Episode 102: The Magic of Birding

The ordinary act of looking up transforms into an extraordinary journey through Doug McRae's eyes. A lifelong birder whose fascination began with a childhood case of stuffed birds, Doug takes us deep into the enchanting world of avian observation that connects people to nature in profound ways.

Through our conversation, Doug reveals the essential tools of the trade - from selecting the perfect pair of binoculars (aim for 7-10x magnification and avoid zoom features) to navigating the differences between Peterson's simplified field guides and Sibley's comprehensive illustrations. But equipment is just the gateway; the real magic happens when you begin to recognize the patterns, behaviors, and stunning achievements of birds themselves.

Perhaps most awe-inspiring are the migration feats Doug describes. Imagine a tiny warbler with "a brain the size of a pea" navigating thousands of miles between Central America and specific trees in Ontario's boreal forest, returning to the exact same locations year after year. These incredible journeys happen without GPS, maps, or human assistance - just ancient instincts encoded in creatures weighing mere grams.

Modern technology like the Merlin Bird ID app has transformed bird identification, though Doug cautions against relying solely on technology. "Without doing the work, it doesn't commit to memory," he explains, emphasizing that truly learning birds involves effort, observation, and sometimes "getting scraped up in hawthorns" to catch a glimpse of something special.

Whether you're drawn to backyard bird feeding, keeping life lists of species seen, or perhaps embarking on global expeditions to witness rare birds, the birding community offers welcoming entry points through local naturalist clubs and organizations like the Ontario Field Ornithologists. Ready to discover what's happening above you? Look up - a whole world awaits.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
How did a small-town sheet metal mechanic come to
build one of Canada's mosticonic fishing lodges?
I'm your host, steve Nitzwicky,and you'll find out about that
and a whole lot more on theOutdoor Journal Radio Network's
newest podcast, diaries of aLodge Owner.
But this podcast will be morethan that.
Every week on Diaries of aLodge Owner, I'm going to

(00:25):
introduce you to a ton of greatpeople, share their stories of
our trials, tribulations andinspirations, learn and have
plenty of laughs along the way.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Meanwhile we're sitting there bobbing along
trying to figure out how tocatch a bass and we both decided
one day we were going to be ontelevision doing a fishing show.
My hands get sore a little bitwhen I'm reeling in all those
bass in the summertime, butthat's might be for more fishing
than it was punching you soconfidently.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
You said hey.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Pat, have you ever eaten a drum?
Find Diaries of a Lodge Ownernow on Spotify, apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 5 (01:13):
As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons
of our natural world becomeharder and harder to hear, but
they are still available tothose who know where to listen.
But they are still available tothose who know where to listen.
I'm Jerry Ouellette and I washonoured to serve as Ontario's
Minister of Natural Resources.
However, my journey into thewoods didn't come from politics.

(01:34):
Rather, it came from my time inthe bush and a mushroom.
In 2015, I was introduced tothe birch-hungry fungus known as
chaga, a tree conch withcenturies of medicinal
applications used by Indigenouspeoples all over the globe.
After nearly a decade ofharvest, use, testimonials and

(01:57):
research, my skepticism hasfaded to obsession and I now
spend my life dedicated toimproving the lives of others
through natural means.
But that's not what the show isabout.
My pursuit of this strangemushroom and my passion for the
outdoors has brought me to theplaces and around the people
that are shaped by our naturalworld.

(02:18):
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Underthe Canopy podcast, I'm going
to take you along with me to seethe places, meet the people
that will help you find youroutdoor passion and help you
live a life close to nature andunder the canopy.
So join me today for anothergreat episode and hopefully we
can inspire a few more people tolive their lives under the

(02:42):
canopy.
People to live their livesunder the canopy.
Well, good day everyone.
And, as always, I'm not goingto say it this time, but you
know the routine If you got it,ask it.
If you want it, ask it, let usknow, and we'll be more than
happy to.

(03:04):
Anyways, as always, thanks toour listeners across Canada, the
States, switzerland, everywhere, down in Trinidad and Tobago,
the Bahamas, you name it, canada, et cetera, et cetera.
We really appreciate youlistening.
Now we brought back anotherguest because, well, this guest
was on the show talking aboutthe Northumberland Land Trust,
happened to mention somethingthat I've been trying to get
somebody with some experience on, and Doug McRae happened to say

(03:26):
he was a birder.
So, welcome back, doug, andwe're going to talk about birds.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
Thanks very much.

Speaker 5 (03:32):
Yeah, no problem.
No, I have tried.
I don't know how many peoplewho try and get to talk about
birds from the ministry and frombirders and former deputy
ministers who were avid birdersand do all kinds of postings on
Facebook.
And then I met some formerministry people that were listed
as oh, you should talk to thisguy, get him on.
And I talked to him oh, I can'tgo on the podcast, I wouldn't

(03:56):
know what to say.
I don't anyways.
Anyways, but when we weretalking about the Northumberland
Land Trust, doug kind of wentinto it and I thought, hey, I
got somebody that can talk birds.
So tell us, doug, well, firstof all let's go back to the land
trust in case somebody didn'tcatch that podcast and tell us a
bit about the land trust, alittle bit what you do there,
and then we'll get into thebirding stuff.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
Okay, sure, thank you .
So yeah, the NorthumberlandLand Trust this is
Northumberland County inSouthern Ontario.
We're sort of a little bitaround the midway point of the
North Shore of Lake Ontario it'sa registered charitable
organization that acceptsdonations of land for
conservation purposes and wemanage that land for

(04:39):
conservation.
So we are essentially a privatelandowner, but anyway, we're
growing by leaps and bounds.
Right now We've sort of had asupercharged period and we now
have almost 20 properties, over2,000 acres, protected, and we
have more in the pipeline.
And I'm on the board ofdirectors and it's all volunteer

(05:00):
and so, yeah, I'm quiteinvolved with that and I'm on
the land securement committee,I'm on the stewardship committee
, which determines how theproperties are managed, and it's
an incredibly gratifying thingfor all of our board members and
our volunteers.
It's, I think it's, the mostcost-effective form of

(05:21):
conservation going.
So I'm'm all on board with thatand I come into it with skills
as a naturalist, particularly abirder.
I've been a birder since myearly childhood and so that's
what I kind of bring to thetable in that organization.

Speaker 5 (05:39):
Well, very good, and so now okay.
So probably some of thoselisteners listening to the
podcast may not.
What does a birder mean?
I mean, I go to Swiss Chalet.
Tell us what a birder is, doug.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
Well, I think that's a pretty broad term and it has a
broad range.
I'd say a birder is anyone wholooks at a bird and finds it
interesting and you know.
You could be someone who has afeeder in your backyard and you
just enjoy the birds at thefeeder.
You might not even know whatspecies they are, but you just
enjoy them.
Or you could be at the otherextreme you could be someone who

(06:14):
spends large amounts of moneytraveling the world to see all
of the species out there, whichare just over 10,000.
So it really has a broad rangeof applications.
But I would say the core isthat you're someone who likes,
you know, enjoys looking atbirds.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
Yeah.
So what now?
You mentioned about somebodywith feeders.
I got to tell you mybrother-in-law, rick, out in
Manitoba, rick has seven feedersout in his and they just love
watching the birds with thegrandkids coming in and it just
really gives them somesatisfaction, which does for a
lot of us.
So what got you into birdingthere, doug?

Speaker 4 (06:52):
Well, I'm not exactly sure because it happened so
long ago I don't really remember.
But I've been interested inbirds since I was probably four
or five years old and no one inmy immediate family was
particularly interested, like myparents at least.
But I have a suspicion.
I used to spend some of thesummers at my grandmother's

(07:15):
cottage and my grandfather, whodied before I was born.
He was a lawyer and in theDepression sometimes people
couldn't pay and someone gavehim a case of stuffed birds.
It has 53 birds in it.
They were all shot in thePeterborough area around 1905.

