert there to confirm it and it didn’t vocalize for me, I won’t count it.

Several museums of Cedar Waxwings passed overhead going south. Yes, south.

Just as I was reaching the tip, I happened to look to my left in time to see the immature Summer Tanager sitting on the footpath picking apart a large bee. He seemed totally oblivious to my presence. I was about as engrossed in my activity as he was in his and almost missed the last tram back to the Nature Centre! Above the tram stop, a House Wren was entering and exiting her nest cavity.  Barn Swallows were dive-bombing a persistent Grackle that wanted to raid their nests.

Even though dusk was falling, I dilly-dallied around the frog pond looking at ferns before calling it a day.

When I got back to Windsor, I had a text from Sylvain saying, “If you want to see five Screech Owl babies, come over now.”

What a birdy day!

Taken Up in the Rapture?

We came across this picnic pavilion.  Clearly there were lots of people here just moments before, but we could not hear or see anyone around.  We looked at our watches and stared open-mouthed at one another. It was close to six p.m.

Grace in Small Things 146

• We share bites of fudgecicle and creamcicle with each other as we stand near the picnic tables at the Cattail Cafe.
• The taste of fudgecicle reminds me of hot summer days in Fresno when my mom would let us put on our bathing suits and run through the sprinkler.
• A ylang-ylang bubble bath for my trail-weary body.
• Ravenous after twelve hours in the woods, I find half an acorn squash in the fridge. Appetite is the best sauce, they say. They are right.

All Day at Point Pelee…AGAIN!

The Festival of Birds ends in two days, but today was almost as birdy a day as we’ve had since be began our regular park visits in mid-April.  The license plates in the parking lot were mostly from Ontario today, as Monday is Victoria Day. This long weekend is traditionally one on which families go on picnics and such.

We decided to hit the tip first in hopes of seeing the “yellow-legged” gull. We saw it and ran into our birding friends Rick and Dwayne. After the tip, we did the Woodland Trail from the half-way tram stop backward to the Nature Centre. After lunch we did Schuster and Tilden. In the late afternoon/evening, we went to the Marsh Boardwalk in hopes of seeing the Black Terns.  Our pace was relaxed, and we enjoyed meeting and talking birds with so many nice people, young and old.

Here is our list for today:

• Tree Swallow
• Herring Gull
• Yell0w-legged Gull
• Red-winged Blackbird
• Common Grackle
• Bonaparte’s Gull
• Blue Jay
• Scarlet Tanager
• Black-throated Green Warbler
• Chestnut-sided Warbler
• Caspian Tern
• Yellow Warbler
• American Robin
• Blackpoll Warbler
• Red-eyed Vireo (many throughout the day)
• Ruby-throated Hummingbird
• Cedar Waxwing
• Least Flycatcher
• Eastern Kingbird
• Northern Cardinal
• Cooper’s Hawk (overhead)
• Broad-winged Hawk (ditto)
• Northern Harrier (ditto)
• Red-tailed Hawk (ditto)
• Philadelphia Vireo
• Common Nighthawk (roosting)
• Orchard Oriole
• Baltimore Oriole
• Mourning Dove
• Gray Catbird
• Common Yellowthroat
• Bay-breasted Warbler
• Swainson’s Thrush (a few)
• Brown-headed Cowbird
• Blackburnian Warbler (male and females)
• Double-crested Cormorant (overhead)
• Canada Warbler
• Magnolia Warbler
• Indigo Bunting
• American Redstart (male and female)
• Red-bellied Woodpecker (heard)
• Black-throated Blue Warbler
• Eastern Wood Pewee
• Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
• Wild Turkey (tom and hen)

At the Marsh Boardwalk:

• Mallard
• Barn Swallow
• Black Tern
• Swamp Sparrow

Mammal list:

On the way to the park we saw a young deer being chased through a farmer’s field by a Red-winged Blackbird.

At the tip there was a raccoon asleep in the top of a tree, as usual.

P.S. We also went Thursday after I got off work and heard the Black-billed Cuckoo.

Dream: Kissing Nasty Mouth Guy, etc.

Dreamt that a university prof (reminded me of Ed Asner) graded a test paper of mine and wrote a comment that I should be an educational counselor.  Strange. Not a field I ever would have chosen for myself. Doesn’t attract me.

