Breakfast Club

Back on March 21, the Black-capped Chickadees and Downy Woodpeckers were emptying the feeders, and only the cedars were green.

Sometimes I can smell seasons. This morning is one of those times. On my way over to Robert and Jane’s place to catsit, I could smell Spring. The air is cool, not quite 10 (50) degrees, and damp from yesterday’s downpour; the Crabapples are in full bloom; and the maples are replacing their delicate green bobbly bits with translucent young leaves. Scent is spilling out from sidewalks as each corner grocer displays hundreds of potted plants.

For a while last week, I was afraid we were going to miss out on Spring, just as we were cheated out of Autumn. It went from too hot to snowbound in about two days’ time, and then as soon as the snow melted we were handed unseasonably warm, dry weather. We Canadians like to joke that we have two seasons, Winter and July (or Winter and Construction if you’re a driver), but I think most of us enjoy the buffers between the two extremes.

Anyway, today is a perfect Spring day. And tomorrow I will bring my binoculars! There were three types of sparrows feeding at the suet block next door when I arrived.

The White-crowned Sparrows were encouraging conversation, saying, “Speak! Speak!”

The House Sparrows chuckled, “Ju-jube!” in reply.

The White-throated Sparrows, pushing back from the feeder, sang out “O sweet Canada, Canada, Canada!”

Then an alarmist Starling started spitting, “Ca-a-at! Ca-a-at!” and the party broke up for a moment. But the sparrows were soon back. Robert and Jane’s cats don’t do fences, much less tree limbs. They were simply out for a post-breakfast sniff, to sit in the back yard and enjoy this fine morning as much as I am.

Spit in the River

Pied Stilts: two adults and two chicks. Tahuna Torea wildlife reserve, Auckland. The reflection shows the length of the bill.

In January 2006, e.g. and I spent three weeks in New Zealand. E.g.’s grandfather moved to Auckland from England as a young man, and established a highly successful family business. When e.g. and I came from Canada to visit, one of her uncles “shouted” (paid for) our airfare; another uncle spent the day with us at Tiritiri Matangi bird sanctuary; and a third uncle hosted us at the beginning and end of our trip.

The beautiful, comical Pukeko, scouting for breadcrusts near the car park garbage can.

This third uncle is a volunteer ranger at the nearby Tahuna Torea wildlife reserve. Like Tommy Thompson Park, Tahuna Torea is, in part, a spit — this time a sandspit into the Tamaki River Estuary. Also like Tommy Thompson, Tahuna Torea is an area saved by a group of local residents from various proposed forms of destruction. In the 60s and 70s, the group successfully dissuaded City Hall from using this Crown-owned riverside area as either a marina or a rubbish tip. E.g.’s Uncle Three was, I believe, part of this original group — the Tamaki Estuary Protection Society — and has kept a hand in the care of this 25-hectare sanctuary ever since.

Pekin Duck escapees have found a good home.

The name Tahuna Torea is a Maori expression meaning “gathering place of the oystercatchers.” Uncle Three and I share an interest in birdwatching. I had been very careful to include as many important birding sites as I could into our travel itinerary, and Uncle Three was impressed at my final list of 79 species. But I’m just as impressed that a full one-seventh of them were seen within a block of his driveway.

Some eponymous Toreas (Variable Oystercatchers), gathering on the ball field that flanks the north side of Tahuna Torea reserve. Across the water is Bucklands Beach.

The Twitcher’s Apprentice

Cai carefully notes all the distinguishing field marks of this vagrant Orange-eyed Squash Goose before rushing to identify it in the guidebook.

Learning to birdwatch with Cai has been a bit of a learning curve. One thing I learned, for example, was the impossibility of simultaneously peering through binoculars and grasping the loop of a puppy-filled leash. I did manage to overcome this problem by slipping the loop around the toe of my boot. This method works best when viewing the more phlegmatic of our feathered friends; it is of no help at all for that large group of avians that I call gone-birds.

Because e.g. and I have compatible but different interests, the two of us can share Cai between us. I’ll do birdless walkies with him while e.g. sets up her tripod for skunk cabbage or bloodroot or trout lily or whatever the fleur du jour is, and then she’ll take him while I go stalk the pond or the meadow or the woods for a while.