(07:36):
And as a baby I would wake upat the cottage with this thing
in the room.
So ever since I was an infant Iwoke up to this case of 53 dead
birds and I'm now, as we speak,looking at it.
Right now it's in my livingroom, it's one of my prized
possessions and I have to wonderif that wasn't what sort of got

(07:56):
the curiosity rolling.

Speaker 5 (07:59):
Yeah, it's a little bit different.
For all I know, I've beenfascinated with birds for years
and years and years, and Irecall I grew up up in Oshawa
and down by the lake where welived there was this elderly
lady that lived just next houseto us and she was a tea drinker
and I can't remember which teabrand, but they used to give out
these little figurines in thebox of tea and she had all kind

(08:21):
of bird ones out of there that Ifound fascinating when I was oh
, that would have been.
I was three, four years old atthat time and found it very
fascinating and may have got usstarted then.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
I remember those.
I think it might have been redrose, but I'm not sure.

Speaker 5 (08:35):
I'm not sure which one it was, but she had, they
had lots of them, and it waskind of interesting that they
would give out these littlefigurines that are probably
collectibles now to some extent.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and there wasa lot of bird ones in there.
So, doug, what does a person?

Speaker 4 (08:54):
what kind of equipment does a person need to
get involved in, say, birding?
Okay, well, that's anotherreally broad range.
You can get by with a fairlysmall amount of equipment or you
can go all out and spend tensof thousands of dollars on
equipment.
So binoculars are the firstthing you need, and then, if you
want, you can also get what'scalled a spotting scope, and

(09:15):
with binoculars it's always theold adage you get what you pay
for is true, and if you buy alittle $40 pair of binoculars, I
guarantee the first time youbang them hard against something
, the lenses are going to slipout of position and they're
useless.
So I would recommend you knowif you're serious about it.
I'd recommend putting a littlemoney into it and think of it as

(09:37):
if you buy a decent pair ofbinoculars.
They should last 15, 20 years,and so think of how much you
spend per year on them for goodvisibility.
But what you want to look forin binoculars?
Binoculars have two numbers.
It might be something likeseven by 50 or 10 by 50.
The first number is themagnification.
Don't go higher than 10 becauseunless you're a brain surgeon

(10:01):
and have an incredibly steadyhand, it's also magnifying your
handshake, right, yep.
The second number is the widthof the lens that's furthest from
the eye, in millimeters, andthat sort of tells you how much
light it lets in.
And the bigger that secondnumber the better, because that
means you're getting lots oflight.
If you have little opera glasses, for example, they're fine in

(10:24):
bright daylight, but at dawn anddusk, which is when most birds
are active, they're very darkand they're hard to see.
So you know, I'd say stick withbetween seven and 10 power and
go, try to go for a multiple offive.
So you know, 10 by 50, seven by35, at least that.
And I would avoid binocularsthat are insta-focused with that

(10:47):
lever on the top, or zoombinoculars.
I mean it sounds like a greatidea but the mechanisms are just
not very strong and they tendto break.
But you can spend anywhere from, say, you know, you can
probably get a half decent pairfor a couple of hundred dollars,
or you can go to an excellentpair for twenty, five hundred or
three thousand dollars.

Speaker 5 (11:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, I recall my first.
I was a member of the OshawaNaturalist Club when I was an
early teenager and I got a giftand I still have them.
I think they're about six by30s, I think so.
They weren't.
I think what seven by 40 ispretty much I would call the
standard in the industry, andthey kind of go up and down from

(11:29):
there.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
No, that's a common one yeah.

Speaker 5 (11:33):
Yeah, I think it's seven by 40, but these ones were
the next size down, which wasabout a six by 30, I think,
which was still good, and Istill have them to this day.
Actually, my mother uses themto watch birds at her house,
yeah.
But yeah, it's good to have agood set of binoculars, and
those binoculars are oh, how doyou say this anymore.

(11:53):
They're over 50 years old andstill in good use.
Yeah, now, what about thosemini binoculars that you get to?
You know, the very small ones,the compact size ones that you
know, basically the size of a, Iguess, a shaver sort of thing?

Speaker 4 (12:10):
Yeah, I mean those are sort of billed as great for
hiking and things like that.
I put those in the same leagueas opera glasses.
They're fine in bright light,although they're not the best,
but as soon as it gets at alldim lighting they're not very
good.
Right, and I've had a lot ofpeople you know they'll try my
binoculars and they'll go.

(12:32):
Well, they're heavy and I mean,yeah, they're maybe less than a
kilogram, but just under akilogram, so I guess that's
heavy, but they're great lenses.
They're well built.
The binoculars I have are quitegood ones because I use them
all the time.
I could drop those in a creekunderwater, I could wash them in

(12:52):
a lake and they won't let waterin.
They're sealed.
They're durable.
They can take a hard hit,because if you're doing field
work like I do, you trip overlogs, you fall, you know, you
bang them against trees as youturn or pivot, and they stand up
to that.
So that's what you're payingfor with big money is great
lenses and really sturdy, sealedhousings.

(13:14):
Okay, what brand is yours, doug?
I have Leica binoculars, ohyeah, so the top binocular
brands are things like Swarovski.
Leica, zeiss and Vortex havecome up with some really good
binoculars in recent years aswell, and most of those
companies have guarantees, so ifthey're damaged, you can get

(13:37):
them repaired or replaced free.
I mean they're really goodquality binoculars and, as I say
, I mean if you're doing thisprofessionally, it's absolutely
essential to have good equipment, and if you're doing it
seriously for recreation, it'sgood.
Now, if you're just looking atfeeders, and I don't mean just,
I don't mean that as aderogatory thing.
If your interest lies just sortof having a pair of binoculars

(13:59):
on the windowsill by your feeder, you can get away with ones
that aren't sealed, or, you know, sealed by your feeder you can
get away with ones that aren'tsealed.
Or, you know, you can get aless expensive pair because you
aren't taking them out in theelements where they're going to
get exposed.

Speaker 5 (14:12):
Right.
Yeah, I know I bought my sons acouple of pair of Burris that
were, I think they're eight, by35s maybe.
Yeah, I think that's the sizethat they were uh great uh,
compact size, easy to carry,nice and light uh good size.
They were a young guy, theywere uh, so they would have been
probably around 14 at the time,which was a good size for them.

(14:35):
Yeah, but there's other otherones, like steiners and things
like that as well, that are outthere, which is uh another
high-end, quality lens-producingcompany, I believe.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
The other thing I would say, just as a what I
always recommend, is, first ofall, like I find it very hard to
use Zeiss binoculars.
I know they're good, but when Ilook through them I sort of see
, you know cross-eyed, and thenI'll put a couple of Leica and I
have no problem.
I know people who have theother way around.
So it depends on yourindividual eye.
Like everyone is different, andso it's fine to take people's

(15:13):
advice, but look through themand if they don't look right,
don't buy them.
Like you know, everyone's eyesare different and some binocular
brands aren't great foreverybody, and it's not a
problem with the brand, it'sjust that it doesn't match your
eye.
So, and the other thing I'd liketo suggest when, if you're
going into a store and lookingat binoculars, don't look

(15:34):
outside in the bright light.
Use them to look underneath thecounter and look for dust
bunnies.
So go into a dark place andlook at the darkness, and that's
where you're going to see howbright they are now I probably
got something you may have nothave heard of, but I had a
friend.

Speaker 5 (15:50):
I haven't talked to him in quite a few years.
I recently heard al.
His name's al hobbs, and alused to send his things like
binoculars and things like thatdown to the states where they
would take them apart and puthis his glass lens into it and
the reek seal them and refillthem with all the the gases in

(16:15):
there and they would come backjust as good, except he didn't
need to wear his glasses becausehe could look through these and
they were set to his lens thathe required as opposed to
wearing glasses.
Ever heard of that?
No, I never have.
Yeah, that sounds brilliant.
Yeah, yeah, al used to do itall the time and he tried At one
point.
He gave me the numbers andthings like that.
But, to be honest, I wasn'twearing glasses until I was into

(16:38):
my mid-40s, so I really didn'tneed it at that time.
But he, I really didn't need itat that time, but he was
ranting and raving about it andused to send all his stuff down
and I can't remember where itwas in the States.
But yeah, you put yourprescription right into your
glasses and that way you didn'tneed to wear your eyeglasses
while you're looking through.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
Wow, yeah, that sounds pretty good.