In the next dream I was wandering the streets of some city. I had lost my wallet with all ID, my cell phone, everything. I didn’t even have money to call Mom and give her news of my whereabouts.  I wanted at least to send her an email or make a blog post, but couldn’t.  A man took an interest in me.

Man #1 – He had a nasty, rotting mouth and wanted to kiss me and make love to me. In the dream, I say nothing to him about his smelly, bad-tasting mouth. I feel strange about the decision, like I am betraying myself, but I let him kiss me.

Post-dream note: WHY WAS I COMPLIANT? Did I fear him or want to prove something or just not hurt his feelings? What power does he have over me? Is this prostitution? Or has he kidnapped me?  I imagine this is how a kidnapping victim feels… you have to comply with your captor no matter what, and you can’t piss him off or hurt his feelings, or he’ll kill you.

Man #2 – Another nice man I ran into on the street was a man of the cloth. He invited me to dine. I declined, but I’m not sure why.

I wandered around trying to think of a way to get a little money. All the redeemable cans and bottles had already been scooped up by the local down-and-out.

Toward the very end of the dream, before I woke up, I looked down and noticed that I was wearing the ruby cocktail ring that I almost never wear.  For some odd reason I had slipped it on before setting out on this trip (before knowing I would end up lost and penniless).  Aha! I can just find a pawn shop and…

I woke up.

Strange Way to Spend an Evening

Singing national anthems.

That’s what I’m doing tonight. I am reciting and brushing up my memorization of five countries’ national anthems.

One of the classes in which I assist was learning the Canadian anthem. The instructor perceived the students as being a bit whiny about having to memorize the song, so I piped up, “Hey, I have three memorized.”

The instructor asked me which three.

“The Star Spangled Banner, O Canada, and Ey Iran, the anthem of the people of Iran.”  (It’s not the official anthem of the Islamic Republic.)

The instructor asked me why I knew the Iranian anthem, so I explained that when I was taking Farsi, we learned it for a performance we put on for the parents. My parents didn’t come because I was only pretending to be eight years old, I added.

Then I realized that in German class we had memorized the German anthem, and in French class we had learned La Marseillaise.

“Gosh, I guess I know five anthems,” I said.

The instructor challenged the students to learn O Canada by Friday if I agreed to recite the five that I know on Friday as well.  The duel is on!

Allons enfants de la patrie….

Dream Big

Olivia said “Dream Big.” Actually, someone else said it first. But whatever. I want to play, too!

If I could have ANYTHING at all… anything and everything…sky’s the limit?

Hmmm.

How about this scenario:

I wake up every morning happy to be where I am and who I am.  I saunter into the kitchen and open a full refrigerator, stand there in my stocking feet pondering the choices: soft boiled egg, granola, leftover pizza.

I have a car, so I get to work in 20 minutes in climate-controlled comfort. If I feel like it that day, I scoop a couple of twoonies from the change tray and zip through the line at Starbuck’s for a Chai Latte or visit Tim’s for a hot chocolate.

When I arrive at the job I love, all my clients greet me with big smiles. Some slap my hand affectionately. One sneaks a hug.

After work I go out to a quiet, romantic restaurant with my lover. We listen to each other, share the joys and frustrations of our respective days.

When the day is done I crawl between clean bamboo sheets.  If it storms, the storm stays outside; I stay dry. I sleep soundly because I live in a peaceful country with a very low crime rate.

I have sweet dreams.

Ignoring the Weather Report

Thank goodness we ONCE AGAIN completely ignored the weather report for Leamington.  It did not rain all day today any more than it rained all weekend the last time that was predicted for the park and town of Leamington. Fortunately, Sylvain and I have taken up the hobby of manifesting the weather we want, then going on out to enjoy a beautiful day.

Since today was my Saturday to have breakfast with Pa, we arrived at the park at around lunchtime. It was cool and overcast with no wind, not even at the very tip!

We had barely stepped off the tram before we were looking at Prothonotary, Blackburnian male and female, Black-throated Blue male and female all in the same little area. Photographers were having a field day with the Prothonotary, which was not in its usual habitat but was catching small insects along large trunks of trees. What a gorgeous bird.

