The Reluctant Twitcher (20 page)

Photo
by Jean Iron.

Dickcissel. Sanford. I saw this very bird in 2006, but the species
managed to elude me during my Big Year.

Okay. It's a good five-hour drive from my home, but if we gotta go, we gotta go. They've been widely seen and reported and we have directions to the exact uncut fields where they have been seen.

We arrive and search for the main uncut field, which was literally swarming with Dickcissels just days before. We search diligently for the correct spot, and I wander down the road in the direction of some long grass, where I see some fairly rough-looking boys staring back at me. I think of the Carden Alvar Birding Area and the generous spirit of some of the local farmers: “You lookin' in my field, Buddy? You like it I looked in your house windows at home?” Et cetera. One of the bigger men climbs the fence and walks right up to me. Trembling, I stand my ground on the shoulder. I plan to use the Norm Murr defence: “This road is public property. You can't kick me off it.”

The guy walks right up to me and says, “You lookin' for them Dickcissels?”

“Ah, yeah, actually,” I manage in reply.

“I had to cut the grass last week and haven't seen one since. But you're welcome to tramp around lookin' if you like. Might find 'em in the back forty. I ain't cut it yet. Nice bird, eh?”

A sterling chap. You never can tell. I recall a story by Kenn Kaufman called “Hell's Birders” in
Birdwatcher's Digest 22
,
No. 1
(September/October 1999), when he was suddenly surrounded by a hostile-looking leather-bedecked gang of motorcyclists who looked like they meant business. They did; they turned out to be keen birders.

Hugh and I search the back four thousand and every other possible place within miles of Ferndale — no Dickcissel, not even a call. It is not one of those magical Zen moments like when Peter Matthiessen fails to see the Snow Leopard. Nor do we experience the philosophical detachment of Kenn Kaufman when he fails to see the Harpy Eagle. Rather, we are crushed and I spend the drive home riding with a zombie. The
Reisefuehrer
has decided once again to give up birding and stick to Scrabble. Even Hortons' soup and sandwich combo fails to work its usual magic on him. I arrive back home after a seventeen-hour round trip. Felicity knows better than to ask. She pulls the cork and passes me a wine glass — a solace in my old age.

Someone posts Dickcissel again in Ferndale, right where we were. I phone Hugh. “Screw Dickcissel,” he says bitterly. It's too early to entice him again.

That evening there is another posting. The phone rings. Mr. Toad syndrome has struck. “We can't miss them this time. I know exactly where to go. There are four places. We'll get 'em.”

Sure, Hugh.

We go. We go everywhere. No Dickcissel.

“I would have been glad even to get one for my heard-only list,” I sigh.

“The Dickcissel didn't say ‘dick',” says Hugh morosely. He decides to give up birding, this time definitively. I spend a pile on him in Tim Hortons. He never wants to hear about Dickcissels again.

Several days later Norm Murr goes to Ferndale and gets Dickcissel. I am afraid to phone Hugh. Unbeknownst to me, Hugh phones Norm and gets exact directions. My phone rings. “I know the exact place where Norm got it. It's a big field full of buffalo. The bird'll probably hang around since they won't cut this field. It's pasture. We're likely to get it. How often can you miss?”

I don't answer that question.

In disbelief, I find myself heading for the third and last time to Ferndale. We don't even find the buffalo. I hope they were all slaughtered, the bastards.

You want dipping,
that's
dipping.

21
Go Figure

It's a mug's game.

— L
EFTIE
C
URRIE

I'
VE BEEN RETHINKING MY
B
IG
Y
EAR
of late. Three hundred and two birds seen — 304 counting heard-onlys. According to Larry Neily's
Canadian Listers' Corner
, 2008 edition, no one else in any province in Canada broke three hundred last year except Margaret (301). Hugh was next with 297. And yet I missed almost two weeks while in England in early January, two weeks in Trinidad and Tobago, and two weeks on non-birding trips in Algonquin and Haliburton — actually six weeks in all. It seems hardly fair when missing these six weeks was not my fault. To level the playing field, we really have to pro-rate my number of birds seen over forty-six weeks instead of fifty-two. Then, of course, there's my handicap based on it being the first time I've done Big Year. And away with age-related discrimination! It's time to start talking about the senior citizen's bonus and pro-rating according to age, to say nothing of compensation for the birds missed when my telescope was out of commission for a full week. Let us not forget the two-bird grandchild allotment, since my grandchildren were here for weeks on end. Let us also not forget that I've lost 5 percent of my hearing. As Bruce Falls says, “Any fool can identify a Black-throated Green Warbler if you hear it sing,
Zee zee zee ZEEE zoo zee
. But it takes a real man to identify it if all you hear is one tentative, whispered
zee
.

Photo by
Sam Barone.

Black-throated Green Warbler (male). Red Bay, north of Wiarton. Beak
wide open, this male is doing his best to be heard.