Speaker 5 (16:58):
Yeah, it was pretty good, and I'm not sure if it's
still around and he would sendquality stuff down to the States
as well.
Leupold, I think, was one ofthe ones that he used to use
fairly regular, so they werepretty good.
That's a pretty good qualityYep.
Now, doug, what kind of booksdo you recommend for people to
look at, to identify birds or tokind of keep track and things

(17:22):
like that?
Some good books that yousuggest?

Speaker 4 (17:25):
Sure, I hate to keep giving the same answer.
There's quite a range, but interms of field guides, which are
identification guides, one ofthe standards that's been around
for my God, almost 100 yearsnow, believe it or not is the
Peterson Field Guide.
It's been updated, but it's anexcellent starting guide, and

(17:48):
there's a Peterson's to theeastern birds and western birds
of North America.
So here in Ontario we would gothe eastern one, and so that's a
great starting guide.
It's fairly simplified, whichis, I think, why it's good to
start with.
Another guide that I wouldhighly recommend is the Sibley

(18:09):
Guide to Birds by David Sibley.
He's both the artist and thewriter, and I think his
illustrations are, at this stage, unparalleled.
You know, birds can be ascomplicated as you want to make
them.
Most birds don't have just oneplumage.
They'll have a breeding plumage, a non-breeding plumage,

(18:29):
they'll have an immature plumage, and that's one thing the
Sibley Guide does very well isshow all the different plumages
a bird might be in.
That makes it a little moreconfusing for a beginner, but
the information is there,whereas the Peterson Guide tends
to just show male, female,maybe immature, and it's a
little more simplified that way,but no one guide does it in my

(18:53):
mind Like it's good to have morethan one.
Now, one thing that's becomereally popular in the last 30,
40 years are photographic fieldguides.
Oh yeah, and they look nice.
Last 30, 40 years arephotographic field guides and
they look nice.
But with a photographic guidethe photo is one bird, frozen in

(19:13):
time, as opposed to an artist'sillustration which kind of
averages something's appearanceto make it best.
So if, say, for example, thephoto has a heavy shadow on it,
if you don't know the breed youmight think oh, it's dark there,
but it's not, it's a shadow.
Now they're getting better.
A lot of the photo guides areusing multiple photos now rather
than one.
But the very first photo guideswere awful.
They were frequently usingpictures of birds sitting on a

(19:35):
nest, taken with a flash, and sothe colors are washed out, the
posture's unnatural and I woulddefy anyone to learn a bird from
those guides.
Now they have gotten better,but I still I'm a bit old school
in so many ways, but I stillkind of prefer illustrated
guides over photo guides.

(19:56):
But I have them all becauseevery guide has something that
another guide doesn't have.

Speaker 5 (20:04):
Yeah, I still have.
Well, I have a number of them,but the one that I still like is
actually about 1974.
I was a member of the OshawaNaturalist Club and won a
contest for bringing out themost new members to the Oshawa
Naturalist Club and the prizewas a Peterson's Eastern Bird
Guide, and I still have that.
Oh yeah, that I very prize wasa Peterson's Eastern Bird Guide

(20:24):
and I still have that.
Oh yeah, that I very much enjoy.
That's a great book.

Speaker 4 (20:28):
Yep, yeah, it's a great.
They also one of the thingsPeterson did, which I thought
was it really helped me.
In the inside cover there's apicture of birds in silhouette,
you know so, like a meadowlarkputting on a fence post,
swallows on the wire, this sortof thing.
But learning shape is really,really critical in becoming.
You know, if you want to gainyour skills or increase your

(20:50):
skills as a birder, shape andposture is everything, and those
were excellent training to helpyou understand the difference
in the way things look as theysit, because almost every bird
can be identified by silhouette.

Speaker 5 (21:04):
Yep, you know, if you know it well enough yeah, oh
yeah, I saw a morning dove thismorning which, uh, I was just
got a quick glimpse and I knewexactly what it was.
Just simply, you know just a ablink of the amount of time that
I had it.
Oh, it's a morning dove, justby its, its gliding posture at
that time, yeah, but yeah, thatthat peterson's book is.
It's small enough that you canput in a small pack and carry it

(21:27):
with you very easily along withyour binoculars and all your
other stuff that you would takewhen you go out for a birding
venture.
Yeah, I know one of the thingsthat I did with the Oshawa
Naturals Club.
We were involved in a census, abird census, yeah, were involved
in a census, a bird census,yeah, and we're up near Owen
Sound, I think it was doing inbasically what you do, at least

(21:55):
as I recall.
Mind you, this is in the earlymid 70s that we were doing that,
that you, and it was a wintercensus to find out the winter
birds, and so you basically dokind of grids or do areas.
So these vehicles will go downthese roads and next vehicles do
the next road.
Right, and it was great, butone of the interesting ones so
we had, I think there was.

(22:16):
They paired us up with someolder birders and we were just
young teens, like probablyaround 13, 14 sort of thing, and
they put us in the vehicle andI used to have a pretty good eye
, and so there was three in thefront, three adults in the front

(22:36):
and three of us teenagersbasically young teenagers in the
back, and they saw a bird flyacross at a distance and it was
very hard to see so and itlooked like a raptor of some
type.
So I looked and they said, oh,so, two of us.
Well, you guys, wait here,we'll go, we'll walk down so we
don't scare it or drive the cardown, we'll take a look.

(22:56):
And I said, oh, and the two gotout and looked and started
walking down.
Um, and I said I think that wasa goshawk and the guy in the
front says that's was a goshawk.
And the guy in the front saysthat's not a goshawk, it's the
wrong time of the year and thisis not known for goshawks, and
it wasn't this and it wasn'tthat.
And the two guys came back andthey said you won't believe this
, but it was a goshawk, yeah,and the guy just turned around

(23:18):
and looked at me and went howdid you know?
Anyways, yeah, because when II'm a little obsessive,
compulsive, when I get involvedin things, I try to get
completely into it, and thattime birding was something I
very much enjoyed, yeah, yeah.
So, doug, how now, some ofthese books are they able to?
Because a lot of people, a lotof birders, like to check off

(23:41):
the birds they see, right, so,maintain the list.
Is there some of the books theyhave, those lists you can check
off in your book, or do youwrite them in, or how does that?

Speaker 4 (23:52):
A lot of books will have a checklist in it.
You can also, for example, oneof the provincial birding
organization is the OntarioField Ornithologists and if you
go to their website you can, youcan search through it and
you'll find a checklist for thebirds of Ontario, so all the
birds that have ever been seenin Ontario, and there's

(24:13):
different ways.
There's also a continentalbirding group, the American
Birding Association, whichcovers the US and Canada, and
they they have a list functionas well.
So, and in terms of keeping alist, I mean most birders keep a
list of some sort.
Some people are driven by theirlists, like there are what are

(24:35):
called world listers and theseare people who are trying to see
as many birds in the world aspossible.
They usually have financialmeans and they're traveling all
over the world trying to buildthe biggest life list.
You know that's what it'scalled.
When you're, you're the birdsyou've seen during your lifetime
is your life list and uh, andand it's.

(24:56):
It's quite.
You know they're quite seriousand competitive.
Other people don't really carehow many they've seen.
They just like looking at birds.
So it kind of depends howdriven or list-oriented you are.
But most birders I know keep alist at some level.

Speaker 5 (25:15):
Yeah, and that was one of the people that I tried
to have on before was a formerdeputy minister who's an avid
birder and flies around theworld to build his list, I guess
, or just to see birds allaround the world, and that's
what their focus, their trips on, is going.
You know, well, we're going togo somewhere.

(25:35):
Okay, where can we go see somespecial birds, I guess.
But it's like a lot of things,right?