On the west side near the tram loop, a group of birders was cooperating in a stake-out of the Henslow’s Sparrow that had been seen in the vicinity an hour earlier. They spread out along the path so that if any one of them saw it, he/she could call everyone else over for a look. We joined them for about 15 minutes, then gave up.

I’ve noticed that since we completed the 100-species challenge, birding has become more fun again.  I have a competitive streak as well as OCD, and when I get caught up in those aspects of my personality, mindfulness goes out the window.  While we were working on the 100, I noticed that I was often slightly uptight, less fun to be with, and often found myself ignoring an absolutely beautiful feathered creature that was right in front of me simply because we had already ticked it on our list and needed to move on to try to get the next species. Pathetic, I know.

Today we moved more slowly, smiled more, laughed more and got more enjoyment out of every little thing around us…from a violet blooming amid the bright, spring-green moss to the charming “drink-your-teeeea” call of an Eastern Towhee.

Still, the OCD side of me wants to list what we saw.  Instead of doing our usual trails (tip, Woodland, Schuster-Tilden), we decided to start at White Pine and make our way north along the bike path to DeLaurier. This ended up being a very good decision; we ran into pockets of warblers, etc. Our list for the day is:

• White-crowned Sparrow
• Mourning Dove
• Chipping Sparrow
• Blackburnian Warbler (male and female)
• Prothonotary Warbler
• Black-throated Blue Warbler (male and female)
• Yellow-rumped Warbler
• Magnolia Warbler
• Red-eyed Vireo
• Eastern Pewee
• American Goldfinch
• Red-breasted Nuthatch
• Cedar Waxwing (heard first, then seen)
• Red-breasted Merganser
• Black-crowned Night Heron (roosting at the tip – we could see its red iris)
• Black-throated Green Warbler (seen and heard)
• Red-headed Woodpecker
• Palm Warbler
• Eastern Kingbird
• Red-bellied Woodpecker
• Black and White Warbler
• Canada Warbler
• Grey Catbird
• Baltimore Oriole (males and females abundant)
• Orchard Oriole (males and females)
• Ring-billed Gull
• Common Grackle
• Black-capped Chickadee
• Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
• Blue Jay
• Indigo Bunting (2)
• Eastern Towhee – singing “drink-your-tea”
• Great-crested Flycatcher
• Chestnut-sided Warbler
• Common Yellowthroat

It was a fabulous and fun day. We are SO glad we ignored the weather report, as we stayed good and dry all day.

After Point Pelee, Head to Jack’s Gastropub

In town for the Festival of Birds? Want a nice meal after a long day of birding in a casual but charming atmosphere? Have I got the restaurant for you!

Jack’s Gastropub, formerly the Vintage Goose Inn and Spa, is just 22 kilometres from the park in the neighbouring town of Kingsville. It is very easy to get to and well worth the extra few minutes of driving. (Click here for driving directions.)

The cozy inn and restaurant are housed in a Victorian style home whose gleaming oak beams, banisters and lintels have been lovingly stripped of paint and restored to their original splendor. Or at least that’s my (partly imagined) story, and I’m sticking to it.

Click here to see the menu.  Tonight we started with the Apple, Bacon, Fig and Brie Turnovers. We split a Strongbow hard cider, which went great with my Orchard Pork and with Sylvain’s Hazelnut Encrusted Cod.  Everything was delicious. Sylvain said that his fish had a perfect balance between slightly crunchy on the outside while moist and tasty on the inside. The sprig of mint garnishing my dish was freshly picked from somebody’s garden, I’d say.

With a long switch-back ramp in front and spacious washroom on the main floor, the establishment is wheelchair accessible.  They also have an inn and offer birding packages during the month of May.

Orchard Pork

Perth County heritage pork chop, cheddar boxty, apple, fig, cognac, carrots.

Hazelnut-encrusted Cod

We Got Our Pins

I got a text from Sylvain at 6:10 that said, “I’m here in my parking spot, watching this weird thing called a sunrise.”

Needless to say, my partner does not often rise with the birds.

Today we got our pins to commemorate finishing the 100 Species Challenge.