Away with all unfair prejudices! I'm for peace, freedom for the oppressed, and levelling the playing field. Of course, unlike others who shan't be mentioned, I refused all steroids and related drugs and staunchly refused blood-doping and testosterone shots, though, of course, unfortunately this doesn't get me any credits. I also get no credits for having the bad luck to pick a year when millions were not killed in deadly hurricanes with propitious winds for Ontario; nary a petrel, shearwater, or rare tern all fall. Coady had hurricanes coming out the yin-yang in '96 and millions died. Some people have all the luck. Where, I ask, were the hurricane Frans of 2007? In all but two states, according to ABA rules, I would get at least a five-bird allowance for such bad luck; but not in Ontario.

It goes without saying that I get a couple of birds in compensation for habitat loss. I mentioned how Oshawa Second Marsh was improved so as to become obviously repulsive to Little Gulls. This was also the year our beloved Corner Marsh was improved right out of existence. I guess I should consider myself lucky that they have not yet improved the Leslie Street Spit to this degree. They certainly are trying.

When I graphed it all out and did the figures on a calculator according to the principles of higher calculus and quantum theory, rounding down to the nearest full figure — to my disadvantage though this might be — it came out to 339, even without the five-bird hurricane handicap. It took some time to sink in that, in actual fact, I had whupped Coady, soundly for that matter, whupped him good, and was the new world record holder for the highest number of birds in one year in Ontario.

I neither ask nor expect to be carried through the streets laurel-bedecked on a litter of gold. I expect to be shunned and spat upon like so many winners in the past — Copernicus and Galileo spring immediately to mind, not to mention Genghis Khan, General Amin, and Pope Joan. A prophet in his own land is always without honour. My only satisfaction lies in knowing that I am the true record-holder, the king, the “onliest,” even if only clandestinely and unacknowledged.

Ainsi soit-il
.

Appendix 1:
Lists of Birds

B
IRDS
S
EEN IN 2007
(
IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF SIGHTINGS
)

January

• Canada Goose. January 10, Cobourg Harbour

• American Black Duck. January 10, Cobourg Harbour

• Mallard. January 10, Cobourg Harbour

• Greater Scaup. January 10, Cobourg Harbour

• Long-tailed Duck. January 10, Cobourg Harbour

• Common Merganser. January 10, Cobourg Harbour

• Ring-billed Gull. January 10, Cobourg Harbour

• Herring Gull. January 10, Cobourg Harbour

• Mourning Dove. January 10, Cobourg

• House Sparrow. January 10, Cobourg

• Bufflehead. January 11, Cobourg Harbour

• Common Goldeneye. January 11, Cobourg Harbour

• California Gull. January 11, Hamilton

• Mute Swan. January 11, Niagara-on-the-Lake

• White-winged Scoter. January 11, Niagara-on-the-Lake

• Hooded Merganser. January 11, Niagara-on-the-Lake

• Red-breasted Merganser. January 11, Niagara-on-the-Lake

• Red-throated Loon. January 11, Niagara-on-the-Lake

• Double-crested Cormorant. January 11, Niagara-on-the-Lake

• Great Blue Heron. January 11, Niagara-on-the-Lake

• Blue Jay. January 11, Niagara-on-the-Lake

• American Crow. January 11, Niagara-on-the-Lake

• Thayer's Gull. January 11, Niagara River (Adam Beck)

• Iceland Gull. January 11, Niagara River (Adam Beck)

• Glaucous Gull. January 11, Niagara River (Adam Beck)

• Great Black-backed Gull. January 11, Niagara River (Adam Beck)

• Black-legged Kittiwake. January 11, Niagara River (Adam Beck)

• Rock Pigeon. January 11, Niagara River (Adam Beck)

• Red-tailed Hawk. January 11, Niagara River (Adam Beck)

• American Kestrel. January 11, Niagara River (Adam Back area)

• Bonaparte's Gull. January 11, Niagara River (Adam Beck)

• Black-capped Chickadee. January 11, Niagara Falls

• Northern Mockingbird. January 11, Niagara Falls

• European Starling. January 11, Niagara Falls

• Lesser Black-backed Gull. January 11, Niagara River (above Falls)

• Downy Woodpecker. January 11, Chippewa

• Tufted Titmouse. January 11, Chippewa

• White-breasted Nuthatch. January 11, Chippewa

• White-throated Sparrow. January 11, Chippewa

• Dark-eyed Junco. January 11, Chippewa

• House Finch. January 11, Chippewa

• American Goldfinch. January 11, Chippewa

• Tundra Swan. January 11, Niagara River

• Gadwall. January 11, Niagara River

• Canvasback. January 11, Niagara River

• American Coot. January 13, Cobourg Harbour

• Common Raven. January 14, Northumberland County Forest

• Red-breasted Nuthatch. January 14, Northumberland County Forest

• Red Crossbill. January 14, Northumberland County Forest

• White-winged Crossbill. January 14, Northumberland County Forest

• Hairy Woodpecker. January 19, Algonquin Provincial Park (Algonquin)

• Gray Jay. January 19, Algonquin

• American Tree Sparrow. January 19, Algonquin

• Purple Finch. January 19, Algonquin