One of the reasons e.g. and I decided on a Cardigan Welsh Corgi is that they are sturdy little animals, happy to go hiking or camping. Cai was first put to the tenting test last summer, when he wasn’t yet a year old. It was a bit of a challenge for him. Every evening while it was still light out, he would start scratching at the zipper of either Jack’s or our tent, announcing his intention to turn in. He ended each day exhausted from the sniffing and the seeing and the listening and the hiking and the swimming, but I like to think he went to bed with a smile on his muzzle.

On this particular camping trip, we were at a privately-owned campground on Manitoulin Island. Early each morning, I would take Cai for walkies while e.g. and Jack were still nestled in their sleeping bags. One morning, a family of deer startled my dog and me, and we them; they leapt across the path just ahead of us and disappeared into the woods. I thought that was pretty cool, but Cai, who had never seen deer before, didn’t know what to think. He pulled the leash taut and stood stock-still, staring after them; and I felt his heartbeat through the leash.

On another morning, having familiarized myself with the trails, I decided to risk dropping the leash in an open area and let Cai walk beside me. He did, very nicely, until we both suddenly saw — or I thought we saw — the same thing. It was a pair of Sharp-tailed Grouse at the foot of the tree. I reached for the leash loop that was dragging in the dust, but all I found was a gone-dog. Cai sprinted to the tree and up scattered a whole covey of Sharp-tails. Then he trotted back to me, wagging with pleasure at his success as the birder’s apprentice.

I was reminded of all these things this morning, as I played ball with Cai in the field next to our apartment building. Sometimes it’s just the fact of his being a dog that makes Cai help me with my birdwatching. Today was a cat kind of day — stay indoors and watch the rain — but dogs don’t do litter boxes, so out we went. Up the field, down the field, facing north, facing south, I stooped for the ball as we were facing north, raised my arm, and halted in awe to watch a small flock of Sandhill Cranes, grey as the mist they were flying through, silently heading for Manitoulin Island.

Laundry List, and a Game

Today, Tuesday, is laundry day. It’s the day Jack goes home to his mum, so the clothing left here for him has all been worn. It’s a day I need to stick around the house, to see Jack to the streetcar and see to him after school. It’s a good day for scrubbing weekend schmattas and ensuring office wear for the week.

As I was sorting the laundry this morning, I was thinking about the term “laundry list” which means a detailed enumeration. I decided that today would be good time, then, to catch up on little bits and pieces here in Blogland, mainly dealing with the delightful laundry list that is my blogroll. So without further ado, and in no particular order:

1. On April 4, Goodbear posted an interview with Seamus, my WWF Sea Turtle Stuffy. Go straight to it, or if you prefer, click on “cody bear’s friends” for compassionate, often hilarious, photos and newslets on her dog Cody and her daily life in general. She is also the mastermind of DOG DAILY PHOTO, excellent impromptu portraits of dogs she meets around town. She has a gift for capturing each pooch’s personality.

2. This past weekend, I wrote two and-a-half entries dealing with  Tommy Thompson Park on the Leslie Street Spit. Themarvelousinnature has volunteered with the Bird Research Station for four or five years now. She has three entries specifically tagged for that topic: February 23, March 31, and April 2. When she isn’t taking superb photos of songbirds, she’s examining pond creatures or cattail stalks or meadow vole runways or black knot — things we’ve seen and wondered about hundreds of times, but never got around to answering our own questions about them. Themarvelousinnature might just have the answer; go check it out.

3. Another interesting post dealing with birds has just gone up on exploratorium. It’s about birds that go bump in the night, and how office-tower managers and ordinary citizens might help prevent the accidental death of migratory birds. At the bottom of her article are all the links you need for further investigation of the topic. Eyegillian researches the current literature and delivers incisive, insightful surveys examining the crossroads of scientific findings and human interactions.

4. I hate to see anybody lose a contest. So when the results of the Name-and-genderize-the-sea-turtle-stuffy contest came in, I invited the six second-place winners to give me a word, and I would write a limerick using it. On my sidebar now is “Turtle’s Latest Limerick“, currently featuring one for Goodbear. I plan to post a new one on every monthday divisible by seven. I’ll also add a page to this blog with all the limericks in one place. So-o-o-o, for those of you who haven’t offered a word yet, please contact me! Eventually I’ll extend more invitations, but for now, the six second-place contest winners get top priority.

5. I’ve written a good deal about Cai, my Cardigan Welsh Corgi. If you need a more consistent Cardi fix, click over to Checkers’ World or the Yasashiikuma blog. One blog specializes in photo essays illustrating comical Cardidom from the dog’s point of view. The other examines all things Cardigan from the breeder’s point of view.

6. If you’re a cat person, or if you just need a good cry, go read The Aged Cat. Her blog’s raison d’etre recently passed away, and she hasn’t written for a couple of weeks now, but what she has posted is brilliant, beautiful, and heartbreaking. She also serendipitously created  the phrase barklove for dog people.

7. Since beginning this blog just over a month ago, I have made some friends in far places. Lately I noticed that two of them, Goodbear and Livingisdetail, comment on each other’s blogs as well as on mine. All three of us are generalists who write on various topics connected with our personal lives. Livingisdetail, for example, posts on everything from drambuie to duckponds to dumptrucks. Since one lives in the American southwest, the other in Melbourne Australia, and I in southern Ontario, I suggested to Livingisdetail that the three of us should get together for coffee in a location central to all of us — like, maybe Morocco. So-o-o-o, I have a GAME for my readers: Think of at least two other bloggers that you would like to get together with over a coffee, a tea, or a pint. (For non-blogging readers, you can choose either bloggers or acquaintances.) Check out a map or a globe. Where would you meet? Bonus question: What would you wanna talk about? Lemme know! No deadline or prize for this game, just something to think about.

 Time to fold the clothes! Thanks for sharing laundry day with me.

Spit in the Lake (II)

Yesterday I wrote about viewing 15 species of anseriformes in Tommy Thompson Park. I also saw three charadriiformes, a piciforme, a gruiforme, a pelecaniforme, a falconiforme, and nine passeriformes, plus an Eastern Cottontail and a fat raccoon. Not bad for a garbage dump.

The Leslie Street Spit is an accumulation at the foot of Leslie Street, Toronto, of debris from demolished buildings. It was begun in the late 1950s and was originally intended as a breakwater for the harbour. While the need for the breakwater diminished, the rubble pile kept on growing, and with the dirt that came from new basement diggings, little by little the spit seeded itself. Grass and cottonwood trees and other sheltering or tasty plants started to grow. In the 70s a grassroots (!) lobby group called Friends of the Spit arose, which has battled to promote it as a wildlife refuge, and thwart plans for golf courses and carnival activities, ever since. Sometime in the 90s (I think) Tommy Thompson park was inaugurated.

During the week, dump trucks still rumble through with their loads, but on the weekends the 5-km spit is open to the public. People come to cycle, blade, jog, stroll, birdwatch. The Toronto Field Naturalists hold monthly nature walks. And the Tommy Thompson Park Bird Research Station allows people to see what they’re up to.

Thanks to some information from Themarvelousinnature, I was able to find the research station yesterday morning. It’s a tiny wooden cabin with a friendly verandah, one door, and windows on three sides. Inside, a desk stretches from one wall to the other. Completing the decor are a couple of chairs and a locker bedecked with photos of birds the station has banded.

When I showed up at 11, the volunteers were returning from making their rounds of the mist nets. Although they’d been at it since 6 am, on this day they had found fewer than half a dozen birds. I was lucky, then, to see them returning with one indignant male cardinal. I was invited into the building to see them inspect the squawking mite, who raised his crest as high as possible in an effort to prove that he was actually a crocodile, and they’d better not mess with him!

Dan, who was holding him, gently fanned out one wing, explaining that a lot of birds can be aged by the extent of moulting. He went on to say that this method doesn’t work on some birds, such as cardinals, who moult all their feathers. Then I was shown the band already on this fellow’s leg. It was the second time their nets had caught him; no wonder he was grouchy! They flipped through their binder for his band number, and found that the first time they’d caught him was in the autumn of 2006. A bird at least two years old, then. Giving the cardinal a last fond stroke on its ruffled crown, Dan pulled the plug from some clear plastic piping, maybe eight inches in diameter, which described a U shape from the desk top to the outside. He reached into the pipe, released the bird, and away it flew.

Spit in the Lake (I)

I went birding this morning in Tommy Thompson Park. I counted 31 species of birds, including 15 species of anseriformes (= ducks, geese, and swans). The Ring-necked Duck was a new one for my life list, as was the Green-winged Teal. If The Marvelous in Nature reads this, she’ll be happy to know that I finally saw my first American Tree Sparrow.

The bird that thrilled me the most, however, was one that I almost missed because I was looking at a bunny instead. It was just after noon. When I took my eyes out of the ditch and back onto the road, what I saw next was the birder on her bicycle about 20 feet from me and bunnykins. Approaching quietly, I followed her line of sight, and viewed a pale grey bird, the size of a robin, at the top of a mid-sized tree.

“What have you got there?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” she replied, “I don’t have my guide with me.”

“I do.” I pulled my well-thumbed ROM Field Guide to Birds of Ontario from my bookbag. I looked through my binoculars. “Ohhhh… I think it’s… lemme look in the index…” Flip, flip. “This?”

We took turns reading the description, peering through our binocs, describing it out loud, until we were sure that that was our bird. It was a Northern Shrike, not as rare as its cousin the Loggerhead Shrike, but uncommon enough for me. Northern Shrikes breed way up in the top fifth of Ontario, about three-fifths higher north than I’ve ever been. So let us say, once again, that I was thrilled. The other birder cycled away, I penciled the new bird on today’s list, I looked up, and the Shrike was gone. It was one of those magic moments.

Scoters, Scaups, and Scandal

Yesterday we went to the mouth of the river again. A bitter wind was up, so we stayed for only an hour this time. However, I managed to see my first-ever Scoter; this model is called a White-winged Scoter, even though the wings are mostly black. My partner got some good photos of it — oh look, here’s one now!

We had good views of other waterfowl as well: Scaups (Greaters, I think), Longtail Ducks (formerly known as “Oldsquaws”), Black Ducks, Mallards, Buffleheads, and Red-breasted Mergansers, as well as the ubiquitous Canada Geese and Mute Swans.

I also saw a stick floating in the bay — against the current. Hmm. Chestnut fur and a pair of eyes, that’s some stick all right! Still not sure which little gaffer I was viewing, a mink or a weasel or what. I was surprised that any mammal that small would be hanging out so close to the edge of Lake Ontario. A few minutes after I spied the furry Gollum thing, our Cardi started rolling luxuriously by a little hole in the snow; maybe he was dabbing a bit of mustelid cologne behind his shoulderblades.

We were home by 2 pm. At 5 pm I took the doggie with me for walkies over to feed the neighbours’ cats.

It’s important to be discreet when petsitting, so as not to trumpet the fact that the owners are away. But yesterday’s scenario might be entitled, “Discretion is the better part of vacuity.” Puppy and I popped into the house, called hello up to the caninophobic cats hiding on the third floor, threw some kibble in their dishes, and left.

Leaving is more complicated than — well — just leaving. You hit the remote to turn on the alarm, which starts the 60-second countdown. Then you open the door, pop the doorknob in to lock it, get yourself outside, close the door, and lock the other lock with a key. With this training, I’m ready to join a SWAT operation. Since my doggie is very well-behaved, I dropped his leash while performing the manouevers.

Turning away from the door, I found myself face-to-face with a smiling young couple and the parents of one of them. The young wife said they had just bought the house next door, and was I Robert’s wife? My eyes went blank; my jaw dropped; I replied: “Uhh… almost?”

Then, realizing that “almost Robert’s wife” may be construed in various ways, I stage-whispered that I was the catsitter, and didn’t want the whole street to know that the couple was away. Then the smiling new neighbours’ parents said, “Your dog’s over there.”

During the kerfuffle, my well-trained dog had decided to visit a Labrador Retriever across the street. When I left that yard, a woman and her young son were just exiting their home, and my friendly Cardi jumped up on her in muddy greeting.

Next time, I should just wear a neon-pink sandwich board with “Ace Petsitting” emblazoned on it.

Merganser Morning

Last Sunday we went to the mouth of the river. For three hours we tramped around in the decaying snow, each of us using her or his favourite instrument: binoculars for me, camera for my partner, nose for our dog.

Later on, we each processed our experiences in our own way. I gushed to my watercolour teacher, a fellow birder, about having seen all three species of merganser in one morning. My partner uploaded some photos to her Flickr site. And our Cardi curled up in the papasan to dream rich dreams of dried grass, goose droppings, foxes, voles, and muskrats.