The birds that put us over the top were:

Inside the park:  Orange-crowned Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Carolina Wren, Redstart, Golden-winged Warbler, Hermit Thrush.

On the way to Hillman Marsh: House Sparrow (yes, finally!)*

Hillman Marsh: Bald Eagle, Semi-palmated Plover, American Pipit.

We did not manage to see the Pacific Loon, any Scoters (need a better scope?), the Dickcissel, Baybreasted Warbler, and many more birds that we heard via Twitter were being seen.  That’s okay. You have to leave something for next time, or else next time would be no fun!

*side note: We never actually laid eyes on an American Crow, Rock Pigeon, or House Finch, so we did not count them even though we know they are very abundant within the Christmas Bird Count circle that constitutes the contest area.

A Day Off

I so seldom ask for a day off from work that when I told one teacher about it, she was shocked.  ”YOU are taking a day off? That seems impossible,” she said.

That and the fact that taking a day off means losing a day’s pay tells you how crazy I am about birding this year.  I just couldn’t stand the thought of waiting a whole week to get down to Point Pelee again.  Every morning and evening we get an email from the park listing the new species that have arrived.  Today a Pacific Loon and Parasitic Jaeger were sighted off the point. I am keen to see an Orange-crowned Warbler, a Louisiana Waterthrush or a Hooded Warbler. I remember what a White-eyed Vireo sounds like, so maybe we can find that one, as well.

On a related note, I am thinking of getting new binoculars.  My very first pair were hand-me-downs from my late father, passed to me via my mom. I still have them but haven’t used them in decades.  My next pair I bought for myself: $29.99 from Wal-Mart. They served me well from my teens into my thirties.  Finally in the 1990s, when I realized birding was becoming a serious hobby taking me to all the best birding hot spots around North America, I upgraded from the cheapos and ordered a pair of Celestron from Eagle Optics for around $200.  Though still worthy of being passed on to a beginning birder, these showing their age.  Notice that my field guide is held together with duct tape, but I’m not trading it in! They don’t make the Peterson’s that compact anymore, so I’m holding onto it.

Sylvain’s are better than mine. Sometimes when I want a better look at something, he will hand his over for a couple of minutes.

So last weekend we stopped at the optics expo at Pelee Wings so I could try out the various brands, strengths and fancy engineering. I tried out everything from Kowa and Vortex to Zeiss, Leica and Swarovski. A few of the binoculars I took for a test drive would cost me three months’ salary.

I learned a little bit about what makes a binocular good. All I knew before was that magnification (the first number) and diameter of objective lens (the second number) has to be balanced against weight and image stability…and price, if you believe in money. What I had not thought about was that there is another factor that greatly influences image crispness, and that is the quality of the lens or glass itself, including coatings.   With high quality glass, you can skimp a bit on light gathering (objective lens diameter) and still come out with a superior image. So much to think about! I have to do more research, perhaps.

Anyway, we are getting up super early tomorrow in order to be in the park by 7:30. Poor Sylvain has to set his alarm for 4:00 or 4:30 in order to accomplish this, so I won’t request it more than once a year.  I should hit the hay now, too, don’t you think?

The Power Drill of Bliss

We did not go birding today.  This means that I had time to tackle my very long to-do list.  I completed my 2011 Census form, finished filling out my 2010 US tax return (ex-pats are given an extra month to file), coloured two birds in my Birder’s Journal coloring book, went grocery shopping, made a dessert for tonight’s company, vacuumed the apartment, did four loads of laundry, ironed four blouses and a skirt, and booked my flights for an upcoming visit back “home” to see my Mama.

I never did tell you about the Neil Young concert at The Fox.  It was fun. The weather in Detroit was cool and sunny. Sylvain made sure were got over there early so we wouldn’t get stuck in hockey game / baseball game / concert traffic. We spent the extra hours walking around Tiger Stadium and people watching. We wondered how on earth we would busy ourselves for two hours.  We watched the ticket scalpers and a woman selling little bags of peanuts for $1 per bag as a fundraiser for the United Methodist Church that fronts the square.

What should we do, what should we do? I thought.  Just then two pigeons landed near a fountain.