Speaker 4 (25:40):
Yeah Well, for about 20 years I worked as a guide
leading birding tours for acompany in Texas called Field
Guides, and we run trips allover the world, and so for about
20 years I traveled half of theyear all over the place and I'd
have many of these worldlisters on my tours and it was a

(26:02):
lot of fun.
I mean, it was a great way Igot to see a whole lot of the
world that I couldn't have seenany other way, because, uh,
contrary to what you might think, birders aren't paid a lot
usually and uh, yeah and so youknow I can't afford to travel
the world on my own, so this wasa wonderful opportunity to
travel around and and see.
you know just different birdsall over the world and they're

(26:24):
and it's fascinating how manyyou know just different birds
all over the world and it'sfascinating how many you know.
There's something like justover 10,000 species of birds in
the world, and the variation andthe adaptations of them are
just mind-blowing.

Speaker 5 (26:38):
So what would be probably the rarest bird that
you've seen in all your trips?

Speaker 4 (26:43):
Oh dear.
Well, okay, if you definerarity as total number of a
population, I saw the pinkpigeon in Mauritius, which I
think at that time was down toabout a dozen or 15 birds, and
then probably the rarest thing.

(27:04):
The other way you could definea rarity is something that's far
from where it should be.
And uh, many years ago, but 40years ago at preskiel, I found a
thing that was called was thencalled mongolian plover, it's
now called siberian sand plover,but it's a russian shorebird
that winters in australia andfound one at Press Keel on May

(27:27):
4th 1984, and that was the firstrecord for Canada and it was on
the second record in EasternNorth America.

Speaker 5 (27:36):
So when you see these ones and you report them, is
there some verification process?

Speaker 4 (27:41):
Yeah, once your heart starts again.
Which took about 30 seconds Ithink, because I just kind of
went apoplectic when I saw itBecause I knew what it was but I
didn't know the name of thebird, but I knew the image, I
knew the thing it was.
I just wasn't sure what thename was and I was just
dumbfounded because it's also abeautiful bird, it's a really

(28:02):
strikingly patterned bird and so.
But this was before cell phones.
I went back to the park officeand I called some people and
they called people.
It was sort of like a phonehotline and the rarer the bird,
the faster it worked.
And and then I went, got mycamera, went back out on the

(28:23):
beach, took some photos of it,more people got to see it and in
the end about 30 or 40 peoplesaw it and it left that night,
was never seen again.
But there is a verificationprocess, if you like.
It's called the Ontario BirdRecords Committee.
It is a committee of theOntario Field Ornithologists and
birders.

(28:43):
It's a volunteer thing.
Knowledgeable birders will siton it.
So if you see a rare bird, weask that you document it.
Nowadays almost all thedocumentation is photographs,
which is very easy to deal withBack when it started it was
mostly written descriptions andit is on the honor system.
You're going to assume peoplearen't trying to commit a

(29:03):
birding fraud although that hashappened and so you know you
would write a description andreally the goal of it is to just
describe the bird sufficientlythat you eliminate the other
possibilities.
And it just adds a littlecredibility to site records,
because in the old days the onlyway a record got accepted was
if the bird was shot and put ina museum.

(29:24):
And so up until about the early1960s out-of-range birds were
just routinely shot, and oftenby private collectors, and those
collections were absorbed bybig museums.
So if you go to the royalontario museum or the national
museum of canada, their, theircollections are built on a
series of private collections,many of them yeah and and uh.

(29:46):
So nowadays, with much betteryou know, cameras and and and
better knowledge of birdidentification, you know,
collecting birds for science israrely done now.
It's usually done now forsomething like toxicology
studies or something like that,and it's done very sparingly.
But you know the documentationof rarities is no longer done
with a shotgun, it's done with acamera.

Speaker 5 (30:08):
Yeah well, autobahn most of when all his stuff was
basically shot.
Birds, were they not Sure?

Speaker 4 (30:16):
They had garbage for optics and if he wanted to see
something.
You know what's that bird Bang?
Oh look, it's this.
You know, and it was sort ofjust a standard practice.
But this is sort of you know,as technologies have evolved and
I think also our ethics haveevolved.
Yes, you know where.
We're not just killing stuff todocument it.

Speaker 5 (30:38):
Yeah, to document and look at it Exactly.

Speaker 4 (30:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (30:42):
You know, but you're talking about birding frauds.
It sounds like a good episode,say, for a Father Brown TV show.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
Believe me, I had a guy when I used to work as the
head naturalist at Presqu'ile inthe 80s and we had a guy here
who was quite a character.
He's an avid birder.
He'd go out all the time, so hedid see a lot, but every time
he went out he'd see somethingamazing and no one else would
ever get to see it.
And he eventually saw a birdcalled a Sabin's gull in the

(31:14):
spring.
This is a bird that's very rarein the fall, never recorded in
the spring in the Great Lakesand he said he had a photo of it
and eventually I hounded himfor it.
I finally got the photo.
And not only was the photo, itwas of a Sabin's gull but based
on its plumage, it was a fallbird, not a spring bird, and
there was a rock in theforeground with barnacles on it.

(31:36):
So you know, not only was itthe first spring record of
sabin's for the great lakes, itwas the first record of
barnacles for the great lakes.
You know, it's just, and it'sjust like I'm looking at this
going.
What are you thinking?
You know?

Speaker 5 (31:47):
it was kind of funny yeah, well, what about things
like a california Californiacondor?
Did you have the privilege torecord any California condors?

Speaker 4 (31:56):
I have not seen that bird.
I have actually never birdedCalifornia.
I've spent a lot of time in LAXairport on the way to trips and
things, but I never have birdedCalifornia.
So that's one that still eludesme.

Speaker 5 (32:16):
California.
So that's one that still eludesme.
Yeah, I recall I think it wasduring COVID that I was doing a
dump run and going to the dumpin Oshawa taking some things
there and I look and I can'tbelieve that it's like oh, but
it's wounded.
How did it get wounded?
So I pull up and I said you seethat bird, you got back there.
And he says yeah, he says well,we've called it into the city

(32:37):
of Oshawa to the animalresources.
I said it's an arctic tern thathas a wounded wing.
Really, yeah, I was quitesurprised and it's quite a lot.
You could get probably within acar length of it, because it
was right beside the roadwayleading into the dump and
everybody had a good look at itand I'm sure people had no idea

(32:58):
what it was, but I was quitesurprised to find it.

Speaker 4 (33:01):
Oh yeah.
Well, that's a pretty rare birdin southern Ontario period and
it's really really odd that it'dbe in a dump.

Speaker 5 (33:07):
Well, yeah, it was leading on the way into the dump
and it was just kind ofsurprising into the dump and it
was just kind of surprised.

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(36:46):
Hey, thanks for listening backto the episode.
Now, what about things like?
Because we've heard, or atleast I've heard.
It's probably been a few yearsnow since I've heard anything
but supposedly down in theCaribbean somewhere they found
an ivory-billed woodpeckersomewhere.
Have you heard about thingslike that?

(37:07):
Or it was just?
And of course, it takes a lotto verify something like that.

Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yeah, so ivory bill woodpecker is kind of like the
Elvis of birds.
Yes, there hasn't been.
So there were two populations.
There's a subspecies that wasin the southeastern United
States and there's a subspeciesthat's in Cuba.
Yes, and the Cuban bird.
Don't quote me on this, but Ithink the last definitive

(37:32):
sighting of a Cuban bird was inthe mid 80s.
Ok, and you know, it's in aremote area, it's.
It's not a bird that'snecessarily tame and confiding
and there aren't a whole lot ofpeople looking.
I mean, there have been somepeople looking, but it's not
like there's a massive effort tofind this bird, so it may or

(37:55):
may not be extinct.
And the US population the lastproven record, as in proven with
a photo recording somethinglike that, is from the early 40s
in Louisiana, right, but thatsaid, there are a number of
competent people who claim tohave seen them.

(38:15):
There's a group working rightnow that claim they have a small
population in Louisiana thatthey're.
They're trying to verify butnobody has been able to nail a
definitive photograph to proveit right.
And if that happens, it'll be.
You be a cause for greatcelebration.

