At 3:00 in the afternoon on Friday, we picked mom up from the local high school she works at and struck north. Between our house and picking her up, I had already picked up dozens of Canada Geese on a pond, a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers in a creek next to the road, a flock of House Sparrows in someone’s yard, and a Turkey Vulture flying over the road. After picking mom up, dad realized he had left his bathing suit at home, so we drove back to our house to pick it up. On our way home, I added several species to the trip list: a Blue Jay on a fencepost, half a dozen Dark-eyed Juncos along the side of the road, two Hooded Mergansers under a bridge, and three or four flocks of Common Pigeons. After picking up dad’s bathing suit, we headed north on I-684.
Just north of Katonah, the pond I usually rely on for Mute Swans was fully frozen over, which dropped my hope for a swan on the trip. Just as I was remarking to dad about the lack of hawks, I spotted a perched Red-tailed Hawk east of the interstate. Another mile or two further along, we found some open water west of the highway with hundreds of Mute Swans swimming about. Up until nightfall, the only two new species I got were American Crows and Common Starlings.
We grabbed dinner at the Golden Corral in Saratoga Springs then continued up into Canada, crossing the border right around 11:00. We reached Delta Ottawa (our hotel) at around midnight, and caught some Olympics before going to bed.
Saturday morning, we woke up around 9:00 to the sound of an American Crow, my first bird for Canada this trip, calling and went down to the breakfast buffet. I finished earlier than the others, so I went to check the bird reports for the Ottawa region. I found out about two good landfills for Glaucous Gulls, a lifer that didn’t show two weekends ago on the Superbowl of Birding. The two other reports on there were for Gray Partridges in Kanata and winter finches in the Gatineau Hills. This was a problem, since I was unlikely to get another shot at winter finches this winter, but Gray Partridge and Glaucous Gull would both be life birds for me. The issue was that they lay in different directions, and I only got a single afternoon of birding for the whole trip. I opted to try for the life birds.
After I had checked the bird reports, all four of us headed up to the room to get dressed for skating the Rideau Canal. Wrapped in warm clothes, we headed down the elevator and out of the hotel into a light snow. Walking to the canal took about twenty minutes, in which I picked up my first Common Starlings and Common Pigeons for Canada this trip. We skated the first four kilometers of the Rideau Canal, with a stop for beavertails, but then Sarah’s skate broke. While waiting for mom and dad to come to a decision about what to do, I heard a Black-capped Chickadee call from a conifer next to the canal. A little while later, mom and dad agreed that the best course of action was to head back to the start of the canal, and we started back.
After changing into our boots, we split up. Mom and Sarah went shopping while dad and I planned to get stuff to repair Sarah’s skates then go birding. We stopped off at a hardware store to pick up some epoxy, and then continued on to route 417 west towards the Trail Road Landfill. We turned south on 416 and then got off at exit 66. A mile later, I picked up a single Rusty Blackbird in a leafless tree by the side of the road. Five minutes of snow-covered fields and four Dark-eyed Juncos later, we turned onto Trail Road. The snow had picked up greatly, and I saw no birds at all in the air. The landfill was closed to the public, so dad continued driving along the road as I searched for an overlook. Half a mile further on, a large pile of refuse appeared on the ridge with crows flying about it. Just as I set my eyes on the pile, a bulldozer shifted it and white bids swirled into the air. Gulls. Most of these were Great Black-backed Gulls, but I saw several very pale gulls that were just as large. We pulled up to a good view of the heap as the gulls settled back down, and I leapt out into the wind-blown snow. Battling the gusts, I set up my scope and started scanning the birds. The second gull I set eyes on was pale. It had white wingtips. Pure white wingtips. It was big. As big as a Great Black-backed Gull. A Glaucous Gull! My six hundredth and fifty-second life bird!
Glaucous Gull
After snapping a picture of the gull, I leapt back into the car, my fingers numb. Dad and I then continued on a loop through the frozen agricultural lands in search of Snow Buntings. The only birds we saw for the entire loop were crows. Disappointed in the lack of buntings, we struck north again, this time headed for the Kanata maintenance yard where Gray Partridges had been observed. As we turned onto Eagleson road, a flock of Snow Buntings took off from the gravel shoulder, flitted alongside the car, and dropped down into the white snow, vanishing instantly. Happy with this surprise, we stayed on course to Kanata. As we pulled onto Maple Grove Lane, dad spotted four Wild Turkeys next to the pavement. The maintenance yard, however, was a bust, with nothing besides crows moving.
Our last stop for the day was on the Ottawa River at Bate Island, just inside the Ontario border. Here, I was searching for overwintering ducks and anything else I could find. We pulled across Champlain Bridge and down into a parking lot only to find diving ducks bobbing in the rapids right in front of us. I leapt out of the car and whipped out the scope. All three of the birds up right then were Common Goldeneyes, two females and a male. Two more birds surfaced, both of them Common Goldeneyes. Another bird floated down the rapids right in front of me, and I trained my scope on it. With its high forehead and all-orange bill, it was a female Barrow’s Goldeneye, only the second Barrow’s I had ever seen, and the first female one!
Female Barrow's Goldeneye
After a few more good looks at the bird, I headed around to the other side of the island, where I found a flock of Mallards and two distant Common Mergansers. With the light fading, I reentered the car, and dad and I drove back to the hotel. That night, the four of us went out to dinner at Zak’s, our favorite local diner, and watched the Olympics on TV.
Sunday, Valentine’s Day, dawned crisp and clear. The epoxy hadn’t worked on Sarah’s skates, so we planned to check if a local store (the one we bought them from) could fix it. The problem was the store didn’t open until noon.
After breakfast, all four of us headed across the Ottawa River into Hull, Quebec. Here, we went to the Museum of Civilization and I picked up an American Crow, the only bird I saw in Quebec for the entire trip. After visiting the museum, with its amazing hall of totem poles and cool special exhibits, we drove back into Ontario to the skate shop. It turned out that they couldn’t fix Sarah’s skates, so we bought a new pair that we hope will be reimbursed by the skate company. While Sarah, mom, and dad were getting the skates, I called my girlfriend back in New York, since I couldn’t see her that day, Valentine’s Day.
With Sarah’s new skates, all four of us skated the canal up and back, a full twelve kilometers. From there, dad and Sarah headed directly back to the hotel while mom and I went up to Parliament Hill. The two of us enjoyed the sweeping views of Hull that we got from the hill overlooking the river and the architecture of the amazing Parliamentary library. On our way back down to the hotel, however, I looked up to see a Peregrine Falcon flying over our heads. Arriving at the hotel, we relaxed and watched more Olympics, got dinner at Zak’s again, and then came back to even more Olympics. The two best moments were when Canada won men’s moguls, their first gold medal at home, and when the Canadian figure skating pair used Clint Mansell’s “Requiem for a Dream,” one of my favorite songs, in their routine.
Parliament Library
We woke up Monday morning and packed up to leave. On our way out of town, we had some gift shopping to do, which we did at Byward Market. We picked up breakfast there too, and then headed east. We planned to make one stop, at yet another landfill, on the way home for me to look for more gulls and other birds. The landfill, luckily, was less than a mile off our route.
Pulling down Lafleche Road towards the dump, several small birds took flight from the fields on either side of us. One flew next to the car long enough for me to recognize a Horned Lark, and large flashes of white in some of the wings signaled the existence of Snow Buntings. There was a group of gulls on the field next to the landfill where I counted six Glaucous Gulls, and then there were six more over the landfill itself. Try as I would, I could find nothing else of interest either over the dump or in the fields. With time ticking away, we headed south towards New York.
Horned Lark
Just before the bridge into my own country, I spotted a hawk flying right over the car. By the time we had pulled over and I had hopped out, it had disappeared behind a line of trees to the east. Dad and mom both saw a hawk fly over our car a few minutes later, but I didn’t get even a glimpse of it.
On the bridge into the US, we were stuck in line for customs when I spotted an American Crow in a distant tree. I brought my scope up to look at it, and as I did a Great Gray Shrike (Northern Shrike for those of you who use ABA over IOC) landed in the top of the tree next to the crow! It was the first one I ever saw in New York.
We made it through customs no problem, and just on the other side of the booth mom spotted four Wild Turkeys, the first I had seen in New York this year. Driving south, we stopped to fill up on gas in Fort Covington, and a Cooper’s Hawk flew right overhead. We entered the Adirondacks, and I picked up a Northern Raven in Paul Smiths, getting another just outside of Saranac Lake. The last two birds of the day were a Downy Woodpecker that flew in front of our car somewhere just west of Lake Placid and a Black-capped Chickadee at an Elizabethtown feeder.
The sun dropped down behind the western horizon as we got take out from a pizzeria in Saratoga Springs. The miles fell away beneath the tires of our car as we traveled down the Northway to I-90 and then the Taconic River Parkway. We arrived home from our long weekend at 8:30 Monday night.
The List:
1. Canada Goose
2. Red-breasted Merganser
3. House Sparrow
4. Turkey Vulture
5. Blue Jay
6. Dark-eyed Junco
7. Hooded Merganser
8. Common Pigeon
9. Red-tailed Hawk
10. Mute Swan
11. American Crow
12. Common Starling
13. Black-capped Chickadee
14. Rusty Blackbird
15. Great Black-backed Gull
16. Glaucous Gull
17. Snow Bunting
18. Wild Turkey
19. Common Goldeneye
20. Barrow’s Goldeneye
21. Mallard
22. Common Merganser
23. Peregrine Falcon
24. Horned Lark
25. Great Gray Shrike
26. Cooper’s Hawk
27. Northern Raven
28. Downy Woodpecker
This trip increased many of my lists:
Life: 652 (previously 651)
ABA: 494 (previously 493)
Canada: 62 (previously 55)
New York: 194 (previously 193)
Year (ABA): 100 (previously 94)
Year (NY): 83 (previously 80)
Slowly but surely, my New York, ABA, and life lists are inching towards the goals I have for them: 200 before graduation, 500 before graduation, and 700 before the end of 2010.
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