Eureka!  Peanut vendor + pigeons = fun when you’re a crazy bird lady.  Soon I was seated on a low wall near the fountain and smiling. Sylvain and I make a good team. He takes off the shells and I crush up the nut meats into manageable bits. We were soon surrounded by happy sparrows and pigeons.

The crowd assembled to hear Neil Young made us both want to turn in our memberships to the human race. There was so much talking and hubbub during the opening act that two different audience members tried yelling, “BE QUIET” and “SHUT UP.” Even Bert Jansch made a thinly veiled sarcastic comment about it, poor chap.  To top this, the ushers kept reading Row C as row G and vice versa, seating people behind us who should have been in front of us, and vice versa.  This meant that when new people arrived to claim their seats, the ushers had to disturb everyone in the vicinity to get it all sorted out again. And again. And again.

When a Boomer version of Beavis sat next to me and proceeded to yell “Yeah!” with spastic timing through the show, and the woman in front of us had hair so big we thought it was a novelty wig, and the woman two rows in front could not sit still and had to pick arguments with the ushers over seating every five minutes, I said, “I have gotten too old for concerts.”

Sylvain looked over at me and said, very calmly, “Find your zone.  You have the tools.”

Oh, wow, I thought. He’s right. I DO have the tools.  Breathe. Expand and include. Expand and include.  I settled down and communed with the present moment. It was all good.

When a group of five ushers decided to camp out right next to us to chat, Sylvain could not take it anymore. He had polite but firm words with them.

“Got any spare tools over there?” he asked me.

I handed over the hammer of mindfulness and the power drill of bliss.

Once we stopped emotionally investing in those strange hallucinations we think are other humans, we were able to enjoy the very good musical performance.

Birding Point Pelee National Park, 7 May 2011

The birds are making us work for it today.

At 8:30 the parking lot is already full and overflow parking is in use.  Soon after we get off the tram to the point, an older gentleman tells us that the tip is so dead this morning that all the better birders have already come and gone. He can’t abandon the hike because he has a bunch of beginners in tow who don’t realize it’s a bad day for birds.  They are all perfectly happy with the Cardinals, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and Yell0w-rumps.

What a difference a day makes in the make-up of the crowd, too!  For a few weeks now we have had the whole park practically to ourselves. The only other birders have been the hard-core birders…the ones who know you don’t have to wait for peak weekend to see good birds.  Suddenly today we are surrounded on all sides by novices. It is kind of cool being able to tell groups of people what bird they are looking at, or that the Yellow-breasted Chat is just around the next bend.

Our list for the park proper is:

Warbling Vireo, Killdeer, Ring-billed Gull, Orchard Oriole, Baltimore Oriole, Red-breasted Nuthatch, White-crowned Sparrow, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Blue Jay, Red-breasted Grosbeak, Eastern Kingbird, House Wren, Yell0w-rumped Warbler, Grey Catbird, Yell0w-bellied Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, Prothonotary Warbler, Red-headed Woodpecker, Swainson’s Hawk, Northern Waterthrush, Yell0w-breasted Chat.

At Pelee Wings Nature Store and rocky breakwater that juts out from their neighbour’s backyard:

Black-bellied Plover, but not the Ruddy Turnstone

At Hillman Marsh after lunch:

Mallard, Dunlin, Brown Thrasher, Wilson’s Phalarope, Killdeer, Lesser Yellowlegs, Northern Shoveler.

We are both too exhausted to go back tomorrow, even if we get an email saying a big wave of birds has arrived.  Plus I don’t think my laundry is going to do itself.

Post Script: I’ve just tallied our checklist to discover that Sylvain has seen 85 and I have seen 99 of the 100 species we need to complete the 100-species challenge. Sylvain said, “Had we known you were one bird away, we would still be out there looking for your hundredth bird.”

Bird, Bird, Bird

I’m exhausted, achy, sore, stiff and slightly sunburned. We are headed out for more birding at dawn tomorrow, so I still can’t come up for air long enough to blog.  Many GRACE in SMALL THINGS things arise and fall away every day, going unposted. For now, I leave you with this, the email I sent to the local bird alert listserv. Now I must go sleep.

After work, starting at about 4:30, we checked the row of mixed deciduous and conifers along the south edge of the parking lot across from Sandpoint Beach in Windsor. The entrance to this parking lot is from Florence Ave where it meets Riverside Drive. This row of trees has been very productive for me in past springs.