Speaker 5 (38:33):
Yeah, but for those that don't know birds, an ivory
bill, it's what.
The closest one would be apileated woodpecker.
It'd be basically the same sortof size and same kind of
configuration.

Speaker 4 (38:45):
Yeah, it's actually even bigger than a pileated.
Oh, it is.
So a pileated is about the sizeof a crow.
Yes, it's mostly black with abig red crest and when it flies
it shows extensive white underthe wing.
Yep, an ivory bill is probably15% bigger, like a raven, yeah,
and when sitting, like whenperched on a tree, it shows

(39:06):
these big white triangles on thelower back and when it flies
that's a part of the wing and ithas a huge area of white in the
wing and it has, like the namesuggests, a pale bone colored
bill as opposed to a dark billof appellated.
Um, and it was a specialist ofold growth river bottom forests
and pine forests in thesoutheast, and it was.
You know, there were still afair number of them around in

(39:29):
the 1880s, 1890s, right into1910, 1915, but at that point
all of the river bottom forestswere being logged and it
basically was lost to habitatdestruction.
And you know we go back to thecollecting thing.
A lot of.
There were a lot of people atthat time who would, who were
professional collectors, whowould go out and shoot these

(39:51):
things and sell them tocollectors.
The laws permitted it back thenand so a lot of the collectors
found out, oh, they're going tolog this river valley, so they
go in and shoot all the ivorybills ahead of the logging.
So we have lots of specimens ofthem.
The whole thing's tragic, yeah,it is, yeah.
And the last population was ina place called the Singer Tract

(40:14):
in Louisiana and it was loggedin the late 30s, early 40s, even
though they knew there werelike three or four pairs in that
forest and there were all sortsof efforts trying to save that
forest, make it a reserve, apark, and they just couldn't get
it together.
Right, reserve a park, and theyjust couldn't get it together.

Speaker 5 (40:31):
Right, yeah, I know in Ontario that a lot of.
I recall it was a greatforester.
His name was Bob Penwell.
He was the chief forester for adistrict, peterborough, lindsay
area with the Ministry ofNatural Resources, and a lot of
the stuff that took place in oneof the forests large forest, I
think, it was 12,500 acres inthat one one that they used to

(40:53):
manage, and bob told me later onhe said you know something, we
never, ever, consideredmigrating birds in our forestry
practices until, well, thatwould have been probably until
the 90s or later than that, soit didn't come into place till
that, yeah, you know.
And some of the other things,though, is places like and now

(41:13):
there's some stipulations outthere for rare birds as well,
which, um, because the royalontario museum, iran and other
museums that keep these sort ofthings, they actually give tax
receipts, as far as I know, fordonations of things like that.
So, and to make sure thatthey're not harvested illegally,
that they have to have all theproper identification with

(41:37):
everything that they have, tomake sure that it's just like
you said, that it was allowed tobe shot at these times for
collecting and those sorts ofthings, but not anymore.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
Yeah, I think there's a permitting process for
possession of things.
So the federal government isresponsible for what are classed
as migratory birds.
The provincial government areresponsible for things like
grouse, turkeys, pheasants, owls, hawks, cormorants.
So they sort of divide up.
It doesn't entirely makebiological sense how they got

(42:07):
divided, but they are divided.
But you do have to.
If you have in your possessionany of these things, you have to
have permits for them.
Generally you can't get permitsfor songbirds and things like
that but you can, you know, geta permit if you say you're a
hunter and you shoot a duck or agrouse and you want to get it
stuffed, you can Like mygrandfather's case of stuffed

(42:28):
birds.
That's literally grandfathered.
You know it's sort of like afamily heirloom.
I could never sell it Right.
That's literally grandfathered.
You know it's sort of like afamily heirloom.
I could never sell it Right butI will.
You know it's in my will to goto carry on in the family.
So you know, carry on in thefamily as a family treasure.

Speaker 5 (42:46):
Yeah, I think the Migratory Bird Act that was
signed with Canada, unitedStates and, I believe, mexico as
well, yeah, governs a lot ofthe migratory birds such as
ducks and geese and timber,doodle, woodcock and those sort
of things.
Yeah, and when I was in hisminister, there was one thing
that kind of it did drive me alittle crazy, and I remember
this one specifically that theywere looking at putting the bald

(43:11):
eagle on a I can't rememberwhich list it was supposed to be
listed as.
And I said what do you mean thebald eagle?
I said we have a significantnumber.
What kind of numbers do we have?
Oh well, minister, we have astable Northern Ontario
population, but we don't have astable Southern Ontario bald
eagle strain.

(43:31):
And I said what are you talkingabout, a Southern Ontario bald
eagle strain?
I said I don't think there issuch a thing and I think that
you're doing something that'snot quite in the best interest
of the populace at large outthere.
Have you ever heard of anythingalong those sort of lines?

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Well, I think so.
There's a Provincial at riskact.
Uh, you know, often referred toas an endangered species act,
but that's not the actual titleand then there's a federal
listing as well and the federallisting applies to national
parks, uh uh, military placeslike federal lands basically,
whereas the provincial list ismuch more impactful because it

(44:12):
covers most of the land.
But anyway, bald eagle was oneof the few species where they
actually split its status in theprovince because there was a
large, fairly healthy population, especially in northwestern
Ontario up around Lake of theWoods, kenora, that neck of the
woods.
But southern Ontariohistorically had bald eagles but
they were almost entirely wipedout through DDT poisoning in

(44:37):
the 60s and 70s.
And I remember as a kid goingdown to Point Pelee every spring
and we would stop at the IonaStation side road near Chatham
and drive north a couplekilometers to this woodlot where
there was a bald eagle nestingand it was the only bald eagle
known to be nesting in SouthernOntario.
And during the 80s, late 70sand 80s there were big efforts

(45:03):
made both in Ontario and NewYork and adjacent states to try
to reintroduce bald eagles, likethey did with peregrine falcons
and now not like with ddt hasbeen banned for over 50 years.
Uh, now bald eagles are morecommon in southern ontario than
they probably were historically.
They're nesting all over theplace now, which is amazing.

Speaker 5 (45:26):
Oh, my god, I gotta tell you doug, one of the
interesting times that I wouldsee bald eagles on a regular
basis in Oshawa was when theyput lampreyside in the Oshawa
Creek and the lamprey eels wouldbe killed and they would feed
on the dead lamprey eels.
And I would see that all thetime.

Speaker 4 (45:45):
They also will readily go to garbage dumps.
Yes, and it's not uncommon.
I used to do a trip in theYukon and you go into the white
horse dump and there'd be 60bald eagles sitting on the
smoldering garbage piles, and sowherever they are mainly
scavengers they can hunt theirown food, but they are primarily
carrion feeders, so they'll eatdead carp, dead salmon,

(46:06):
whatever.

Speaker 5 (46:07):
Well, that's what Teddy Roosevelt I believe it was
.
Teddy Roosevelt said right thatwhy would they have the bald
eagle as their national birdwhen it's essentially a
scavenger feeding on deadcarrion, when they should have,
in his belief, was the wildturkey would be a far more
better choice for a nationalbird because of its intelligence
and how active the wild turkeyswere.

(46:30):
I'm pretty sure it was TeddyRoosevelt.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
Yeah, no comment.

Speaker 5 (46:36):
Yeah, yeah.
So, doug, what's the best timeto see birds?

Speaker 4 (46:42):
Well, one beautiful thing about birds is you can see
them anywhere, anytime of year.
But in terms of maximumdiversity here in, say, southern
Ontario, the best time is themonth of May, and that's when
all the migrants, the residentbirds, are returning.
The birds that breed furthernorth are passing through.

(47:03):
So you know, at a really goodsite in southern Ontario with a
bit of luck, you couldpotentially see 180 species in a
day in a really rich biodiversearea.
I've done a couple of big dayshere in Northumberland County
and if I remember right, myrecord is 171.

(47:23):
But for that to happen, youknow the gods have to be kind to
you, you have to have you knowgood weather, you have to have a
good movement of migrant birds,you have to have, you know,
good weather, you have to have agood movement of migrant birds,
you have to have all theresident birds lined up singing
for you so you can find them.
But yeah, maximum biodiversityis probably in May and then
September, august, late August,september, early October is also

(47:46):
very good because that's whenall the birds are returning
south, or the bulk of them, andthere's more of them because you
have the young in thepopulation.
So you actually have.
Numerically, you have three orfour times the number of birds
going south as you do goingnorth.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
So I've got an interesting question for you
that I've asked some who Ithought were good birders, but
they couldn't answer me.
When birds migrate south, dothey nest south, down south as
well, or do they only nest herein the north when they migrate
north?

Speaker 4 (48:18):
Generally speaking, they're only nesting at one site
.
So some of these birds, willyou know, migrate north, breed,
say, in the boreal forest or inthe Arctic tundra, and then
they'll move south.
Now I have heard that there maybe a couple of species that do
a breeding in the south and thenmove north and breed again.

(48:40):
I'm not really up on that, butI've heard that there's some
speculation about orchardorioles nesting in Mexico and
then moving north.
But I don't want to be quotedon that because I haven't seen
the actual research papersmyself, but I've heard of that.
I don't know if it's true, butanyway, by and large, if that

(49:01):
does happen, it's extremely rarebecause most things are they
have a site they breed at.
They often have a very specificsite they winter at.
That's one of the amazing thingsabout migration is that you
could take something like, isthat you know you could take
something like a I don't know amagnolia warbler, which is an
abundant bird in the borealforest.
You know they'll winter inBelize or Guatemala or northern

(49:23):
Costa Rica and then they fly allthe way to Gogama or Timmins
and they nest in the same sprucetree or balsam fir tree, year
after year after year, and thenthey'll go back to Belize and
winter in the very same spotthey wintered in before.
And it's just amazing to methat you know we go on about how
clever we are with GPS.

(49:45):
These things have it in thebrain the size of a pea, yeah,
and they have it from birth,like they know where they're
going.
It kind of blows my mind.

Speaker 5 (49:55):
Well, here I'll give you one that you may not have
heard as well.
One of the things I did when Iwas minister was I tried to
bring in a provincial insect,and my preference was the
dragonfly Right.
So we started doing researchinto dragonflies.
Are you familiar with how manystrains of dragonfly there are
in Ontario?

Speaker 4 (50:15):
Oh yeah, Isn't there like 120, 130 species or
something?
No, I think it's 56.

Speaker 5 (50:21):
And the one there, the dragon slayer dragonfly, is
the largest and will migratefrom the Hudson's James Bay
lowlands all the way to Florida,and I had no idea about that
until we started doing thatresearch.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
Yeah, yeah, I know one of the common ones here is
green darner and they'remigratory.
Like most dragonflies don'tmigrate, some do, most don't,
but the green darner you'll seehundreds in the air in September
out over Lake Ontario and thelittle falcon, the merlin.
They catch them on the wing andeat them on the wing and you'll
see them up there grabbingthese things and then eating

(50:56):
them like corn on the cob in theair and they'll grab another
and eat another and it's reallyneat to watch.

Speaker 5 (51:03):
Oh, it would be.
Yeah, well, I know this morningand normally I start off the
podcast talking about my morningwalk, which I held off with
talking about this morning walk,which I held off with talking
about this morning Of course, Iwas out with my chocolate lab,
gunner and Willie, which is oneof the ones that shows up at the
same time.
He's a German short hair.
They were out running and thereishi was growing.

(51:25):
It was the second flush ofreishi.
Everything seems to be goingalong.
The stinging nettle's not doingas well as I thought it would,
but I got to tell you thismorning we had chirping sparrow,
American goldfinch, of course,robin, common grackle, cedar,
waxwing, red-breasted nuthatch,house finch, blue jay, song

(51:46):
sparrow.
What else do we have?
Red-eyed vario, black-cappedchickadee, a robin as well, a
crow and what else?
Cardinals.
Those were the main ones thatwere out this morning while I
was walking, which is kind ofnice to see.
So what's a good app thatpeople can use for birding?

(52:08):
Do you know to identify birds?

Speaker 4 (52:10):
Yeah, so an app that's hugely popular is called
Merlin Yep, that's what I use.
It's produced by the Laboratoryof Ornithology at Cornell
University and it is very good.
So, merlin, you can put it onyour phone.
You can go outside and you heara bird calling and you turn it
on and it will tell you what itis.

(52:31):
Yep, yep, I now I'm a bit oldschool.
It might be a product of age, orit might just be my
curmudgeonly nature, but I, I,you, I, I actually don't have
Merlin on my phone and I teachornithology at Fleming College
in Lindsay and I always tellthem, I said, like Merlin is a

(52:57):
tool, but it is not a god.
It can be wrong, it sometimesis wrong, and I'm not sure it
helps the learning processbecause I think you know, quite
often you say, oh, what's that?
I hear that, and Merlin says,oh, it's a Baltimore Oriole,
okay, that's what it is.
You haven't done the work.

(53:17):
And without doing the work itdoesn't commit to memory.
That's my experience.
I have to when I learn a birdsong, a new one, it's because I,
you know, walk through athistle patch or get scraped up
in hawthorns, you know, draw alittle blood.
You remember it if you work forit and I think.

(53:37):
But it is a useful tool, itreally is.
It's kind of amazing.
I mean it's almost out of StarTrek, right, like Spock with his
tricorder going Captain, it's amagnolia warbler or something.
It kind of blows the mind.
At the same time, though,there's a bird that's in
Carolinian parts of Ontario,like the Niagara region, windsor

(53:57):
the tufted titmouse.
It's a chickadee.
For some reason Merlin keepscalling Baltimore Orioles
titmice, really, yeah, andthere's an Oriole at Presqu'Eel
here at the lighthouse.
The Oriole songs are a littlevariable but the quality is
always the same.
They have a rich, flute-like,like very powerful, strong song,
right, and this aureolepresqu'ile goes like deetle,

(54:20):
deetle, deetle at the start, andthe thing keeps calling it a
titmouse.
Oh yeah, so you know, and I'vehad this with students, though I
have an assignment where theygo out with Merlin and find
stuff and they'll come back.
So I had a titmouse and it'slike well, actually I really
don't think you did, you know,you had something else.

(54:41):
But so I think it's a usefultool, but nothing replaces
finding it, singing, like hearthe song, find it, see what
Merlin says.
Then go verify it.
Yeah, like cause.
It also teaches you the skillof how to spot birds where they
are when they're singing.
Um, but yeah, anyway, thatthat's.
There are lots of differentapps out there, but that's the
one that just you know.
It's far and away the leadingone that's being used by

(55:04):
everybody.

Speaker 5 (55:05):
Yeah, it's a free app and you can, of course, upgrade
, but and they ask for donationsbecause that's how they run it.
But I a friend of mine, ron,who's a listener to the podcast
told me about this and I triedit and I was quite surprised.
It was rather nice to see andit's getting better.

Speaker 4 (55:23):
I mean they're refining it.
When it first came out a fewyears ago, it came up with
ridiculous Right.
Well, it's an example.
It also does visual stuff, andI had someone send me a photo of
a bird and they said, hey, dougMerlin says this is a first
year bald eagle, what do youthink?
And it was a femalerose-breasted grosbeak.
Oh yeah, being shot from belowlooking straight up, and I mean

(55:45):
it's like not even close RightNow.
As I say, it's constantly beingrefined and, as that's
happening, it's getting betterand better, right.

Speaker 5 (55:56):
So, doug now, when I was minister I was told by the
ministry you may be a counter tothat, but what is the official
first bird of spring in Ontario?

Speaker 4 (56:09):
Ah, okay, that's a good question, I think, what
would typically be the firstmigrant back?
What would typically be thefirst migrant back?
It's getting a little muddiedwith climate changes.
You know we're not getting thecold, solid winters like we used

(56:29):
to.
So, for example, here atPresque Isle we can get a warm
spell in mid-January and all ofa sudden there's like 500
redheads swimming around PresqueIsle Bay.
Where did they come from?
You know, like, is that amigration or did they just move
from some other spot on theGreat Lakes?
But what is often referred to asthe first bird is horned lark,
which is a songbird that's outin fields, arctic tundra, and

(56:52):
they usually come back by thethird week of January.
The first ones.
But the water bird situation,like with ducks and even gulls,
like ring-billed gulls, theystart moving around very early
now and it's really hard to tellif they're like here at Presque
Isle, we have a big colony ofring-billed gulls that breed on
the islands off Presque Isle andwe don't have them wintering

(57:14):
here because we don't have hotwater outflows or industrial
plants or chip stands on thewaterfront, whereas they do
winter at places like CoburgHarbor, whitby, oshawa,
pickering, toronto.
So when you go out on a nicebright day in late January and
it's sunny and there's like 500ring-billed gulls flying around
the islands.
They've come back, but fromwhere it's kind of muddy now.

Speaker 5 (57:41):
So what I was told when I was minister and now,
mind you, that's like 20 yearsago was that a lot of people
obviously always thought it'sthe robin.
Well, no, because it's therobins that actually nest in the
Hudson's, james Bay, lowlandwinter in southern Ontario,
because it's quite the distanceis what the ministry very
specifically stated.
What they said at that time wasthe red-winged blackbird,

(58:04):
because Ontario is thenorthernmost range of the
red-winged blackbird and when itshows up as the first true sign
of first bird of springaccording to the ministry at
least it used to be, but, likeyou said, it's muddying very
much so, and I mean things likerobins and redwings are
traditionally some of the firstvisible migrants, you see,

(58:24):
because horned larks aren't allthat visible.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
They're out there but they're hard to find.
You need a sort of dedicatedsearch.
But you know, when you and Iwere kids, it was early March
would be the first robins, thefirst red wings, and we didn't
have big wintering populations,whereas now we do, like there's
hundreds of robins wintering.
I live in Brighton, by PresqueIsle.
We have some winters, we havehundreds wintering here, and I

(58:51):
think that's a double-barreledthing.
One is the climate is warmer,we don't have as harsh a winter.
But I think the bigger factorin this case is there's now
abundant winter food sourceswhere there wasn't before, and
the change is mostly in theinvasive European buckthorn.
Oh yeah, it's just taken off.
It's a small tree whichproduces those dark blue or

(59:13):
purple berries, and robins lovethat stuff and that's why it's
spreading, because they eat it,their droppings, have the seeds
and they plant new oneseverywhere.
But you know, now there arehundreds of robins wintering
here, but a lot of it depends onthe buckthorn crop rather than
the snow depth or temperature.

Speaker 5 (59:29):
And I have a lot.
I have a crabapple tree thathas large blooms.
Basically every other year theyfeed on those small crab apples
every year, Like it's kind ofsurprising to see.
But, Doug, okay, tell us onething if you can.
Yep, how do you identify a malerobin from a female?

Speaker 4 (59:49):
Okay, a general rule of thumb is if you look at a
robin and you look at its, thecrown, the top of the head, if
it's really black, the head, itis probably a male.
Females' heads are browner.
They're more closer to thecolor of the back.
So if there's a very strongcontrast between the color of

(01:00:11):
the back and the head it'sprobably a male.
And I hate to be the guy whosays says, but there's a caveat,
because there's a caveat toeverything.
Um, the older a bird is, thedarker it gets.
So a really old female robincan get fairly black on the
crown.
But right, general rule ofthumb, if the head especially

(01:00:31):
you see the two together, likein the spring hopping around on,
the one of them is going tohave a much darker head than the
other and that'll be the male.

Speaker 5 (01:00:41):
And so the white tip on the tail feathers is not an
indicator either, though eh.

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
No, they both have that, okay, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:00:47):
Okay, all right, so tell us about your trip coming
up with Ministry of NaturalResources.
What are you doing there?

Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
Oh yeah, I'm really excited about this.
I love the Hudson Bay lowland.
I've done a lot of work inHudson and James Bay for over 45
years.
It's one of my favorite placeson earth.
And so, as a volunteer, I'mgoing to be assisting M&R in a
Canada goose banding operation.
We're going to be based out ofPiwanak, which is about midway

(01:01:17):
along the Ontario Hudson Baycoast, and we're going to be
flying around in a helicopterfinding geese that are are, uh,
flightless, and we will ban them, uh, you know, as part of sort
of long-term ongoing studies ofpopulation movements and
dynamics.
Uh, the ministry does this inconjunction with the US Fish and
Wildlife Service.

(01:01:37):
It's a big, it's aninternationally cooperative
thing and that's good becausethese populations are
international right.
They're breeding here,wintering in the States, so at
least at this point, we're stillworking together on that, and
so I'm going to be a volunteeron that crew.
And it's kind of neat because,a I love flying in helicopters
and, b I love the Hudson BayLowlands, so any excuse to get

(01:02:02):
in a helicopter in the HudsonBay.

Speaker 5 (01:02:03):
Lowlands.
I jump at it.
Have you been to Pewannockbefore?

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
Doug, I have yeah, okay, and Pewannock is an
indigenous community.
I don't know if anyoneremembers the old community of
Winnisk, which is a C, a Creeword meaning woodchuck, and and
it's at the mouth of the Winniskriver.
And Winnisk floodedtraditionally, so the community

(01:02:25):
was moved inland to higherground at a place called Piwanak
, and uh, uh, so the old townsite's gone, uh, destroyed, and
floods.
There's still a few remnants ofbuildings left, but that's it.
Been destroyed in floods.
There's still a few remnants ofbuildings left, but that's it.
But anyway, the neat thing aboutthis is most birds there's a
thing called molt, where theychange their feathers because

(01:02:49):
feathers don't last forever andthe vast majority of birds molt
over time.
So they'll be dropping a fewfeathers at a time in their
wings, so they never lose thepower of flight and they usually
do it right after breeding.
So breeding is a very energetic, expensive activity and then
they'll molt and then they'llmigrate.
There's all sorts of variation,but that's the general rule of
thumb.
But geese and ducks do itdifferently.

(01:03:12):
They have what they callcatastrophic molt, where they
drop all their wing feathers atonce and become flightless, and
they do it at the same time.
The young are flightless, sothe whole bunch of them are
unable to fly, and that's whenwe catch them, to ban them.
And when you fly over them witha helicopter you'll have
multiple family groups hangingaround together grazing and

(01:03:34):
they'll sort of, when thehelicopter goes over, they bunch
up into a tight group and thenwe just land and put people
around the flock, sort of corralthem into a, a net, uh corral,
and one by one, band the birdsand let them go and then, leave
right and and it's, it's.
It's sort of literally dirtywork.
It's hard work, but it's reallyfun.

Speaker 5 (01:03:55):
Yeah, rewarding, yeah .
So if you've been to PewannockPewannock is basically in Polar
Bear Provincial Park and you'reprobably staying in the ranger's
house.
There is where they house a lotof the M&R stuff like that.
Yeah that's my understanding,and the other thing about it is
lots of polar bears in Pewannockarea.

(01:04:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
I mean we will almost certainly see some polar bears
in Piwanak area.
Yeah, I mean we, we will almostcertainly see some polar bears
and we are, you know, beingbeing a government operation
safety is paramount.
So you know we, we are all wewill have shotguns, you know,
for protection, although it'salmost never needed.
And but you know you do have tobe ready for that.

(01:04:40):
Polar bears most of the polarbears, stay out on the ice of
Hudson Bay as long as they canbecause they're primarily seal
hunters and there's no seals onland or or they can't catch them
in the open water.
So but once the icedeteriorates they all come to
shore and they generally stayquite close to the bay because
it's cooler and you know theyheat up.

(01:05:02):
But you know it's possible wecould get one right in Pawanik.
More likely September, october.
There'll be a lot more chanceof seeing one right in the town
walking around.
When we're up there it'sprobably early days and a
relatively small number of bearswill be in on the coast.

Speaker 5 (01:05:18):
Yeah, well, it was interesting as well.
A lot of people don't realizebut there's a stable population
of walruses and seals andcaribou in that area as well.
Yeah, that a lot of peopledon't realize that we have.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:30):
Right here in Ontario , the walrus one really
surprises people.
But there is a little isolatedpopulation near Cape Henrietta
and the next nearest populationis in the north part of Hudson
Bay, which is quite a distanceaway.

Speaker 5 (01:05:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
Yeah, but yeah, there are.
I've seen the I've worked up inthat area before and there are
some fairly sizable caribouherds.
There's wolverines up there,there's I mean, it's a
wilderness.
The Hudson Bay lowland is, youknow it occupies about what a
quarter of the province'slandmass.

Speaker 5 (01:06:01):
People have no idea.
When they say northern Ontariothey think Sudbury or Thunder
Bay, not even close.
Exactly you get to Thunder Bay.
You're not even halfway up tothe top of Ontario and it's kind
of surprising and it's anincredible landscape.

Speaker 4 (01:06:17):
When you like the Hudson Bay lowland, it's just
one of the most breathtakinglandscapes I can think of.
It's flat but it's it's like agiant bog with these millions of
little lakes and islands oftrees and and willow, swales and
gravel, beach ridges and stuffand it.
It's just an incredibly for anaturalist like myself.

(01:06:38):
I just find it awe-inspiring.

Speaker 5 (01:06:41):
Yeah, well, I have to tell you, my father was a chief
of police for a period of timein Thunder Bay and he was in a
canoeing trip and he sawsomething that he was absolutely
amazed, which was golden eagles.
They were in the lake and theyoung ones were actually
swimming with their wings.
Really, yeah, he couldn'tbelieve it.
He was totally amazed with that.

(01:07:02):
He'd never seen anything likethat.
They were in the water and theywere using their wings like
they were swimming Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
Which was something.
Yeah, there is a littlepopulation of golden eagles
breeding in northern OntarioPlaces like the Sutton Ridges,
which are a granite outcrop.
In this otherwise flatlandscape, and even on some of
the uh sort of earth and riverbanks.
Um, there's some nests and anduh as, as your listeners might

(01:07:31):
know, the goose populations haveincreased tenfold over the last
30, 40 years and there's been acorresponding increase in both
golden and bald eagles up inthat region hunting them.
So you know, these eagles takefour or five years before their
breeding age.
So you have all these sub-adulteagles cruising the shoreline
hunting geese, and that'ssomething we're going to be

(01:07:53):
seeing from the helicopters.
You know, we'll be probablydisplacing some eagles off their
preferred goose pack as we comein.

Speaker 5 (01:08:02):
So, and I have to tell you, so we were out with we
had rented a cabin, my wifewanted to go, and so we were up
on Ivanhoe Lake and right by andIvanhoe Provincial Park was
there, and we were out on myson's boat and we could hear all
this screaming and I thoughtwhat is that Like?
What's going on here?

(01:08:23):
And anyway, so, and you couldhear it on the lake, and I
looked over and I could see theywere from a distance.
I could identify the bald eagle, mature bald eagles, and I
thought, oh, those are youngones there.
There's a nest there.
But wow, are those young onesever large?
Anyways, so I said, well, comeon, let's go over there and find
out why they're screaming somuch and everything else.
Well, it wasn't young ones thatwere large, it was actually

(01:08:46):
golden eagles.
Bald eagles were screaming anddiving at the golden eagles that
were sitting on trees there andthe golden eagles took off and
it was one of those classic oneswhere their talons clutched and
they were a golden eagle and abald eagle were doing a spin,
falling into the lake.

(01:09:06):
They didn't hit the lake, theylet go before and took off, but
the bald eagles were chasingafter these two golden eagles,
whether they were just flyingthrough or what's taking place,
but you could tell there was abald eagle nest on Ivanhoe
Provincial Park, which was righton Ivanhoe Lake, and it was
amazing to see.
That's probably the mostinteresting golden eagle,
because I've seen a couplebefore up Nipigon Way as well.

(01:09:28):
But yeah, but this wasinteresting to see these bald
eagles and I had to go over andfind out what all the screaming
was about.
And here they were, going afterthese golden eagles.

Speaker 4 (01:09:39):
Wow, that's pretty lucky to see that.

Speaker 5 (01:09:41):
Yeah, it was amazing.
I was quite impressed.
So tell us, doug, where canpeople find out about birding
trips or clubs or organizations,or get more involved in it?

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
Okay.
So there's a couple of things.
First off, as I mentionedbefore, in Ontario we have the
Ontario Field Ornithologists andif you just Google that you'll
get their website and they offerfield trips for members.
I'm not sure of the number, butthey're probably running 50, 60
trips a year members, or mostof them.

(01:10:17):
There's a few that have a feebecause there's costs involved,
but they're led by usually localvolunteer birders.
They're often quite goodbirders.
There tends to be a cap on thenumber of people because large
groups birding is awkward, butyou can sign up for these trips
and they're a great way to notonly learn birds from people who
know them but also to learnareas to go birding in.

(01:10:40):
And then, on a more local scale,most regions have a local
naturalist club, which also dothe same function.
They'll have local field tripswith local leaders.
Some of the clubs you know aresort of not that active.
Others are amazing, like clubslike the Hamilton Naturalist
Club or the Kingston FieldNaturalist or the Ottawa Field

(01:11:01):
Naturalist.
Peterborough's got a reallydynamic group right now.
Here in Northumberland we havethe Willow Beach Field
Naturalist.
So local naturalist clubs are agood source and the umbrella
group for a lot of those?
Is the?
Is the how can I forget this?
The these be called theFederation of Ontario

(01:11:21):
naturalists?
They're now what?
Ontario nature?
Yeah, and you know so I'm.
But there there are a goodgroup to to check in with as
well.
But yeah, between the Ontariofield ornithologists and local
naturalist clubs.
There's a wealth of informationthere about destinations, about
learning how to identify birds.

(01:11:42):
They also do field trips and awhole bunch of other things like
butterflies, moths, dragonflies.
You know, you name it.

Speaker 5 (01:11:50):
Very good.
Well, doug, I want to thank you.
I found it very interesting.
I hope a lot of our listenersdo, and where can they find out
more information?
How to get in touch with you?
If you want to mention theNorthumberland Land Trust again
would be great.

Speaker 4 (01:12:04):
Yeah, so Northumberland Land Trust if you
just Google Northumberland LandTrust or our website is
nltrustca and they can reach methrough that if they like, and
we certainly.
You know we're very keen tohave the public on board on this
.
As an organization, we'rereally on a roll right now and

(01:12:32):
we're building our capacitygreatly and we've got a
tremendous core of volunteerswho help us on work days where
we go out and clear non-nativevegetation or rebuild fences or
put signs up that sort of thing.
The work parties are a lot offun, actually, they're kind of a
social event, and we also havefield trips like nature clubs.
We have field trips on some ofour properties, particularly the
ones that aren't broadly opento the public.
We'll take people in on a sortof controlled basis, so we would

(01:12:56):
love to have you know.
If anyone is interested, pleasereach out.

Speaker 5 (01:12:59):
Very good.
Well, thanks very much, doug.
We really appreciate you beingon the podcast and have a great
trip up to Piwanak with the M&Rand Ministry of Natural
Resources and enjoy your bandingup there.
I'm sure it's going to be amemorable experience.
And this is just a little bitsomething different that people
can learn a lot more about outthere what's happening out there
under the canopy.

Speaker 4 (01:13:18):
Well, thanks very much, Jerry.
It's great to talk with youagain.

Speaker 5 (01:13:21):
Thanks a lot Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
Hi everybody.
I'm Angelo Viola and I'm PeteBowman.
Now you might know us as thehosts of Canada's favorite
fishing show, but now we'rehosting a podcast.
That's right.
Every Thursday, Ang and I willbe right here in ears bringing
you a brand new episode ofOutdoor Journal Radio.
Hmm, Now, what are we going totalk about for two hours every
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Well, you know, there's goingto be a lot of fishing.

Speaker 6 (01:14:04):
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