The trees were FULL of warblers, especially the maples and trees that are just now putting out shoots and catkins, but also an adjacent pine. There were dozens of Yellow-rumps, several Palm, a couple of Black & White, a couple of Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, and an obliging Blackburnian…all at ONE TIME. We sat out the short showers in the car, and for a while the flocks of warblers thinned out a little. We had a male Scarlet Tanager and American Goldfinch, as well.

Making our way to the west end of the parking lot and continuing up the extension toward the stormwater ponds, we had Grey Catbird, Yellow Warbler, Veery, Song Sparrow.

At the stormwater ponds were female Bufflehead, Mute Swan, Killdeer (feigning injury, so we were careful not to step off the path), Great Egret, unknown Sandpiper – possibly Spotted, Tree Swallow, Barn Swallow, Chimney Swifts, Brown-headed Cowbird, Great Blue Heron, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Downy Woodpecker. As we stood there watching a muskrat and a nesting swan, a Bald Eagle flew right over, giving us great views.

Calling it a day at 7:00, we headed back to the car, but were still seeing new species, such as Baltimore Oriole.

It was a very birdy day here today!

Yes, I Voted

Fortunately, my polling station was in the lobby of my building this time.  At 3:34, there was no line up, so I was able to vote in the amount of time it usually takes me to check my mailbox.

It’s interesting to follow the results.  Looks like the NDP is kicking butt and taking names in this town. I’m happy to see that a multiple party system is alive and kicking. Even the Marxist-Leninist has 74 votes so far tonight.  Makes me wonder who those 74 people are.  Would they like to come to dinner? Well, maybe not all at the same time. My dining table is very small.

I didn’t vote for Ralph Nader this time. Oh, wait…wrong country.

Hitting Hillman After Work

Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of striking out on my own to bird Hillman Marsh.  Unfortunately, Sylvain can’t enjoy this birding venue due to the bumpy mud paths.  We’ve both been getting email alerts about all sorts of species being seen there, and I wanted to try to add some of them to my “100 Species Challenge” list.  Although it feels a bit uncomfortable for me to go off without Sylvain, he said he understood.

Normally I do my hospice volunteering after work on Mondays, but I had a last-minute cancellation. I decided to hit the highway, stopping by home just long enough to change into birding clothes and jot down directions to the conservation area. Sylvain always does the driving, so I was a bit nervous about getting lost.  Actually, I always get lost, but if I’m careful I can limit it to only being lost for about 5 minutes each way.

Six cars made the tiny parking area look full.  A birder on her way out, spotting scope slung over her shoulder, let us know what we could expect to see: Willet, Dunlin, Black-bellied Plover, Long-billed Dowitcher (!)….  I tucked myself behind a group whose gear was marked Swarovski and planted myself within earshot when they sat on a bench and began discussing the birds out in the shorebird cell. After some time observing the waders, gulls, ducks and terns, this group decided to go in search of the Eared Grebe that has been reported there this week.  I asked them if I might tag along, and they were kind enough to have me.  I even got to peer through the huge honkin’ scope.

Learning that I live in Windsor, the group leader said, “I guess you come here all the time.”  I told him why I don’t. A woman in the group, perhaps the wife of he group leader, then hung back from the boys to talk to me about that. She has a son who uses a wheelchair and she coaches paralympics. One of the first things she had on her mind was the new and not-so-improved trolley to the point.

Not only did I enjoy a couple of hours in the company of very nice folks, I added 20 species to my Challenge list. All my sightings for Hillman Marsh are:
Canada Geese with young (lots and lots, all hissing and not happy about human presence)
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Ring-necked Duck
Bufflehead
Ruddy Duck
Eared Grebe!!!
Double-crested Cormorant (fly over)
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture (overhead)
American Coot
Black-bellied Plover
Dunlin
Killdeer
Willet
Long-billed Dowitcher (confirmed by two separate parties of advanced birders)
Bonaparte’s Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Caspian Tern
Forster’s Tern
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-Winged Swallow
Cliff Swallow (yes, really)
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Yellow Warbler
Palm Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Song Sparrow
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird